Blizzard of the Decade Ends

The snow came hard and long and ended last night. The official snowfall made it the most snow in one storm since 1991, nineteen years ago. My own depth gauge is a yard stick stuck in the snow above a previously snowless sidewalk. My gauge said 22 inches. I took a picture of the gauge in service.

I shoveled for a while this morning while waiting for Unky Herb to get here. After he arrived the snow removal went a lot faster. The Prairie Princess joined us and we managed to get the surfaces cleared by about 12:30. The street in front of the house hadn't been plowed yet, and if it has been since, it was done inadequately, because the city declared a second snow emergency beginning about now. After we finished the sidewalks UH and PP sat in the street to have their photo taken. You can judge for yourself the condition of the street. Lumpy?

In celebration of a job completed, PP made a snow angel in the back yard.

And UH flopped in the snow near by. It was nice to be able to get around freely again.

It felt so good to be done that we had a trek over to Kowalski's to buy some tasty vittles. The temp was still a little above zero, so the walk was toasty enough. The only problems were the areas of sidewalks that have yet to be cleared, including a long stretch on Grand Avenue where it crosses Ayd Mill Road. That is city property and they are busy with the streets and therefore the sidewalks will have to wait. We bought Almond Breeze and a nice variety of soup at the store.

And I played USTA tennis tonight at Wooddale. It was a close match, but I was able to keep my losing streak intact, Michelle and I lost 4-6, 7-5, 1-0. The other doubles tandems on my team won so the team overall won the match. It's Jerry's team and he and Becky won a close one to sew up the win. It was fun, but fatigue started to settle in near the end.