Dec 25 - a quiet Christmas

Yes, it was a quiet Christmas with just the three of us here (Abby). It was also a very white Christmas -- I hear that it's the first time since the 40's that there was a white Christmas all across Canada. Even Vancouver had snow on the ground. That's not going to last for long.

The weatherman is calling for "significant rainfall" for tomorrow. According to the weather network, that's 40-50mm for North Bay. 50mm = 5cm = just under 2 inches. That's a lot of rain. On top of the snow on the ground, with temperatures just under 50F, that's going to be a lot of water all at once. I worry about the result ... but there's not much that we can do.

The foot of snow that's now on the lake will turn to water, then ice as the temperature plummets again a few hours later. The three feet of snow on the bedroom wing on the cottage is now on the deck and the ground, mostly on the ground, so that will all run towards the lake. The snow on the post and beam sections -- the Great Room and Kitchen, will likely be gone. Any snow on Jason's & Donnie's - likely gone. You get the idea.

Yesterday was all about shoveling and blowing snow. I started at 8am and finished at 4pm. First off, I finished the roof. Sandy thought that Santa Claus had landed on the roof from the sounds. Then I got worried about the 3+ feet of heavily packed snow on the front deck -- that's a lot of weight -- so I shoveled much of the heavy stuff off. Much of the snow from the front of the house was on the deck after my roof-shoveling, so that was a lot of snow. Tomorrow's rain will likely kill the rest.

Next I tackled the driveway. The snow was heavy, so that took some time. Lastly, I headed down to Jim & Bonnie's, intending to clear the walk since they return this morning. I went with the snowblower, which is a slow trip, and found that Al Nichols had not cleared the driveway yet. I blew out a path down to their house and did the walk ... and then decided to do the driveway too. I expect that Al would have come this morning but I was not sure about his Christmas schedule ... so I just did the driveway, thinking that it wouldn't take too long.

Well ... it took a while ... about the same as doing my driveway. I ran into two problems. First, I found that my little snowblower doesn't climb hills very well. Their driveway is quite steep. That meant that I could not blow snow on the way up the driveway, which doubled the number of trips on the driveway. Part-way through I realized that the left side of the blower was pushing more snow that I expected -- sure enough one of the shear pins had gone. I left the blower, walked home, came back with tools and another shear pin, repaired the machine and continued my chore. It went a lot faster with both augers working, but was still a slow process.

Back to the rain prediction -- if we truly get that much rain, combined with the snow melt the lake level will rise dramatically over the next few days. Ice fishing ... hardly ... perhaps I should launch a boat or build an ark !

We have no plans for today. We're not going anywhere for "boxing day sales". I'll probably shovel a little more snow to ensure that the runoff has some place to go ... but otherwise there's not much that I can do to prepare for all this rain. I don't know whether we'll be leaving in a downpour to get David ... if there's anything that I should be doing to contend with the runoff I'll stay here and send Sandy -- she was planning on coming down with me anyway.

That's it ...