Winter "Wonderland"

I'm no stranger to snow. After all, I was born and raised in Eastern Washington.

For those of you whose only exposure to Washington is Seattle and rain, Eastern Washington is quite different. Once you cross the Cascade Mountains everything changes. The Douglas Firs give way to Ponderosa Pines. The dense underbrush turns to sagebrush and cactus. The wet turns to dry in the summer and snow in the winter.

So I grew up with snow and learned to drive in snow. That doesn't mean I like it. Oh, yeah, it's pretty--for a while--then I've had enough of the stuff. I've never been a cold weather person. In Western Washington, you have all sorts of complications when it snows which I didn't have in Eastern Washington. For one, the traffic is a heck of a lot worse. People aren't used to driving in snow, nor are cities and counties used to dealing with snow. Crazy drivers seem to think that four-wheel-drives stop faster or have some magic way to get traction on ice.

This past week, we've had the snow storm of the decade in Western Washington. Luckily for us, the snow was mostly an inconvenience. It could've been much worse. Mother Nature gave us fair warning, starting with a preview of 2 to 3 inches last weekend, then a few more at the beginning of the week. On Wednesday, the main event brought ten plus inches of snow in about eight hours, piled on top of the existing snow. That's a lot of snow, even in areas used to handling snow. The encore came in the form of an ice storm with freezing rain and high wind warnings.

It could have been so much worse. I missed a few days of work but was able to telecommute and do most of my job from home. My husband only missed one day and had the roads to himself on his drive to work the second day. We lost power for only six hours, while many unfortunate people still don't have power. Several of our trees lost their tops during the ice storm portion, but nothing hit our house, the fences, or the barn.

Our animals fared well. The cat, a creature of comfort, refused to go outside for three days, while the dogs loved the snow.

I spent a lot of time breaking ice from the water trough and hauling buckets from the tack room to the stall. I couldn't get the wheelbarrow through the snow, so the stall needed a good cleaning today.

Gailey had had enough of being cooped up so I opened up the pasture gate and let her run. I happened to have my camera in hand as the dogs and I stood outside the gate and watched as she ran laps around the small pasture. She'd rip along the fence line, wheel around, and gallop back toward me. With move that'd make a reining horse jealous, she'd slide to a stop inches from the gate, snow flying. She'd wheel around again, bucking and rearing and race back across the pasture. Her sheer joy over her freedom was a treat to watch, and I thought I'd share some pictures with you. I hope you enjoy them.