Just My Opinion - By Mary Kilen
March Snows....Why???
They warned us. They told us it was coming. And yet, there we all were on Saturday, staring out our windows yelling at Mother Nature.
I was up letting Buddy out at 3 a.m. and there it was. The snow was covering everything in my backyard and making it interesting, but it wasn’t that bad yet. The same was not true at 9 a.m. when the poor little guy ran out into the snow bank that had built against the door. He’s not usually intimidated by the snow. He’ll plow through that bank and that door and out into the yard. This time, he got about two steps out the door and found himself stuck. He stood there and tried to turn around and come back in. Once he made it back in, I tried to push some of the snow away from the doorway so he could go out and go the bathroom but he was having none of it. He sat on the step in the garage and gave me the stink face.
Dale took the snowblower and cleared some space for him, which made him happy, but by later in the day it was filling back in. Not so much that he couldn’t get through, but enough to make all of us growl a little bit.
We weren’t all that organized either. Usually a storm prediction has Dale getting ready. He had gone out and made sure the Kubota would start, but we didn’t bring it back to the house. I’m not sure why.
As a result, in the afternoon, Dale starting walking up to get the Kubota from the office. There was no way my car was going through the drift halfway down the driveway or through the ridge left after the city crews went by.
By the time he got home, Dale was less that amused. He had gotten himself somewhat stuck just walking through some of the snow between the house and office. He had also gotten the Kubota stuck trying to make it home through some snow banks. Thank heavens for the guy who stopped with the skid steer and got him loose.
All of that led us to stay home most of the day, other than the one time I convinced Dale to take me out in the Kubota to check out how bad it was on Main Street.
Sunday was better and we made it to the office to get some work done and Dale cleared the parking lot, again with a little help from one of the city police officers.
I’ve been waking up each morning since Saturday to the sounds of snow removal equipment. I have to give credit to the city crews. They took on this storm with hard work throughout the weekend and will have many more hours ahead of them as they work to widen streets and move snow piles from intersections. We are lucky to have a good crew with good equipment. Amanda, who lives in Bismarck, said she would just be happy to see a plow on her street. They are in an area that doesn’t see as much “normal” traffic so they are always among the last to get cleared.
That is not true in Stanley. Our crews were hard at work making sure that every street had at least one pass as early as possible. They put in long hours just to make sure that we could get out. With the entire state as a “no travel advised” much of Friday and Saturday, there really wasn’t anywhere we should have been heading, but if you needed to get to the store or somewhere else, those crews made it possible for you.
Meanwhile, the moisture from this snow will be welcome. The warmer temperatures of March will mean that it will melt and it won’t be here for months.
That being said, I saw some posts on Facebook that made me laugh over the weekend and I’ll share them here. I’d love to say this will be the last snowstorm of the season, but again it is only March. Keep these in mind if we get hit again.
The Blizzard Serenity Prayer was credited to Spirit 92.9 and reads as follows: “Lord, give me the Serenity to accept another snow storm, the Courage to drive on the icy roads, and the Wisdom to know when to just stay home.
One shared by a number of businesses, including a few bars, read “This is no longer winter, this is harassment.”
Meteorologist Kevin Lawrence shared one that read, “Remember that time when it quit snowing in North Dakota for three minutes? That was awesome.”
As relates to the time change, my daughter sent me “On a positive note, when we move our clocks ahead this weekend, we’ll lose an hour of snow.”
And finally, another friend posted: “Will whoever still has their ‘let it snow’ decor up, please take it down already. Burning it would be a solid choice too, FYI.”
And for your entertainment, pictured is our poor Buddy standing in the snow bank on Saturday morning.