And then it really snowed

This update is almost 100% about snow so there is no point in my splitting it out into sections. I'm going to do a rough day by day update instead; it'll be easier and quicker (and shorter, you'll be pleased to hear). I have in the region of 400 photographs to go through, and several videos as well. Please enjoy, we really have!

Sunday

Louise really is a little poser for the camera

Look at that little glance to make sure she's still being focused on

Thelma is less pleased with being photographed

She's a sweetheart though

Our little tank, who doesn't like the camera

Lou Lou Belle poses once more

Our Sunday afternoon and evening was a lovely time spent in the living room reading, watching films and relaxing with the puppies. We had the fire going almost the whole day and it kept the temperature up really nicely but didn't result in us burning all that many logs. That big petchka is really doing well for us; even when it was down to -12 and below we haven't been cold in there. A was playing with her new lens as she tries to get used to the fixed focal length and lack of zoom and so took quite a lot of pictures of the puppies, and me, while we relaxed. It was really a perfect way to spend the afternoon and evening.

Thelma playing on her own in the snow

Later on, after the heavy fall, she was first out again

Both of them enjoying some exercise

The steps down to the driveway, deep in snow

One of our little plants by the steps

And the snow continues to fall

Not much swimming going on in this

Rambo absolutely loves the snow

Thelma just doesn't care what the weather is

Louise wants to go back inside

Snow blowing off the roof of the chicken house

Out on the balcony in her slippers

The snow fell throughout the day and from a light dusting early afternoon by the time I went out to feed the chickens it was quite deep. They refused to come out of the house so I had to give them their food inside. Rambo was the most excited of the animals with the snow closely followed by Thelma who just didn't care that it was there. Louise was most unimpressed with how cold her feet were getting and had taken to standing on three feet and alternating which foot was held in the air. Towards the end of the day the wind started to pick up again which caused some impressive snow-flurries being blown off the chicken house roof. The temperature dropped to about -8 by the time we headed to bed, and the snow was still falling.

Monday

Early morning snow scene

The bin on the balcony is a bit full

Looking along the patio

A load on the table tennis table

Monday was back to work day for both of us, which sucked quite hard. The alarm was set for 7.30 and it was quite a struggle to take it seriously. It had continued snowing throughout the night, however, so that at least brought some pleasure; we had our bum sleds to have a go in later in the morning.

Tracks in the snow

The crunch of fresh, never trodden on, snow

Rambo really loves the snow

See!

I was outside first, heading over to let the chickens out (not that they would leave the house but still) and so I got to enjoy walking through the virgin snow on the patio. The puppies were still upstairs with A at this point so I was able to investigate some animal tracks in the snow, which were also present along the wall of the chicken house inside their fence, before they were obliterated by the dogs having a sniff and trailing whatever it had been. We think maybe a fox. The puppies were loving it, bouncing around and chasing each other, but they didn't stay out for long. Rambo was just overjoyed as per usual.

After this it was inside to make a brew and then, even before we lit the fire (which, in hindsight, was probably a mistake) A and I headed out with our bum sleds to have some fun. At first we tried it out on the top of the top bank but the snow was too wet, and the slope not steep enough, so we had to give up and go for the shorter run down the ramp where we can drive the cars onto the top bank. This was a brilliant success and we had a great time indeed. We slid for a while at first and then went back out again later in the day, where I set the camera at the bottom of the slope on a tripod to video it all. The puppies, and Rambo, were both getting involved as much as they could as well. I also shot a short video capturing the view from up there; it's such a beautiful place we are living.

The sun starts to break throuh

The hills are once again visible

A beautiful scene

After a while the snow stopped and the sun came out and there were some opportunities for some more photographs which you can be sure I didn't miss. There's something about a heavily snowy scene with bright sunshine casting really sharp shadows over it that is breathtakingly beautiful.

