Storm Goretti & The Crunch of Fresh Snow: A Belgian Winter Diary

Well I wanted to start writing that snow in Belgium is pretty rare. Not that rare, but I do mean real snow. So, it was a good idea to start with looking at the photo album and apparantly, we did have some decent snowfall in the past 3 years. That an evidence how strange the brain works. If you do like some weather situations, you tend to forget that they occur more often then we do think. The same when we look back at the summer during a wet September day, we do think that it was a shitty, while it was possible that we had a better summer than our memory tells us.

But I am drifing. What at least is a fact, is that when it snows here, that if often doesn't stay long on the ground as snow. Sometimes only a day, after which the temp goed back above 0 and we do have some rain. So, the snow is gone before you know. This time it did last a week. When I went to bed last night it started to rain and this morning when I got up, most of the snow was gone. It more becomes slush or sludge.

I do like the sound of the crunchof the fresh snow below the shoes, I really do love that sound. But you are only reminded of it, when you do hear it.

This is a picture or our street. The great things about our street is that we don't live on a priority road, so the city doesn't care about the road conditions. No snow is removed, nor are they salting the roads. Which does give a great view. The downside is that when we have a mild thaw, that is a more like an ice track in the mornings. Both sons did notice that. The oldest one crashed on Monday, because he wanted to go to school by bike, while the youngest did crash on Tuesday, when they were forced to go by bike (we both had to work at the office).

The peak of the snow was on Wednesday. I even did an extra evening walk in the snow.

I don't how to say it correctly in English, but when it snows the world looks much more peaceful.
While some animals do live the snow it is a hard time for the birds. So we do feed them extra. Also our chickens do refuse to leave the hen house.

So we make sure that we place some extra hay on the walking paths to the feeder and water.

Our cats do love the artifical snow under our Christmas tree, but they also hate the real snow.

I’m always a bit worried about our driveway. Fresh snow is no problem, because we have winter tires and 4-wheel drive. But when it thaws and freezes again, it gets tricky. A few years ago, we couldn't even get onto the road.

So I did salt it on Saterday, when the weather was still doubting about real snow or not. But after that we didn't had any problems anymore.

We didn't reach the amount of snow of 2 years ago, when we did almost hit 15 centimeters.

But I do think we did come close:

Now we have a storm hitting us. Storm Goretti will pass Belgium today. Surprised that the name starts with a G already. Only 9 days far in the year. I did think that each storm does get a name and we do start with the letter A for the first one, and then give them names alphabetically.

Currently it is around 4 degrees and we will go up to 7, but in the afternoon the temp will drop again to below zero, causing chatters of melting snow. During the weekend the temp will stay below zero, making it risky to go on the roads. That's why the football association has decided to prolong the winter break with an extra week. All respect for that.

Cheers,
Peter