First Day of Winter

Winter arrived in Brandon today! If you know me at all you will know that this is a happy day for me.

Up until now we have had the odd dusting of snow and temperatures that haven't gotten much below -10 C. Not too warm but definitely not as cold as it can be. This is the kind of weather we can sometimes expect around Halloween. The winter jackets and gloves had come out but winter had not truly begun. But it was coming. You could just tell.

I had a nagging feeling that winter was at the doorstep and the time to prepare was at hand. This weekend my chore list was full of winterizing tasks. I put up plastic insulation on the windows, I disassembled the lawn mower and wrapped it up tight under a couple of tarps and I stored away all of the fall jackets.

This morning when I checked the weather channel my suspicions were confirmed. It was -16 C and they were forecasting snow from today up until Wednesday. It looked like winter was finally coming.

I went down to the basement and pulled out the kids winter boots and snow pants before I went to work.

Their boots were just the way they were when I packed them up...dirty!

I cleaned them up the best I could and noticed that #3 had holes in the bottoms of both of her boots. How come we never notice this shit in the spring?! So it looks like she will need some boots ASAP. The other 2 were OK. Well, #1 had a broken lace in one of her boots but those can be replaced easy enough (she actually thought that she was going to get new boots because of a broken lace!!).

With the kids all prepared for the weather I was ready to head off to work myself. After looking at the roads I decided that it was still bike-able out there. Just barely. I had a scarf, headband and gloves to go with my winter coat and it still proved to be a cold bike ride. Cold, but tolerable. There was a little bit of snow on the road but not enough to pose a problem. At least it wasn't icy.

Shortly after arriving at work it started to snow. It's been 5 hours now and it is still snowing. When I left for work it still looked like a mix between fall and winter. Now it just looks like winter. There is snow drifts everywhere. I love it!

Right now I'm really looking forward to the bike ride home. It looks like it will be my last ride of the year. Then when I get home I'll get to take part in another of my favorite winter pastimes.

Shoveling!!