White as Snow

We've been getting a decent amount of snow this month. I took a little break to get out and take a few photos while it was falling.

The shot below is from a few weeks ago, a couple of days after a fairly heavy snowfall. Life-threatening icicles abounded.

Icicle of death!

Every time I see the freshly fallen snow, it reminds me of this scripture verse:

I was thinking about all of the unappealing things the snow covers to transform our drab winter surroundings into a beautiful landscape. Like snow covers the dead grass, cracking concrete, pieces of trash, etc., Christ's righteousness covers our sins when we believe in Him. But, unlike snow, which melts quickly and once again reveals the decay and refuse it concealed for a time, His righteousness endures forever (Psalm 111:3).

I also like how the same imagery from Isaiah 1:18 is used to describe the Lord in Daniel 7:9: 

"As I looked, thrones were placed, and the Ancient of Days took His seat; His clothing was white as snow, and the hair of His head like pure wool...."

Early March Snow

How about a change of climate and scenery?

We haven't gotten much snow this winter. Probably less than 10 times (only counting the kind that sticks). I went out and took some photos while it was snowing last week (Friday). It was sticking to the trees and shrubs, which looked pretty.


Front yard view

Close-up of tree in front yard

It came down and accumulated pretty quickly. It definitely wasn't as much as (the dubiously named) Snowmageddon of last year, but this is how much accumulated within about three hours.

Back yard view; you can see it falling if you look at the shrubs to the left

Close-up of shrub in back yard

Nice and fluffy. Almost looks like cotton!

Snowmageddon?

You probably heard of and/or experienced the blizzard that just came through here. We've been amused by the hype; some have referred to it as "Snowmageddon", a "blizzaster", and the the local news channel called it the "Blizzard of '11" before it ever even hit. How do they know another blizzard won't hit in the year 2011? What if one does? Then what are they going to call it? "Snowpocalypse"? "The snow to end all snows"? "The Abominable Snowstorm"?

Anyway, we took some shots of our share of snow. The winds were pretty rough and moved it around a lot, so no one seems sure how many inches we actually got (and whatever we got in the blizzard is sitting on top of the few inches that have pretty much been on the ground since December). Here's the trench Ed shoveled out in our front walkway:

And a shot of our front yard area after the driveway area between the white car and the Jeep was plowed (taken from an upstairs window):

The wind blew snow into the back screen door, too:

And guess where it ended up? In between the back door and the screen door.

Here's a shot of our backyard. As you can't see, our two compost bins were completely covered.

Ed got the day off from work (yay!), so he went out and put a yard stick in the snow in the middle and got a reading of about 16 inches.

And to the right, where a lot of the windblown snow ended up, a reading of about 21 inches.

Finally, here's a shot of our backyard and beyond from an upstairs bedroom. You can see the parking lot past the cute little trees.

So, that was the result of the formidable "Blizzard of '11" in our neck of the woods. The one disadvantage to my working remotely is that I still have to work on a snow day. Oh well. Ed got to game, so he still got to have fun even though I had to work.