Month: January 2021

 

 

 

 

 

Further to my previous post, ‘Winter has arrived‘, winter has definitely decided to stay 😉 We have had further snowfall since I last posted and there has been lying snow now for over three weeks.

 

It finally stopped snowing around lunchtime yesterday (30^th). Overnight, the skies cleared and the temperature dropped to -10°C (14° Fahrenheit for my American visitors). But clear skies has meant bright sunshine all day today, creating the perfect opportunity for taking snowy photographs 🙂 Knowing from past comments, how much my previous snowy photographs have been appreciated, here are a few more.

This was my back garden on the morning of Friday 29^th January, before I cleared the path to the woodshed to split more logs and bring them into the house. The hump in the middle of the garden…….

…..is this pile of logs, the second half of my order, delivered on Monday 25^th January. I was very glad I got some of them into the woodshed and the rest covered, before the latest snowfall.

I have lost track of how many times I have scraped snow from my front path and the paved area that gives access to my carport. This was view after a considerable amount of labour on the afternoon of Saturday 29^th January, once it had finally stopped snowing.

One increasing problem has been where to put all of the excess snow. As you can see, there isn’t much more room here.

Or here.

This afternoon, I went for a walk to try and capture some of the beauty of the snow. I had to walk very carefully as the temperature only rose to -2° and it was very icy underfoot. Tonight as I write, it is back down to -6°! Here are a few photographs from my walk around the village.

 

 

 

 

As I explained in this post, the winter of 2019-2020 was remarkably mild. However, the winter we are currently experiencing is bearing a much greater similarity to my first two winters living here in Stará Oleška and a week ago, winter arrived with a vengeance.

 

Before Christmas, we had a dusting of snow on a few occasions, but it soon melted. On 26^th December, Boxing Day, we had a further light snowfall but which again, mostly melted in the following twenty-four hours. But overnight Friday 8^th – Saturday 9^th January, snow fell once again and didn’t melt. And since then, snow has fallen, snow on snow!

 

 

 

This was the scene that greeted me when I got up on the morning of Saturday 9^th January.

Later that day, I went for a walk to Olešský rybník, the lake at the other end of the village. As you can see it was almost totally frozen at the surface with snow lying on top of the ice.

The photo at the beginning of this post was the view from my front door on Tuesday 12^th January, before I cleared my front path. And above is a view of my house from outside of my front gates, taken the same day.

The new path across my back garden, from the rear steps to the woodshed, has very much proved its worth during the current weather. You can just about make it out in this photo, taken before I cleared it of snow. But being smooth and even, it is relatively easy to scrape snow off it.

A few days ago, my Czech friend Kát’a, who has helped me with language issues in recent months, saw one of my snowy photos and said she would like to make a snowman. She lives in Decín, which although being only 11km from my home, is 135m above sea level, whereas Stará Oleška is nearly 300m above sea level. Therefore what falls as snow here, often only falls as rain in Decín.

Therefore yesterday, ironically when Decín did get some snow, I picked her up and brought her to my house and together, we made a snowman and a snow woman 🙂 The snow woman was Kát’a’s idea and her creation 🙂

Today we have had yet more snow. Once more, I cleared the path to the woodshed, past the snow people 😉 ,  in order to split some more logs and bring them into the house and keep the wood-burning stove going. But as you can see, within an hour it was once more being covered in snow.