Now that the weather is warming up and the daffodils are starting to appear, I thought I’d better get this blog post done about the 2022 Snow Storm! On Jan 3rd we had an unbelievable 13″ of snow in Spotsylvania County Virginia. It was beautiful but heavy and destructive. By 9am our power was out and wouldn’t be restored for 5 days. We stood on our covered porch watching the snow fall and listening to trees snap and pop all around us.
When the storm cleared we went out to explore our property.
As we rounded the corner of our drive we were stunned at the number of trees down. We live at the end of a mile long gravel road with lots of trees and Mother Nature just pruned a few of those for us. We had a lot of work ahead of us!
Somewhere under these trees is the gate to our property!
Typically losing power is not a huge issue but when you live in the country and have well water and satellite internet it becomes a challenge! We have a home generator but it can’t run everything at once so we spent the next 5 days alternating the refrigerator, freezer, well pump, and of course the coffee pot! Our gas furnace was already acting up and it did not like running on a generator. Luckily we had lots of wood so we kept a fire burning and slept in the living room. We tried to see it as an adventure but by day 5 we were both tired and desperately needing a shower.
As we were shoveling snow to provide a small area for our dog to go out, we kept noticing a bluish tint in deep crevices. I asked our daughter-in-law since she’s a science teacher what we were seeing. It’s called the albedo effect. The white snow reflects large amounts of sunlight and in deep snow the light penetrates and is scattered. (hope I got that right!!). It was really pretty but hard to photograph!
I have a better appreciation for the pioneers that survived winters. While by no means am I comparing our adventure to pioneer days, it did give us a new appreciation for heat & running water. We were blessed with a roof over our heads and plenty of food that we didn’t have to kill & skin prior to eating. Not having access to tv or internet was no great loss! At the end of the week we were grateful to be safe and reasonably warm and thoroughly enjoyed a long hot shower!!
Photograph what brings you Joy!
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