All of Thursday we watched the snow fall. It fell continuously, sometimes light, sometimes heavy and sometimes like a blizzard with a white out effect, but it fell relentlessly, not stopping until late afternoon. No tractor arrived that evening to dig us out and Friday morning I stood looking out the window watching for him and hoping I wouldn't have to shovel all those 7 or more inches myself for 1/4 mile down the hill. The neighbors obviously all thought the same because nobody moved from their houses. I guessed we were all window watching. And then our angel on a John Deere came. Just before noon, his loud engine could be heard laboring up the hill as he scraped a black gash through the whiteness glistening everywhere. It only took him about 40 minutes to clear our hill and the parking area and then like ants all of us scurried out of our doors armed with shovels to try and clear what he'd left behind. Because the road is so uneven the tractor has to leave 2" or so on a lot of the road, but we were all happy enough to clear that. And about 3 hours later after the sun had helped us even further, a couple of us ventured out. I'm the only 2 wheel drive vehicle on the hill but I can handle the snow pretty well after my years of living on top of the hill. but I did slide down the steepest part and fervently hoped that venturing out just to buy lottery tickets was worth the grief of the slippery ascent on my way back up to Meadow House.
But I made it and the following morning the sun had cleared even more so Janice and I decided to drive along the little country lanes that follow the Shenandoah River as it weaves it's way north through our area. I took the long way there and took some photos in the Rectortown vicinity first.
I ended up in Delaplane and so moved on towards the river. Janice had wondered if the roads would be clear enough and I'd blown off her concerns but as I got down by the river I found that the roads were more snowy than I'd hoped.
But luckily the worst areas were on flat ground and any hills that we drove up or down were for the most part clear. The scenery was beautiful by the river with the tress looking like they belonged on Christmas cards. I only saw one vehicle who seeing me stopped on the side asked if I needed help. I love country folk. no honking on the horn because I was partially blocking the road. He wasn't even annoyed when I explained I was taking photos.
Ice cream anyone?
Janice knew of a park she used to play golf on which has now been left to grow wild and become parkland, so we headed there.
We had a long stroll through the snow and I managed to take a tumble, without busting my new camera or phone, thank God. Someone had recently been cross country skiing here, but while we were there we only saw one person sharing the park with us. The bluebirds were plentiful though, little darts of azure flitting back and forth through the branches. As we walked back we could feel the temperature dropping. The sun slowly sank behind the river and we quickly snapped some photos before the colors faded into the dusk.
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