It snowed more than a foot on Friday, then another foot overnight by Saturday morning. I was just settling down to a weekend of hacking, when the power cut out. So I switched to battery power, and cursed myself that I hadn’t retrieved my larger batteries from a friend’s house.

The wood stove was already hot, so I put on a big pot of water, and fried some eggs in a cast iron pan. Later, I used the water to make soba noodles with a sauce of powdered mushroom soup.

Meanwhile, we had no indication when the power was going to back on, and it seemed likely crews were going to be delayed making repairs, so I prepped for a long weekend without power. Then I went out and shoveled, again, took some photos with no light, came in and stoked the fire, then did it all again.

I took a long nap in the afternoon and woke up to beeps that meant the power was back on. That was lucky, because I had just been dreaming that I needed to put some snow in an ice chest and move the freezer contents outside. But the snow continued to fall, so I went back out to shovel.

I woke up Sunday morning to sunlight on trees bent with snow. I got dressed and out immediately with my camera and walked the neighborhood. Total snowfall was approaching 3’, the most this place had seen at once since 2005. Everyone was digging out or heading out skiing.

The view down the valley was transformed. It’s rare they get snow down to 4000’, but when it happens, it’s beautiful.

My neighbor had visitors coming and needed to dig out a parking spot. Volunteers showed up and made some snow totems while they were at it.

Nobody was really sure what this one represented, but we recommend against crossing it, because its creator is pretty fearsome.

And as I’m finishing this post, the snow is beginning to fall again…