Still more weather

Low this morning was 21. We had snow from about 2230 last night up until 0530 and then the drizzle started. That lasted until about noon.  We got 4-5 inches of new snow; then about 3/16 inch of ice on top of the new snow, forming a crust.  We have no damage to trees or trails.

It took almost 2 hours to plow our driveway after the 4-5 inches of new snow.  Halfway through the plowing we started getting freezing drizzle.  By the time I was finished plowing and shoveling the water bars, the snow had gains considerable weight from the drizzle and the ATV had frozen droplets on the dash and steering wheel and icicles hanging from the roof.  I had to plow off the excess snow using a number of turnouts, especially up near the house, but overall the driveway cleared off fairly well. 

We took the dogs out for a walk after the drizzle tapered off and the snow comes up to their bellies and the crust makes it hard for them to walk as they break through the crust with every step.  Pretty quickly they learned to either follow in each other's footprints, or follow in my footprints and let me blaze the trail ahead of them.  Even with the hard work walking through the snow, the dogs did not seem tired out enough to want to come back inside--just like every other day!

While plowing Paul noticed that when he piled up the snow, he could see a blue tint in the snow, mostly in the hollows of the snow pile.  He suspects that the cloudiness and low light levels today had something to do with the blue tint.  The only other time he's have seen a blue color like this was the ice in a glacier.

I got a text from Penn State at 0500: 2 hr delay.  That's happened only a few times since I've been here.  But, the dogs didn't believe we should waste the beautiful snowy morning so we did our regular meadow walk at 0630. By that time the snow, 4" new, (total 6") had turned to rain.  Things could get ugly.
Buddy was ravenous:  he willingly took his pills on a spoon of canned food.  He's moving a bit slowly but was anxious to get out to explore the snow.  His face is slightly swollen and there were a few drops of blood on his bed this morning.