February 8, 2010 at 12:01pm
by Michelle Casad 
Last weekend North Carolina was hit with the largest snow storm we have seen so far in our 4 years here. On Friday Andy went to the grocery store and ended up contending with a panic caused by the predicted storm such that everyone was stocking up to be hunkered down for a month. Luckily for us there was not much in the way of power outages in our area, although the roads ended up being the big problem for most people. We of course took many pictures.
The snow started late Friday evening, and by the time we got up on Saturday morning we had been blanketed in about 7-8 inches. The wind was blowing the snow off of our roof onto our deck so that we measured almost a foot due to the drifting. I had been planning on the trip to the lab that day, so despite it being Saturday, I really did get to enjoy a snow day off work. The news and the government were stressing that people who did not to be out really should stay at home if at all possible. Many shops, malls, and churches closed. However when Andy called our pastor to be able to accurately answer questions being directed his way, our priest responded “we’re Catholic, we never close”! For the rest of the day we actually enjoyed taking the dog out and we took a few walks around our street.
On Sunday we decided to get our money’s worth out of our 4 wheel drive Subaru. Our driveway was still pristine with only a few footprints in it, however getting out of our small street with a small incline and a track made by perhaps only 2 other cars was a bit tricky. Once we got out to the main road it was icy but we went slowly and made it to church, passing very few cars along the way. Only a very small portion of the parish ventured out, but when we left it was sunny, things were melting and we got to drive home in the slush. It felt almost more dangerous at this time because there were many more cars on the road, and despite the melting of the ice there was still a large volume on the road. We even stopped and ate breakfast outside in the sun.
We tried to let Miriam play in the snow a little, but she was not a fan. We stood her up against an upside down bucket that had snow accumulated on it, but she was more interested in just watching the animals in the snow from our arms. The chickens didn’t venture very far from their coop for several days. The sheep didn’t seem to be too fazed, given their wool is quite long by now. The cats were curious but spent most of their time inside.
For the next few days schools were still canceled due to the icy road conditions from the refreezing each night, but Andy and I managed to get in and out of work successfully. Despite a large amount of rain during the week, over a week later there are still bits of snow here and there where the sun never shines and where the plows made large mountains.
