Winter wonderland

Thursday morning I awoke to the cacophony of Australian birds like the ones below. 

These are the kinds of birds that visit C's balcony.  How cool are they?  Answer: very.

After two flights, a four hour stopover in LAX (quite possibly the worst airport I’ve had the misfortune of visiting, and I’ve been to airports in Kenya, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic), and more than 17 hours in the air, I emerged in Toronto.  The sun had set.  It wasn’t 6:00 yet.

This morning, I awoke to the kind of silence only heavy snowfall can bring. It’s a calm, insulated silence. One that is only broken by the whoosh of wind rustling the bare tree limbs, and the rumble of snowplows.

A tug of the blinds revealed a scene straight off of a Hallmark card, or an ad for snow tires.

This shot isn't the best -- It lacks some perspective, no?

Thanks to global warming, white Christmases are no longer a given, even in Canada. But this year, old man winter is certainly delivering stuff.

There have already been a few “snow days” – mornings where the weather is deemed too dangerous for school buses to venture out. There is a good three feet of snow on my mother’s front porch, and an astounding five or so in the back yard.

Ahhhh...there's some much-needed perspective. Now do you see what I'm talking about? 
That there is my sister, Val and Chevy.  They are both awesome.

The dog’s house is under a foot of snow.  My mom dropped her GPS somewhere between the car and the house and hasn't see it since.  It'll likely make an appearance some time in April. The other day, they had to send in a helicopter to rescue some people stranded in their cars during a blizzard on a highway not too far from here.

They don’t call this neck of the woods the snow belt for nothing.

If I knew I had another four or five months of this to go, I’d likely be gnashing my teeth, moaning, you know: lamenting bible-style.  But with only four weeks here, I’m saying “bring it on.”

What we had to drive through to get to town this afternoon.

Macro Chevy!