Giants in The Earth Winter!

Evidence of Abundance!  White, sparkly abundance, that is.

We are having a Giants in The Earth Winter.  Rolvaag wrote my favorite book.

A Pioneer decides he can make one last trip to town for supplies before winter sets in.
He sets out, walking, as there are no indications of severe weather.
It begins to snow on his way home. This snow quickly becomes an intense blizzard!
He struggles on!  He cannot see, yet he manages to go directly towards the remote cabin where his wife is.  He dies in a snowbank. Later in the spring he is found, not far from his door!


This is the type of Blizzard we had this week in the Hilltowns!
I drove home into the hills with wet snow pelting into the headlights.
These flakes  had to be 1/4 to 1/2 inch, each!

The real fun was in the anticipation of this storm.  Some sources simply said snow starting Wednesday afternoon, continuing into Thursday.  Some sources said 6 to 12 inches.  Some said 4 to 6 inches, and yet others said 12 to 16 inches would come.  We did not know what to expect!

We did get app. 8 inches of heavy, wet snow! All on top of the 2 1/2 to 3 feet of white from recent storms. It looks like the interior of a mansion when the family goes away.  White sheets are pulled over the furniture!

                                   Much like in this photo of one of the four foot high stone walls.


Yet all this is nothing compared to a story I was told when I lived in Mt. Storm, West Virginia.

Drift laying against the Carriage House

A.B. Cosner, one of the influential old-timers, told me of a winter when the snow was so high, they dug a tunnel through it to cross the road.  He showed me a picture on the wall of the Restaurant.  This was no simple tunnel!  Adults were standing straight up in it, and it was wide enough for several people!

An evening before one of our snow storms.