This week has been colder than normal here; arctic outflow winds have frozen any standing water and cooled the surroundings to below freezing. There has been only a dusting of snow at our house so far. With the cold environent and a return of the more normal Pacific airflow, and moisture forecast to arrive, a heavier dump is expected. There has been lots of snow on the local mountains; that's where it should stay, from my point of view. It bodes well for the Olympics. There is still more than a week to go before winter arrives officially. As I write this, I see snowflakes starting to come down; they are not melting as they hit the ground. We've bought another snow shovel and about 130 pounds of road salt to keep the sidwalks clear; maybe we are prepared enough. I'm looking forward to the days getting longer again.
Derek has had lunch with us a couple of times this week. This is made easier because we live in a side-by-side duplex, and all we have to do is walk across the common back porch to get to each other's place. The granddaughters can drop in at any time, too. We can also help out quickly if required. All this makes things a little easier; at least we can help a bit in Derek's fight with cancer.
Addendum at 4:45pm
Even though we got only a centimetre or two of snow today, I went out to do the first shovelling of the season. I also added some of the salt and it is making the packed footprints melt fast. The new snowshovel has a somewhat longer handle; I found that I didn't have to bend so far down to get a good angle on the snow. The shorter standard handles have always been a bit of a problem for me(I'm 6'3").
