Week 8 and 9: Surviving the Snow Apocalypse

 Well we got some snow!  Boy that is an understatement.  We got almost a foot of snow, temperatures that hit into the negatives of actual temperature (something I have never seen here on this side of Texas), lost water and only had power because we were on the feeder circuit of the hospital.  I am definitely glad I spent the day before preparing our home for the weather. I also made sure we had food to last us.  Usually snow blows in and a few days later we are warm.  But we had a one, two punch.   For the first time in my life I boiled snow to be able to flush the toilet and take bucket showers.  Talk about roughing it!  I had the week off because of the extreme weather and ice.  But I was busy, preparing snow, keeping the pipes in the attic from freezing (which by the mercy of God did not freeze or bust) and making sure to relieve pressure on the pipes and, of course, taking pictures.  I had my snow bibs so I could weather the storm outside.  Good to have that Swedish blood flowing through my veins!  So in layers it was decided lets see what Sophie thinks of deep snow:

Well....

Came up to her neck.  But pretty soon:

She loved playing with Mommy:

On the way home:

She was ready to go in:

I did learn that I definitely want the new camera I have been eyeing.  These outings showed me more areas I need to work on and what the limitations of my older camera are.   I almost have the $3800 saved up for it (Lots of blood, sweat and tears).

 Sophie was not the only one enjoying the winter weather.  The wildlife was out:

 

And when I was trying to capture a cardinal I found this:

I found this tonight.  The bird was a blur so the file almost got deleted.  But I saw something and lo and behold I found a baby...

So to show the extent of the ice and snow:

 I estimate it was over 9 foot tall.  And when it fell, it made a huge crash!  More in back:

As for snow:

But I did have some fun with the icicles:

It was fun catching the drops with the camera.  

All in all we made it out pretty well.  But work has been, in a word, CRAZY!  Many a Texan was not ready neither were many businesses. And our electrical grid turning off the power to the water plants was not the best move they could have made.  But we survived and today it has been in the 70's and we have thunderstorms running through.  Welcome to Texas.  If you are tired of the weather, wait a week, it will change, except in summer lol!

So we are safe, our little apartment is doing good and I have finally been able to edit these pictures. And considering I took 267 pictures and finally got to practice action shots, I was stoked once we had water back that is lol.  

 Thank you for the prayers and love.  Next week I hope to write a special blog.  We shall see, we shall see....

 Baa