Wow, it has been quite the weekend. Last week, it was in the 80's, cooled off a little by Thursday and by Friday morning we had a blizzard for the record books brewing up. Kaleb woke me up early Friday morning and we soon discovered we got our first snow of the year. Heavy, wet snow. I sent Kaleb upstairs to hang out with Wes and I went out to attempt saving some of our trees. Everything was already weighted down to the point our lilacs were nearly touching the ground and some large branches had broken from our beautiful huge maple tree. As I was outside, I saw some huge flashes of light and popping sounds. Electric boxes and transformers were blowing in our alley. Obviously, we were suddenly out of electricity and the storm has barely started. Within the next few minutes, Wes and I had a quick discussion of what do we do, what do we have and where do we go. With an impending forecast of over 2 feet of snow on the way with 60-70 mph winds, we suddenly realized our 100% electrically powered house (including furnace) was not the place to stay. We grabbed clothes and diapers and started packing the house. Within the 1/2 hour we spent packing and loading, the wind started picking up and we knew we needed to get out of town asap. Thanks to Wes' excellent driving we made it through to my parents place a few hours away. Have to admit, we were very thankful to make it to Wall before they closed Interstate. And, for the next 2.5 days, we hid out from the blizzard back at the ranch. It was great- we had fresh peach cobbler, smores cooked over the heaters and pancakes & sausage cooked on the bbq grill. Of course, Kaleb had a great time hanging out with Grandpa, Gamma and Uncle RyRy. It was the easiest blizzard hold-up to date! Here is our one picture from the weekend... Kaleb and Gamma having a smores party in the kitchen. They also had ice cream parties, movie parties and lots of pillow wars.
Then, finally on Sunday afternoon we headed home. This is what it looked like at my parents' place:
As we drove, the snow got greater and greater...
We officially got 35 inches of snow.
You read that right.
Basically- a yard stick on the level of snow over everything.
Then, add the drifts.
The hard/tricky part is that we have had an incredibly warm fall which means all the trees had their leaves still. Therefore, the 35" of snow won and the trees lost. Big time.
The street on our block....
The rest more for our family and friends who know what our yard looked like to begin with.
Those broken twigs below are where our lilac bush is/was.
The new 'landscaping' looking at the front of our house. Sunday when we first arrived home.
Because... our beautiful Northern Chokecherry tree now looks like this:
Still up for debate as to if the maple tree will make it through.
We love this tree- its where we swing on our hammock and eat icee pops all summer long.
Incredibly thankful it didn't totally tip over and land on our neighbor's house!
The thing we know- is that trees are trees. They grow back. It might take awhile, it might make our property look not so attractive but they're just trees.
Please pray for our extended family and many, many family friends who are ranchers in the area. The loss of cattle is absolutely astounding and devastating. There are reports of ranchers losing over half of their herds to the blizzard. We're talking 50,000-100,000 head of cattle in western South Dakota died this past weekend due to the weather. Devastation is not a big enough word for what they are experiencing. Heart ache, heart break and stress beyond measure. Please, please pray for them.
I could post pictures but, they're just too sad.
