I know I suggested a first real snow on 1 December, but that snow melted away after a few days, and it's been the rare drifting flake since then.

Already today a few inches have fallen, and it's expected to snow for the rest of today, if not into tomorrow.

I skipped school bus drop off at 6:40AM in favor of driving to drop boyo off at 7:25AM because I didn't want to walk to the end of the block and stand in the cold snowfall while waiting for the bus, nor did I want to drive just to the end of the block to wait in the Jeep for the bus. Plus, driving allowed me the time to fetch and enjoy a nice latte.

After casually driving home, deciding that most other people are either clueless, selfish, mean, or some combination of those, I took a shovel to the driveway apron. Instead of a useful driveway from the alley to the garage, we've got a slab of concrete that spans the 40-foot width of our property and goes a dozen feet into the yard, just enough to parallel park a vehicle between the garage and alley, but not nose in.

The snow was fresh, so still light and fluffy. Of course, where I'd driven out and back into the garage had packed into tire-wide tread paths. I slid the shovel along, moving most of the snow. I took to the treads with the heavy chipper, and then slid that out of the way. I removed the berm left by the plow that had come through the alley before I left this morning, and created a couple berms on either side of the apron to try to build up snow for the season. There really isn't anywhere to put the snow, unless I use the snow blower to shoot it across the alley into the grass of my neighbor's yard. There will be a mountain of snow, probably after all of this snow, but certainly by the end of the season.

I am really ready to be done with winter and go where this doesn't happen