A Little Snow

Contributed by Jenny Foster

It's starting to look a little more like Winter here in Mountaindale. Overnight, there was a small snowfall of about 2 inches. Not too big of a deal, but at least enough to cover everything with a more January looking blanket. There was just enough of the wet, slushy stuff to cause a 2 hour school delay around here. It was just yesterday that I saw a small furry vole or something dart out of his little winter hideout between the flat rocks of a stone wall. When he saw he had company, he ran back under the rocks and took one more peek at me. His little hole was covered today so I'll have to check to see if he dug out since they don't actually hibernate. Hopefully, he stored enough food to last for a bit.
I understand that this year is a bit of a record breaker inasmuch as there has been such limited snowcover for the year. This may prove to be critical out west, where they rely on snowfall accumulations for their springs. In contrast, I also heard about a community in Cordova, an isolated coastal town in Alaska, where they are digging out from under 18 FEET of snow. It's gotten so bad there that they have literally run out of snow shovels and have had to call on the National Guard for assistance. They are calling it “Snowpocalypse 2012" since it is three times their normal accumulation and has caused several buildings to collapse or become severely stressed. I guess we are having it pretty good so far in Mountaindale, NY this year. Especially since Jenny's photo above was actually taken back in October, our last significant snowfall of the season.