I peeked out the patio door and stared at my naked barbecue. At this time of year, it's normally under a cover but not now. The wind must have blown it off the other night. Is it just me or do its skinny legs even look like they are shivering?

Standing on my tip-toes, I looked around for the cover and thought I spotted it in my neighbor's yard.

You know what this means?
Now I have to go out there!

It's -10 C (14°F) and I'm not a lover of winter so most of my outdoor trips are short at this time of year. At the back of the house, I don't usually get past my deck, and that's just to remove snow from the furnace vents.

The last time I was at the end of my yard in winter was in 2008. That year, with a noticeably bigger snowfall, I had to take the long way around to the backyard to dig out my patio door. I crawled through soft snow up past my hips and my neighbours spotted me out there and cheered me on. It was quite a workout.

At least, we're well equipped for cold here. I put on my coat, hats, boots and my warm mitts. The regular leather gloves I use in the car aren't warm enough for this. These ones are mittens with gloves built inside of them.

If I'm going outside, I should put salt on the walk and driveway. The temperature went above freezing on Friday giving us a minor melt, and creating a coating of ice on everything that was snow. At least, the vines look pretty.

I returned to the balmy indoors, too briefly, then headed out the back door. Okay now, I took one big step into the snow in a spot where I knew there was deck underneath. My foot punched through the icy coating and into deep fluff.

Each footstep had to punch through the coating before I sunk up past my knees. Punch, punch, punch, punch, punch. I looked to my left and what I had thought was my barbecue cover was my neighbor's barbecue. How far had that thing flown? I had found the heavy rock that normally keeps it in place behind the barbecue. Then I spotted my cover behind my neighbor's yard.

I walked cautiously. Punch, punch, punch, punch. What would take 30 seconds to retrieve in summer, takes 5 minutes now as I carefully choose my path, and punch, punch, punch through the snow.

Nabbing the cover, I retraced my footsteps, exactly, back across the lawn to the deck to the barbecue. I put the cover on the barbecue and discovered the rock was frozen to the deck about the same moment my tolerance for the cold ran out. I dashed inside. It can wait.

Later in the day, I remembered to check the garage door as I left for the evening with my friend, Sherpa. Oh, no. That brief melt had frozen the door in place. I forgot about it until today when I went outside and put salt on both sides of it. That's when I decided to take a brief walk to snap photos for you.

The busier streets are mostly bare. Once they are plowed, the sun beating down on the asphalt warms them enough to melt the snow off. And I bet you didn't know there were tiny snowplows to keep the sidewalks clear? Everything gets cleared, sanded and salted.

With less traffic, the side streets stay snow covered longer. Do you see the difference in color between this snow and the gleaming white stuff in my backyard? As it melts in the spring, you see all of the impurities left from car exhaust, sand, and dogs. By now I had discovered that I couldn't use the camera with mittens on and it was too cold with them off. I was heading home.

Now there is an icy driveway!

We have community mailboxes here and the post office hires contractors to clear the snow and put down sand.

And here I'm back home. I should mention that if I have fertilizer, I often use it on ice since it's slightly better for the environment. The next adventure will be the garage door.

While I was writing this post, Sherpa arrived with more salt and a pick axe for me! I'm lucky. With so much ice, the demand for salt is high this winter. He went to two stores looking for some.

Now I'm letting the salt do its work and I will be out there in an hour swinging that pick axe. And he just mentioned we're expecting another 25 cm (almost 10") of snow on Tuesday. UPDATE: That's now 30-50 cms of snow (roughly 12-20").

One last image - I photographed the snow pile at the mall. They haul it all away before too much accumulates or it would fill quite a few parking spaces.

Images

Photos from my Canon SX620 HS in Kanata (west of Ottawa), Ontario, Canada.

I hope you enjoyed this glimpse into winter life.
@kansuze