Snowed In

I looked out the window this morning and could tell that several inches of snow had fallen overnight.  When it rains, you know from the drumming on the roof if it is raining hard, but snow comes stealthily.  I went out to shovel off the driveway and walk, thinking that it would warm up and the snow would get heavy later in the day.

When I opened the garage door, I saw that it had snowed more than I thought - 12 inches at least - the most snow we've had since the winter of 2010.  The storm had been predicted well in advance, but the actual snowfall was at or higher than the forecasted range. It took about 50 minutes to finish.  I wondered if I would be sore, or if all the yoga I've been doing the past few years would help me deal with the exertion.  All indications so far is that it did keep back and shoulder strain at bay.

No one on our street was going anywhere today by car.  By day's end there was a foot path down one side of the street - which is the same thing that occurred in 2010, the last time we had this much snow.  The character of the neighborhood seems to instantly change when cars are rendered irrelevant.

A snowflake is such a tiny and insignificant thing, but a billion or so of them add up to a cubic foot, and the billions of billions of snowflakes that fell last night have changed the way we live, for a few days.