The load our building was drawing

The repairman up the pylon removing the damaged power line

It was during the morning that it happened. The power went off, but of course we are now prepared. Almost before we realised that we had lost power we could hear the generator downstairs coughing and attempting to start. It took three goes but then it caught and everything came to life. There was some dimming in the lights but we had no trouble with anything at all; the entire building was running on generator power! I went downstairs to check it out and as I was going the generator died which was quite a concern. I was aware, however, that I had not left the choke pulled that far out so I quickly solved the problem and got it running again, then switched the control box to power from the generator and for the next forty minutes or so, until the mains returned, it chugged away without any problems. When the mains was switched back on it turned off without any interruption of power whatsoever. I was almost incandescent with joy at this success, as I'm sure you can understand, and bounced around for ages smiling about it. The reason for the outage was a line down in the village which EVN were removing.

Sammy's body starts to take shape

Raised beds cleared of snow

A making sure his buttons are secure

Us standing proudly with Sammy

And there he is, in front of the school

The joy for the day was far from over, however, as at lunch time after our second bum-sled (see earlier) we headed to the front garden to make a snowman. A was the main instigator of this and she set to rolling a body out of the snow. I cleared the snow off the raised beds and piled it up as a base and then collected coal and branches to decorate his features. The shovel was the finishing touch and there we had him; Sammy the Snowman proudly protecting our property.

Hills peaking through the night smoke/mist

The rest of the day was work and was pretty much OK until late in the afternoon when I saw a missed call or two from the kmet (the Little Lady had called A over to tell her about a problem which prompted me to look for the phone) and he told me that I had to get to town for 9am in the morning to see the police. After a few phone calls to various other people I managed to get a few answers and so felt a little better but it was quite an unsettling feeling of a while, not knowing what was happening. Just before we headed to bed A brought me out onto the balcony to see the beautiful view across the valley. What a place.

Tuesday

A good thickness had fallen

Me mid snow-fling

That's clear enough, I think

First real workout for the new snow tyres

It was not a peaceful relaxing start to the day on Tuesday as I was outside even before the kettle was boiled, with the snow shovel, clearing the snow on the driveway so I could get Thomas out to go to town. It didn't end up taking all that long but I was very grateful to A who brought me a cuppa while I was working. As soon as I had cleared the concrete part of the drive I pulled Thomas out and onto the flat and left him running to warm up. I'd arranged to meet the Kmet in the centre of our village at about 9 so at quarter to I set off and drove Thomas through the snow and parked up in the centre where I called the kmet who told me to wait. The Special One was just walking into town with his milk cans so I offered him a lift and later, as I was waiting, Usmivka also came walking up so he jumped in too. Eventually the Kmet arrived, with his wife, and so I ended up having a full truck as I negotiated the steep, and icy, road down from our village. My new snow tyres did an excellent job, however, and I didn't even slip a tiny bit even once.

Anyway I got down to town fine, dropped off my hitchhikers and then was directed by the kmet to a new parking place I didn't know about. We headed down from there to a new police station, very tiny, and there I was presented with a summons to go to another police station in a town about four hours drive away, at 2pm the next day. Of course I said this was not possible and then, via phone calls to my translator and solicitor, I requested the appointment be changed, signed the paper and left with smiles and handshakes all round. From there I went to the post and collected more DVDs, paid the EVN, and then almost died slipping on the steps outside; it really was very icy. The drive back up home was a doddle though and there were no slips at all, even on the steep corners.

The only bird to venture out all day: Balls

Thelma and Louise legging it onto the top bank

Only for Louise to come straight back in

Leaving Thelma to play on her own

No sign of the Mountains now

A few yips and then she waits for us to open the door

It had only taken an hour in total to do this which was great so I was able to just get stuck straight back into work. The puppies were doing their thing involving demanding to be let outside to play, dashing up onto the top bank at high speed bouncing all over the place, and then barking to be let back in again five minutes later. It was pretty cold so you can understand this, but it was a bit disruptive to have to keep getting up. We don't want to leave any external doors open so they can come in and out themselves, as we normally would, as this will just encourage rodents into the building.

