So what does real winter look like?

We needed to restock the stash of firewood on the back porch a couple days ago.

Now that it's Winter, we have a plastic sled that we use for moving firewood from the woodshed to the house. The S.O. snowshoes over, fills the sled, and drags it back to the porch.

The first winter we were back, he tried keeping a trail open using the snow thrower. He figured out pretty fast that it wasn't worth it; snowshoeing was easier.

And here he is, back at the porch about to step down so he can start unloading the sled. Off to the right (hiding behind the open storm door) we've got a small covered area that will hold about a week's worth of firewood. If truly nasty weather is predicted (like the blizzard that's supposed to hit sometime later this week), the S.O. makes sure there's enough wood stacked there to last through any storm. The porch is raised; when the ground is bare, there are three steps up to it.

We finally had some above freezing weather yesterday. It got to be almost 40 outside. Things turned slushy downtown. Up here on the rock we call home, though, I don't think one day of warm weather made much of a difference. Driving up from town was still like doing a reverse bobsled run, and the snow in general is still, as the saying goes, asshole deep on a 10-foot Indian.

Product plug: The snowshoes are Alaskans made by Iverson right here in the U.P. If you ever need (or want) some snowshoes, I recommend going traditional and getting some Iversons. If nothing else, when you get to be old and feeble and can't snowshoe anymore, the Iverson snowshoes are going to look a lot cooler hanging on a wall than the modern aluminum and polyurethane models.