It’s not quite a white out because I can still see the edge of the apartment block closest to us, but the one just beyond it is gone. I can see the fence in front of our building, but the trees behind the fence are fading to gray. The snowplow woke me up this morning around 5, and later, at 6, I was woken again by the sound of snow shovels scraping on the walkway between our place and the next building. At 6:30 I got up and looked out the window at what must be nearly two feet of brand new snow.
Ten minutes ago J. flew in the door, jumped in to his ski clothes and took off again. He’s not going skiing, he’s running up the road to help shovel snow at his mom’s house. During the brief time he was here he told me that we’ve got it, we’ve got the “schneechaos.” He says that up at the intersection at Trautenfels, where our local road meets the main highway, the snow is falling faster than the snowplows can clear it. It’s windy, too, so the snow piles up on tree branches to just below the tipping point, a gust of wind comes, and then, WHOMP.
We don’t get “snow days” here. We’d lose an awful lot of time from work and school and whatever. (Okay, I don’t count.) But we’re in the kind of conditions today where business as usual has been replaced with furiously trying to get the snow out of the way. There’s sure to be some trip minimizing as sensible people ask themselves if they can’t wait until tomorrow or the day after to go to the bank. I’ll walk to our local supermarket to get milk instead of driving in to town. I was supposed to start tutoring an English student today, but I wouldn’t be surprised to get a call from his mom asking if we can’t reschedule.
It’s 7:30 now and the snowplow is back. It’s not exactly like he’s never been here, but man, is it snowing. The plow and shovel crew is in for a long day.