That's our backyard snow total. Officially, I guess West Milford got the highest snow total in NJ: 13.2 inches. But I could only see exactly 12 inches no matter where I put the tape measure. Still, 12 inches is nothing to sneeze at.

We spent our morning clearing snow from the enormous driveway that we have, all the steps (front and deck steps that lead to the back yard) and the poor truck that has to sit outside without benefit of being in the garage. We're now in for the rest of the day. Whew.

We did not lose power. Of course not. We spent all that money to have the generator wired in to the household circuitry, so why would we? In fact, we got very little of the wind that they predicted. Go figure.

I don't think Nemo was quite as nasty a storm as predicted, but I guess after Sandy they weren't taking any chances. Other locations such as Connecticut, Massachusetts, and friend Carolyn in Rhode Island got pretty much buried. Plus they got the wind as well.

Now that all the work is done it's a very pretty day out there! Except for the gusty wind, that is (which we did not have yesterday).

(photos:)

Poolside Pleasure

Go, Johnny, Go!

Inches of snow that is. That is what our latest prediction says. New York City is under the blizzard zone but we are not. Near to hurricane force winds and some flooding are predicted for parts of the shore and my heart goes out to all those people still hurting from Sandy.

We were supposed to go a friend's house tomorrow night for dinner but we have mutually agreed to cancel since it's a 45-minute drive in the best of weather and we have no idea what tomorrow will bring.

So far we had our usual coating of snow overnight and it's been slowly lightly since I got up but no real accumulation. The two storms are not supposed to come together until the wee hours of the morning when things really start to ramp up.

I have no plans to go anywhere today, and certainly not the grocery store with its throngs of crazy shoppers. We have gas for the generator, food to eat, books to read, puzzles to put together and a cozy wood fire.

I think we're ready, Nemo. Come and find us.

(photo: Shadow Forest vs Real Forest; Monksville Reservoir)

Good grief. The storm bearing down on us has been named. Nemo. What kind of name for a nasty nor'easter/blizzard is Nemo? Isn't Nemo some placid little Disney fish? Why such a cutesy little name?

Just watched the news and we have now been upgraded to the 12+ inch zone. Our local weather forecast had said 10-14 inches but when we watched the ABC 7News they always had us listed lower. Not so anymore. Rick just got home from work but he didn't even take off his coat. He immediately filled up the generator to capacity so he could take the gas can, filled up Johnny with the same thing in mind and took off for the gas station to stock us up with enough fuel to last about 3 days.

Our power provider had an automated call go out that I answered about ten minutes ago. Basically is said they expected to lose power but they would be working diligently to restore it as soon as they could.

It's not October, is it?? One thing for sure: life is never dull here.

There was a noticeable buzz in the air at the grocery yesterday. Snippets of overheard conversations such as "my son is hoping for school closures" "have to get shopping done today because Friday is going to be nasty."

Rick tried scheduling the car in for service on Friday and the guy said "supposed to be a storm, you might not want to do that."

While I was getting my hair cut the phone was ringing with people either cancelling or changing their appointments for Friday.

Really?

Hmmm. Although they are predicting snow for us on Friday I got the impression it was not going to be a devastating snow for us. Maybe 3 to 6 inches. Maybe as much as 8 inches. So why all the fuss? Maybe because we got used to not having snow last year. Right now the prediction does not seem to warrant panic.

Or does it? After all, predicting the weather is not always easy and Mother Nature will do whatever she darn well pleases. We might just have a big storm after all. Or, maybe not. It will be what it will be!

I know Rick is secretly hoping that we lose power so we can try out the generator now that it's wired directly into the house. Of course that probably won't happen since we now have that capability. You know what I'm saying?

Later Update:

This just in! Today the grocery store is jam-packed with people--15 people deep at the checkouts. The snow total has been bumped up to one foot of snow plus ice and wind.

(photos: What is it?)

The shadow of the fence around the pool cast on the rocks covered in January snow.

I wrote in a previous post about how we were getting little snows that amounted to a coating to an inch: "nuisance" snows. We got another one last night (a coating) and tonight we are going to get about an inch. It's pretty, put a pain.

The photo above was taken on Saturday night just after it had started to snow. That's Hailey, the Doggie Snow Angel! You can see where her paw prints lead to where she laid down on the deck, then trail off when she got up to go down the steps.

Here is a closer pic of where she was laying. Can you tell which part of the dog is which?

I captured this strange phenomenon back in 2007 too, only that time they had their bones with them. Check them out!

P. S. Do you ever check out the blog entries posted under "On This Day" in the sidebar? Today's features a post about our trip to Mexico's Chichen Itza, the Mayan ruin. Check it out, either here, or there!