I’m no stranger to winter. I was raised on the east coast where snow piles were often taller than my mother. From an early age, my sister and I joined our parents shoveling the monster driveway at our childhood home.

In my mid-20s, my husband and I moved to Winnipeg. The city’s well earned nickname is “Winterpeg” and -40C is not an unheard of temperature.

When we moved to Edmonton a few years ago, we were thrilled to discover that winter’s here had smaller amounts of snowfall and were much warmer than Winnipeg. Who’d have thought moving so far north would find us smack dab in a warmer climate?

Sadly, la nina appears to have an opposite impact on winters out west. We’ve had next to no summer. Rain. Rain. And more rain. Our regular small snow fall in October didn’t materialize and for a while we all wondered if winter would ever arrive. Oh, how naive we were…

Over the past few weeks we’ve been bouncing between crazy freezing temperatures and mounds of snow. Last weekend I spent hours shoveling the 30+ cm that descended into my yard. With drifing induced by the high winds, in some areas the drifts of snow to be shoveled were more than 2 feet tall!

Just when we thought we couldn’t stand anymore winter, mother nature thumbed her nose at us and stuck out her tongue. We’ve had crazy cold temps all week (-22C and lower, before windchill) and on Friday another mass snowfall began. It’s expected to snow for days…

I’m tired of shoveling. I’m tired of throwing snow onto piles higher than my head. And now I’m worried about a quick spring thaw. There’s so much snow and moisture that I suspect some basement flooding may be inevitable.

Someone would make a killing if they came and carted unwanted snow from yards in the city. Smaller piles of snow in my yard would certainly make me happy 🙂

Here’s hoping hubs can find a way to move some of this snow much farther away from the house than I’ve been able to manage when he visits next month…

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