Now That's a Winter!

Winter has really moved in here to stay. I was shocked, returning from England where a few inches shut down the Old Country.
I arrived in Gander at 2am, and it took over an hour to free the car - digging out, de-icing, and freeing the wheels frozen into the thick ice on the ground.
Luckily I had a bag of salt, and a shovel stashed in the back, once I freed the door and de-iced the lock.
And it was snowing. Cold too.
On the ferry, we are surrounded by thick white lily-pads of ice ten feet across, slowly subduing the waves as they grow larger and larger, eventually coalescing in a jagged patchwork, pushing out from the shore.
On Fogo Island the wind is blowing the snow around; I can barely make out the caribou crossing the icy highway; can't see the house from the road. Ice obscures the faint center line on the road.
Light from bright headlights, shining on the horizontally hurtling snow, is thrown back in a disorienting reflection of white specks. Slowly and dimly is best.
Luckily Dave has plowed the driveway, using a giant pickup with a snow blade on the front, scraping the snow down to the ice layer. Charging the mound, piling it up high, wheels hissing and spinning on the ice as the snowbank compacts.
Now I just have to scale the berm to get to the house.
I took the pictures the next day. In places sinking into snow up to my hip, and also, I noticed, well over the top of my boots. Gasping in the wind - iit's like that feeling when you stick your head out of a train window and the rushing wind makes it feel like you can't catch a breath for a moment. Fingers quickly numbing, fumbling with the camera.
The local Weather Station TV channel - and it's a really good idea to check the weather before going out - says the temperature is -15C, and feels like -30C with the wind chill.
Yikes. Even the dogs are reluctant to venture far, looking up hesitantly as the wind makes the power-lines wail.
Ice crystals grow on the windows like fractals, obscuring the storm.
And today the sun shone and the wind was still - a thermometer in the brightness even crept up above freezing.
Stumbling through deep snow on the hills behind the house my breath instantly freezes in my beard, a hardening mask. The dogs lurch after each other, Ruby's short legs ploughing through, Bill and Ellie leaping like frogs across the snowbanks.
The harbour ice stretches out to sea in a hundred shades of blue, merging into the bruised grey clouds.
White houses, trimmed in red, stand boldly against the blue sky.
It's mesmerising.
In the middle of the harbour sits a pig-pen, blown out in the storm, now gripped in the ice. The pig long since in the freezer.
More snow forecast this weekend.
Luckily I can walk to the Cafe in just about any weather, with my snowshoes.
Jonathan

www.shorefast.org
http://www.releases.gov.nl.ca/releases/2009/intrd/0123n03.htm