Is THIS the “storm of the century?”

We’d lived through the last one — the last monster nor’easter that had the weathermen in a hyperbole-filled frenzy. That was back in 1996, a month before The Boy was born. The storm where we were trapped in our little cul de sac with three other very pregnant women.

But this one has already exceeded the storm we had a couple of weeks ago, and I believe it got close to the accumulation of the 1996 storm. I’d say we got somewhere around 18-20 inches in the last twelve hours.

It started later than predicted — long after The Hubster had gotten back from Washington, D.C., thank goodness — but lasted much longer than they thought.

And, now… we are officially snowed-in.

Everything has that muffled-in-snow sound to it now, but I can hear the neighbor’s snow blower going — The Hubster at its helm. I think we won’t be out on the roads until at least Monday morning. Not unless we run out of some vital, life-sustaining necessity.

Like chocolate.

But, seeing as how I “stocked up” yesterday morning and we’ve got two full gallons of milk, three bags of Ghirardelli chocolate chips, and a pound of coffee, I think we’re good. (And veggies and meat and all that other junk too.)

The birdies aren’t quite as lucky. The skinny ones are jamming our bird feeders today, and are draining the safflower seeds at an alarming rate.

The Hubster stalked the feeder until he captured a picture of my favorite bird:

Anyone know what species this is? It’s lovely, and has a little peaked “cap” the way a jay does. But it’s very timid and is often hard to catch because it zooms in, grabs a seed, and zooms right back out again.

I love how curious they are — they all like to peek in our windows, but flit away if we move or make any noise.

And the chubbier birds can’t use the feeder because it’s rigged to keep squirrels out. So the heavier birds are down on the ground, trying to find dropped seeds. What’s funny, is that the snow is so deep, they’re actually tunneling *under* the snow to find it, and you’ll see them hop up into the branches to warm up again.

This particularly chubby fellow was letting us take lots of pictures…

… until he heard me call him chubby. Then he gave me the stink eye.

The dogs are finally outside with my guys, but Treelo was mighty bored this morning:

Not only was it too deep for them to go out the back door this morning…

<-- Open sesame!
<-- OMGawd - how're we supposed to pee?

... but it was too deep to do much of anything outside. The Hubster had to go out and dig them a pathway.

Seriously! It was too deep for Kenzie to squat!!

Even my covered porch had several inches of snow on it.

And the shrubs and evergreens are groaning under the weight of the wall of white that got dumped on them.

The old playset in the backyard (that I’ve been wanting to take down for years) is filled in interesting and hilarious ways.

Neither rain, nor snow, nor … oh, forget it! Even the mailman has been thwarted.

Calgon, take me away!