March 19, 2012

Outside Temp: 28 F (which means the snow will probably not melt by tomorrow morning)

What I cooked today:
Vegetable Beef and Barley Soup: I have ground beef.  We wanted soup.  Hmmm, not sure what to do, so I just started throwing things into a pot.  Brown the ground beef.  Add onion, celery and carrots.  Hmm, how about some frozen vegetables?  Potatoes?  Sure.  Make up some beef broth and toss that in as well.  Worcestershire sauce... mmmm.  More starch?  Barley works.  An hour later, a pretty hearty soup!  Awesome! 

Update:
Wow.  All I can say is wow.  So, this is what they mean when they talk about winter in Montana?  (of course, the irony that it's the last day of winter is not lost on me). 

My backyard... drifts of up to 2 ft in 24 hours!

As I mentioned yesterday, the snow started around 4-5pm last night.  It didn't stop.  It just kept going.

We got up this morning, and got a phone call from Ryan's speech therapist.  She was stuck in Lewistown and couldn't make it to the school.  Cool, that means I don't have to wake Ryan up, but I'll still drive the kids into school.  The drive in was just fine, but the drive back, I hit a patch of ice and slid across the road.  Fortunately, I was only going about 30 MPH, and got control before I hit the edge of the road.  Hmm, that was interesting.

As I drove into the driveway, I noticed a large drift on the right side of the driveway, so I purposely stayed to the left as I drove in.  Of course, I didn't notice the 1 1/2 foot drift on the left side of the driveway.  About 10 feet in, I hit the drift.  And went over it (sort of).  Hmmm, the clearance on my little yellow car is not that high.  Put the car into Reverse and push the gas... nothing.  Back into Drive and push the gas.  Nothing.  Oh crap.

So, I woke up Patrick and together we went back out there, in the biting, icy cold sleet/snow.  Using the snow shovels, we dug out some of the snow, and pulled the car mats out of the back and put them under the front tires.  Back and forth, nothing.  Shovel a little more, then Patrick got behind the car.  Push... Push... Finally, after about 20 minutes, we got it moved and pulled it the rest of the way into the driveway.  Fun Times!

The kids were out of school early, because of the weather, but at noon, the drifts around the car were already over 2 ft.  So, we had the bus drop them off at the post office.  Of course, we couldn't drive over there, so Patrick walked, in the blizzard, over to get them. 

About 30 minutes later, my troops came in, covered in snow.  Allen forgot his boots, so he was in tennis shoes (lovely), but everyone else was pretty warm and dry (once they removed all their outerwear).

By 4pm (24 hours after the storm started), the weather cleared and I was able to take the pictures below.  It was beyond beautiful, and impossible to capture in a picture. 


The view this afternoon from my front yard! 

That's how hard the wind was blowing!  The icicle is curved! 



Drifts at the Grandparents place of up to 56 inches!  Wow!!

 I think it's supposed to stay a little cold for the next few days, so we might be able to head up to the Grandparents for sledding before it hits 60 F again, and all the snow melts!