26 and a half!

26.5 inches! That was the Calumet storm total announced on the 6:00 news tonight. No matter where you live, that's a lot of snow in 2 days. Add in blowing and drifting, and the snow got pretty deep around here. Yet, the Calumet schools were only closed one day and had a 2-hour delay today. The Yoopers are amazing at snow removal. I guess it's a case of practice makes perfect.

We are having lake effect snow off and on today, but the sun actually came out for a while this afternoon.

Can you believe we had green grass and dry roads last Friday morning when Steve moved the Corvette? I have some photos to illustrate the depth in the backyard in a spot that's not drifted. This was October 30.

This was yesterday.

This was today.

The next photo was taken yesterday morning. Notice our neighbor's car.

The car was almost completely buried by the time I took the next photo this morning. Can you see it?

I cropped the next photo and included an arrow to help you find it!

Our neighbor got to work digging it out later in the afternoon. Here's how it looked tonight. Our neighbor's car is in the foreground. 

I don't know who owns the dark car in the background - must have been a visitor - as it's gone now. We can't park on the streets in Calumet after November 1st. Our neighbor's car is actually parked on our sidewalk.

Today was our garbage day. The weather doesn't usually prevent them from picking it up, so I bundled up and opened the front door. The snow was packed up against the front door about a foot high. I grabbed the shovel (which I had asked Steve to leave inside the front porch) and knocked the snow away from the door. I then dug down to find the first step and shoveled it off. I dug down again to find the second step and shoveled it off. Hmmm. I looked up and studied the path I would need to shovel to the road in order to put the garbage out. I estimated that the snow had drifted up to my waist. That's when I cried, "Uncle!" Even if I had managed to shovel that much snow with my bad back, that was only going to take care of the one bag of garbage I had in the house. There were 4 other bags of garbage in the garage that Steve had brought home from the property. I knew there was no way I could shovel all the way to the garage door, too. So, I gave up. Thankfully, Steve showed up to rescue me later in the morning - after doing the clean-up at the new house. By the way, he said the snow out front was up to his waist! Oh, and wouldn't you know it? The garbage men never showed up, so we have 5 bags of garbage still sitting outside. I don't want to bring it back inside - in case it's too deep for me to get it out again tomorrow morning. Hope all the local cats and skunks are in hiding tonight!

The fluffy lake effect snow we're getting this evening seems to be blowing off the Traverse pretty well so far. Here's how it looked outside the front door 4 hours ago.

I'll try to write more tomorrow.

All is well in the Keweenaw.