THE AFTERMATH

Days before Christmas the storm warnings started.  Well, they were more like storm suggestions to begin with, but with every eight hour update the message got clearer - there was trouble headed our way.  The reports all compared it to the Christmas storm of 2009, but I honestly can't recall a Christmas storm that stood out ... they sure made it sound like it was something for the record books. 

Predictions for 2016 had snowfall amounts anywhere from one to three feet starting noon-ish on Christmas Day.  Luckily, for our family, we have our biggest gathering and meal on Christmas Eve so our plans didn't have to be modified at all.  We had the big family meal here at the farm and all the supper guests were off home by 9:00 that night.  Our daughter, son-in-law and their two little boys were here for over night and to open gifts in the morning with our son coming out from town to join in that fun as well.  Santa had no trouble getting through and there were lots of goodies as we opened stockings and we had our traditional brunch feast late in the morning ... then came the time to decide what was going to happen next.  If they were going it had to be right away - or stay for the duration.

The men went home.  Mitchell to town and Andrew to their small farm 60 miles away.  They have animals to care for and when the snow blows their lane has to be cleared before they can get into the yard.  He encouraged Jesse and the boys to stay until after the storm was over so she did. 

Right on schedule the storm rolled in at dusk on Christmas Day.  It snowed through the night and it must have been quite the dump of snow because we had about 8 new inches of the white stuff by morning - not nearly as bad as they got it further to the south or east of us, but significant all the same.  Glen went out and cleared the yard in the afternoon; not too hard of a job because we are protected from the wind to the north and west.  Everything in the yard was soft and fluffy and easy to move, but go outside the trees and the banks are like cement.  There was no telling how blocked the roads were so Jesse knew she couldn't leave yet.

It was another whole 24 hours before the municipal grader cleared our way to the highway.  If Jesse had been driving a truck she probably could have gotten out without the plow, but she had a car and two little kids to think about so she waited it out.  I think they were pretty glad to get home.  A sleepover at Grandma and Grandpa's house is fun: loads of treats, silly games, wild running around and giggling as they tried to shoot Grandpa's big toe with nerf guns, bouncing on the mattress on the floor until they bonked heads, applying constant "motivational pressure" to get grandpa to go out and clear snow, and other such adventures ... but there is no place like home.

They left late yesterday afternoon and we spent the evening in the shell-shock quiet of the aftermath of the aftermath of the storm.  Sometimes it's good to be the "old folks".  I'm pretty sure we couldn't handle 24/7 at that energy level.