I’ve seen a lot of hay/straw still out in the fields around town. I don’t know if that was intentional, or if the snow came before the owners could get them out. In any case, they make a good object when one wants to describe the bleakness of winter with a photo! These are just northeast of Bismarck. The drifting snow helps.

I did venture out of the truck a bit in this area. The snow was drifted in pretty hard, and it was solid enough in most places to keep me from breaking through. Of course, once I got way out there, I’d sink past my knees. Grrrr.

With as much snow as we’ve had lately, there are no doubt some frustrated folks who think the city’s doing a less than spectacular job of keeping the streets clear. I’ve had a little bout of that myself, such as a couple of weekends ago when I had to help push/dig out a stuck police car before leaving my driveway, but I understand that they’ve got an overwhelming task on their hands. I figure we should cut ’em a little slack.

I do have a happy story to tell you about an encounter with a snow plow (well, payloader with a blade and snow gate) a week or so ago. I have a sidewalk across my boulevard that I never use, so I don’t shovel it. This night, however, my mom was over to babysit and I didn’t want her having to deal with the deep snow. As a result, I was out with my spade and grain shovel, dutifully chopping at the snow berm pushed up by recent plow passes.

I’m a “letter of the law” kind of guy when I get belligerent, and the snow on either side of the walk I’d cleared was quite high. Therefore, once I got to the end of the sidewalk and past the curb, I started pitching the snow forward instead of to the side. After all, I was not putting snow from private property onto public; rather, I was just rearranging the snow already on the street. At least, that’s how I saw it.

The aforementioned snow removal operator pulled up in front of me, saw what I was doing, and came to a stop. I actually expected a window or door to open and some sort of scolding to come my way; after all, it was about the time that the radio stations were airing reports of citizens being cited for throwing snow into alleys or onto roads. I couldn’t have been more surprised with what happened next.

The operator backed up, dropped his (or her) blade, and pushed the snow I’d just chiseled my way through. He cleared the area in front of my sidewalk and part of my boulevard, and cut a nice clear path along the curb for much of my yard. He angled his loader in such a way that it pushed the snow out of the way and up onto the boulevard. In a matter of seconds, and with one single swipe, he’d done more than I could have with my silly little spade.

It was dark and the loader had plenty of lights on it, so I couldn’t see into the cab. But as the loader backed up from pushing the snow out of the way, I threw the operator a friendly wave and salute. They then continued on their way up the street. It didn’t cost them even a full minute of their time, but it saved me a lot more than that. I’m going to remember this encounter the next time I get frustrated with snow on my street or alley. Apparently there are some pretty nice folks operating those machines, even if they can’t get to everybody’s neighborhood as quickly as we’d like.

North Dakotans are proud of their wind chill. Given the latest bout of “American Made Global Warming” (ha), in the form of windy subzero temperatures, a couple of friends and I were having a discussion about the wind chill during our afternoon walk the other day. In 2001, the National Weather Service changed the method by which wind chills are calculated. This means that the wind chill temperatures we use to brag about our resilience will likely never be as cold as in years past.

According to this chart from NOAA, available in PDF format, it looks like we’ll never see those pride-inducing wind chill temperatures of old. Given the arbitrary +5F temperature of the above graphic, the windchill temperature derived from the old system at around 25mph would only be achieved with a wind of around 100mph! We don’t see too many of those winds around here, thankfully. All our snow would be in another state!

If you’re wondering why we never seem to see those ultra-cold wind chills our parents and grandparents brag about, that’s why. According to this article, the wind chill number was mostly used as a tool of exaggeration anyway. Given the way the media reports everything else, this should come as no surprise. And in light of the fact that climatologists have been caught using false data and putting temperature recording stations next to heat sources in order to get results favorable to the global warming agenda, we shouldn’t be surprised that some methodologies will change from time to time.

Yes, I’ve been out wielding a shovel (in vain, mind you) in this morning’s blizzard. I grew up in the Rocky Mountains, and later moved back out there to work for a ski resort, so I actually like shoveling snow. It’s nostalgic in a way, and great exercise. Having said that, I so wish I had a snow blower right now!

One thing that has always amazed me is Bismarck’s apparently lackadaisical approach to clearing snow. I had an epiphany when I moved to Fargo for school back in the 1980s. I looked out of my window during a blizzard to find snow removal equipment working…and it hadn’t quit snowing yet! By comparison, it seems that Bismarck’s crews are told to wait until the snow stops falling. Well, using that logic, why not wait until May, or even forsake clearing the streets at all? Snow tends to melt in the Spring, after all…

Anecdotal evidence and asking around indicates that people think Bismarck is doing a worse job at winter street maintenance every year. I couldn’t agree more last week while skating down an unsanded ice rink called Washington Street over my lunch hour, literally driving around fresh traffic accidents while watching people skate sideways in my rearview mirror.

