Happy New Year

 Hello and Happy New Year!
I hope your holiday season was merry and bright!
Ours was very different this year.
I live right outside of Buffalo, NY in Tonawanda
and we were hit with a horrible blizzard just before
Christmas.  We got about 4 feet of snow, but the worst part
was the wind, which was blowing anywhere from
30-50 MPH with gusts up to about 70 MPH.
Here are a few pictures from our house.

The snow did make some interesting and beautiful
patterns on our deck door.

Dave would clean the deck and windows off,
but in no time they were covered again.
Much of the time we could not see out any of our windows.

Dave did some shoveling during the blizzard, but the snow
kept coming and building up, especially in huge drifts.

He cleared it out and it was covered right away again.

Many of the drifts in our yard were 5-7feet high.

Here I am, when the power went out.  I was working on
finishing our Grandson's Christmas stocking.
Luckily we only lost power for about 2 hours.
Many others lost it for days.
Including my brother and sister in law.
They live only about 1/2 mile away, but 
visibility was so poor and it was so cold
that you couldn't be out walking and driving was
extremely unsafe.
Once the blizzard cleared and their street was plowed,
they drove over and spent the day in our nice warm house.
They lost power for a total of 34 hours.

This is Dave, my crazy husband, after being out
clearing snow for a while.

This was out our front door late on Christmas Eve.
The snow out at the street was about 5 feet high and
the drift at the back of the car covered the back of it
a few times. There were times we couldn't even see the car.
 It was silent and beautiful, but terribly cold.
We are very lucky to have a town with wonderful services and
our streets were plowed and cleaned in a pretty timely manner.
We were lucky to be able to get out and have our Christmas with
our kids the day after Christmas.
The clean up continues now.
Pay loaders and dump trucks have been in 
Western NY cleaning up snow and dumping it
in parks for a few days now.
BUT now we're into the Great Melt of 2022.
The temps the last couple days have been in the 50s,
so the snow is melting fast and I'm sure many are having 
flooding in their basements.

Yes!  This has been a disaster and will take a bit to
have it all cleaned up, but I love where I live and
wouldn't move for anything.  We seldom get anything
like this, although this year we've had some pretty 
severe weather in WNY.
When there is a disaster like this the people of our
area come together, there are numerous stories of people
helping others, neighbors, strangers, anyone who needs it.
Yes, there are the bad ones too, but 99% of the people out there
are willing to help and that is one of the best things 
about the Buffalo area.

I'm writing this a few days before it will be posted, so things 
have likely cleared up a bit more, by the time you read this,
just know that we are recovering in the Buffalo area
and we will come out stronger.

GO BILLS!