This is the Winter of My Malcontent

I'm not normally a fan of winter. But this winter is the winter to be despised. And although snow is an integral part of winter in New England, it is this snow that has put me in the most sour mood of my lifetime. In the beginning was the first snow of winter. Ahhh, isn't it beautiful? Look at it flocking the tree branches, and isn't that just the reddest cardinal you've ever seen nestled in the bough of that cedar?

Then it began to snow on what seemed to be every other day. And the numbers were high! Eighteen inches 24 inches, amazing. Okay, so there was a lot of shoveling. But finally, finally, the flake that stressed the roofs throughout Connecticut. All of a sudden, people were flocking to the local hardware stores to buy roof rakes because the roofs of homes across the state were sagging under the weight of two feet of snow, that was rapidly becoming ice. It was time to rake the roof!In my entire life of living in Connecticut, I have never seen anyone rake the snow off their roof, nor, had I ever heard of a roof collapsing under the weight of the snow other than the Hartford Civic Center in the late '70's.

So my days have gone something like this: get up, make coffee and drink it, go outdoors, take a view of the roof, check the walkways and driveways for ice; sprinkle ice melt where needed; go back inside, clean the pellet stove, go to the garage, bring in pellets put in stove.

Now it's time to go to work. Anyhow, the upshot of all of this is that I feel like some kind of pioneer woman of the old prairie days. But thankfully, this will soon be over, I'm told, and spring will be here.