December 22^nd, 2002: 

Snow! Beautiful soft, white, fluffy snow! There was a dusting of fresh stuff on the ground Wednesday morning. We went down to Kelvington for lunch with Jenny and while we were there it snowed continuously, but ever so lightly. It didn’t look like much, but made the ground white again. Heavy snowfall was being predicted for the Regina, Yorkton, and Estevan areas, and we were praying that at least the fringe of it would bring us some snow.

We got another inch or so Wednesday night, along with a fairly strong northwest wind. It snowed all day Thursday - never heavily, though with a stiff wind it looked pretty impressive - but it never quit. I finally got to try out my snowblower!

Saturday morning there was another couple of inches on the ground, and it snowed most of the day, so I gave the snowblower another workout. It looked as if it was done, but this morning there was more snow on the ground, a couple of inches at least. I cleared it with the shovel. About noon, a few flakes began falling, enough to cover up the dirty spots where the driveway was cleared so everything is sparkling white again.

I have no idea how much we got altogether - the wind piled it up in some places and swept it bare in others - but there must have been close to a foot.

The odd snowmobile has been tearing past on the road; once the word gets out that Greenwater has snow, there’ll be lots of them. There has been some work done on the trails, but mostly clearing them of fallen trees. With this fall’s winds, they had to clear them several times.

There are a lot of happy people at the Park today. There were two vehicles parked by the picnic area, and I saw a lady with a big armload of firewood making her way in to the picnic tables. The Park hasn’t been able to get at the skating ice in the Marina yet, but there were a couple of skaters working away at it with shovels. Rob McLeod and family were just going into the shack to put their skates on when I was there. Rob said he has been out on the ski trails twice; the first time he was breaking trail and it was tough going, but the second time was great. I suspect both ski and snowmobile trails will be groomed before Christmas.

Then, as I left the Marina, there were three kids with brightly colored plastic sleds sliding down the hill from the road to the Marina.

Frank made a couple of rounds with the maintainer a while ago, so I got the blower out again. Somehow, though, he pushed the snow back without leaving a big pile in our driveways.

I can remember many a winter when, instead of singing raptures over new snow, it would be more like: “More #&%@ snow!”

Someone asked me the other day where all the grosbeaks have gone - he hadn’t had a single one at his feeder. Come to think of it, neither had we, but then we hadn’t put out any sunflower seeds, either. Doreen put some out last Monday and it wasn’t long before the feeder was full of grosbeaks. So take heart, people - they are out there, and it’s just a matter of time before the bush telegraph tells the grosbeaks where the chow line is. In the meantime, the nuthatches, pine siskins and chickadees have been enjoying a Niger seed diet.

We had a couple pairs of pine grosbeaks at the feeder yesterday, the first we have seen. And then, of course, there are the ubiquitous (isn’t that a neat $4 word? I’m going to look it up one of these days) blue jays. There are magpies around, but we rarely see them in the yard. Strangely enough, we don’t see many Canada jays, though they are all around us. I guess those birds are more likely to go for kitchen scraps rather than seeds.