Sammy looking a bit worse for wear

A gets started on her snow chair

The back rest for the snow chair, as Rambo watches on

Horse and sheep on snowy field

Sheepdog watching his flock

Once more lunch time was an opportunity to have some fun and we took advantage with some more sliding on the bum sleds. We had a go at using the tracks I had left when I drove on the steep section of the drive near the gates but it didn't work so we just went back to the ramp and it was even better than the day before; I went right past the big lump of soil once, though that was the only time I had a really good run as I'm too large for these tiny sliding things and kept falling off. After this A wanted to make herself a snow chair so we headed round to near Sammy, who was looking a little worse for wear with his buttons, nose and mouth having melted off, and A set to work. While she was doing this I got some photographs of the sheep and the horse in the field below us, lovely wintry shots.

Thelma appears, bringing her stick

Suddenly Louise is there, trying to take it

The tussle continues all the way up the patio

Until Thelma drops it near my feet

Thelma and Louise had been round on the top bank still, after our sliding, while we headed down and they stayed up there for a bit waiting for us to come back. Then Louise headed down but Thelma had her stick and she wanted it thrown for her and thought we were coming back. Eventually I called her and she came trotting down round the corner with her stick happily enough until Louise ambushed her and they continued heading our way, but tussling for the stick this time. They are such a joy to have around they really are.

Louise got to try the chair out first

Yeah, she is that mad

While all this was going on A was hard at work putting the chair into place and she then went inside to get herself a beer, and change into shorts and a vest top. To be fair it was much warmer now but still I'd not be sitting on the snow in shorts and I'm pretty good with the cold. We had a good laugh while doing this, though, and A was very proud of herself indeed. Of course once she had a picture she was happy with she went inside and put warm clothes back on, the sensible girl.

Looking through the roof terrace windows

A build up of snow

Footprints, again

Such a beautiful colour of blue

Looking north with glorious skies

The sparrows all clustered at the very top of a tree

Fighting

Mid afternoon I saw that the sun was breaking through and there was some gloriously light blue sky showing through so I went onto the roof terrace, having not been up there since the snow fell, to get some pictures. The snow was quite deep up there having drifted with the wind and there was evidence of something animal or bird having walked around up there as well. The views were stunning as I expected and then I spotted the sparrows congregated on the very top of a tree so I dashed to change lenses to get a better shot. All the time I was up there the puppies were playing hard on the top bank with a stick, fighting each other for it. They love it, really.

Wednesday

And so we reach today. Once again it has been a working day for us both but the snow has really started to melt so there has been zero snow-related fun unfortunately.

The first time they have been outside for days

Morning mist that hung around all day

On the roof, watching everything that is happening in the village

It's thawed so much that even the birds have ventured outside of their own accord and when A went to feed them she said they have cleared a patch of the ice from the pond so they can swim again. First thing this morning Balls was out on the ice and it looked like he was breaking through even then. The weather has continued to be overcast and very foggy with very little sun breaking through at all. Other than working about the only thing that I have achieved today is to get onto the roof terrace and clear all of that snow, as we are forecast heavy rain and it is melting, and we didn't get the tiles down up there yet. This didn't take long and at the end A joined me with the puppies for some fresh air. They were hassling me to be picked up and once I did they just sat there looking over the edge and growling at the horse in the field; they are so nosy.

Very sorry looking Sammy the Snowman

A glimpse of the sun today, and no more

A was very sad to see that Sammy had lost his head this morning and by the time I popped out to take the 2pm picture (which I have done every day this year so far so I'm on track with that) he was even worse for wear and even the chair made yesterday was drooping quite a lot. I expect him to be gone completely tomorrow, especially if the rain does arrive. The sun hasn't shown itself at all today and there has been very little of that stunning light blue in the sky. Now I'm sat here listening to the pork strips sizzle as I cook Spicy Pork Pasta before we settle in for the night with Sopranos.

So that hasn't been such a short update after all, but it has also been complete which is nice. Every update I realise after I publish that I have missed something but not today.