All grousing about my beloved hometown aside, let me direct your attention to the aforementioned abominable snowman. You’ll probably recognize him from the Rankin/Bass television Christmas specials that air on CBS this time of year. You can see him, along with the Grinch and other characters, in a highly decorated yard on the east end of Kennedy Avenue in northeast Bismarck, just a stone’s throw from the famous Northview Lane. If you head up 19th just a couple of blocks, you’ll find Longley Avenue temporarily renamed “Snowman Lane.” If you’re near the All Seasons Arena or YMCA area, head over to Sioux Avenue and drive down Toyland, one of Bismarck’s oldest neighborhood Christmas displays.

While it seems decorated homes get more sparse every year, these attractions (not to mention Christmas in the Park) are still in place, waiting for passers-by to share in a little Christmas cheer. Just make sure that the Public Works Department has managed to clear the roads, so you don’t get stuck in Winter Wonderland!

This tiny little tree really appealed to the camera last Saturday, as I visited my friend Bruce and his family to wrestle with Windows on their behalf. I’d wrapped up a cleanup day at our church after an early morning photo trip with Monte, a new photography friend who I met while working as a ringside boom operator for a SHOtime boxing broadcast a while ago. The morning was VERY frosty. When we drove across the new Memorial Bridge, steam was literally billowing over the bridge, swept downriver by the cold, blasting wind.

This little tree reminds me of the tree in Charlie Brown Christmas; perhaps that’s why I like it so much. Standing just over a foot tall, it’s a tough little conifer. My friend’s daughter planted it as part of an Arbor Day project from school last summer, and it has since survived encounters with the lawn mower and an uncle’s tractor tire. It’s a beautiful little tree, especially decked out in a fresh coat of thick frost.

There were many other varieties of trees in Bruce’s yard, each with a different type of needle sporting jagged white frost. I took many photos, and some may appear later, but this was one of my favorites. The frost along the river was VERY thick, but in town there was nothing of the sort.

This is one of the sights Monte and I saw early in the morning. This fencepost juts out of the frozen ground at a neat angle, just north of Horizon Middle School. The top of the post remains parallel to the ground, however, which is why it caught my eye. A thick wood parallelogram with frost-covered loops of rusty barbed wire is a great ingredient for a winter morning photograph!

Regardless of weather, I love getting up and chasing down unique photos. This frost didn’t hang around forever, and it was provided by just the right conditions of warm river water and cold, harsh wind. I may not take the best photos in the world, but I try to make each one indicative of a moment that was unique at the time my shutter clicked. There are plenty of those moments to be had in Bismarck and Mandan, and I’m going to continue to capture my share of them.

We can count the flakes as it snows and snows.
We can’t get hurt. It melts and fades.
…
Was it only last week
we made crazy promises,
mad as the snow?
I couldn’t help by throw some lyrics in from my favorite song by Kitchens of Distinction, titled “Mad as Snow.” I was nearly mad at the snow Thursday and Friday; I had a lot of it to shovel!

I grew up in the Rockies and took a break during college to move back out and make a living (meager, yet fun) snowboarding. I started out shoveling snow but eventually did get to live out my “dream” of snowboarding all day and getting paid for it. The free season pass wasn’t bad, either! But I grew to enjoy shoveling snow as I embraced mountain living. 50 miles from the nearest city, one usually has to master a shovel! But I’m not 20 years old any more.

I shoveled the drifts around our house, ignored the driveways, and made sure access to our rental property was restored on Thursday night. I woke up Friday to find that there was more snow than before! Grrrr. I got a text message from work saying not to come in, so I put that time to use with my trusty shovel again.

This time I took a break in the middle of shoveling to storm off to a few area stores to “check out” snowblowers. Of course there weren’t any to be had, except some overpriced ones with plastic parts sure to break in the cold. Dejected, I made my way back home for more shoveling. Thank God I got through it, one scoop at a time. I could have done without the drifts, though.

Today I chiseled off the driveways I’d previously ignored, after a run to a very busy Scheels Sports. My favorite Thomas Dolby live album in my iPod, an ice cold Cherry Coke in the driveway, and my Dakota Snow Blade kept me company as I chopped the now-packed snow into manageable chunks and cleared the slabs. To do all this with a shovel instead of a snowblower DOES seem as “Mad as Snow.” I’m just not mad AT the snow. Not yet.

It’s going to take a while to get used to this skyline when heading west out of Bismarck! I never realized how much that bridge seemed like a “door across the river” until it was gone. Having nothing overhead while driving across the river is really weird, especially with the roof open. There won’t be any more of those days until Spring, however…unless I get cabin fever and turn stubborn (like THAT ever happens…)

This was taken during the warm weather of the first weekend of November. What a difference a few days make!