Blizzard 2012

This was the winter when our van and our generous neighbor's pick-up-with-plow got stuck in our driveway overnight.

Scenes from the next morning as we extract the vehicles...

Wisconsin Winter Wonderland

I love living where we live.

Not only do we have beautiful snows, amazing scenery, and an abundance of wildlife. But we have the PACKERS!

We're ready for the big Packer-Falcon playoff game tonight. We'll have curried shrimp dinner before the big game, and then we'll settle in with our full tummies for the big hurrah.

You don't think a quick prayer for the Pack would be sacrilegious now, do you?

Kathleen and Andrew enjoy the last minutes of daylight as the sun approaches the horizon.

Kathleen and Andrew in the back yard.

Marguerite practices her Packer touchdown.
She even says "touchdown!" when her hands go up. (Okay, she says "tu-duh.")

Wind, and Rain, and Funnel Clouds - Oh My!

Shortly after our return from Colorado, we got in on some nasty weather. We had four-and-a-half hours of tornado warnings on this particular evening. Check out some of the funnel clouds forming.

Funnel cloud, viewed from our front porch.

Funnel clouds trying to take shape. Viewed from our front porch.

Dueling funnel clouds just across the road from our house.
We saw the rotation and felt the wind on this one.

Backyard view as things were starting to settle down.

Joe and Marguerite take a quick step out into the yard to see what is happening.
The other kids were busily watching a video from the safety of the root cellar.

As the sun peeks out and the last of the storms pass.

And here's a candid of the kids watching videos in the root cellar during the storms.

Spectacular Weather

Last weekend we were treated to some severe weather, followed by a spectacular rainbow and sunset.

Unfortunately, the storms that were merely exciting and beautiful for us did great damage in Eagle, Wisconsin, spawning tornadoes and extremely high winds. Our prayers go out to those who were injured or displaced by the tornadoes.


Storm clouds from our deck...

The post-storm sunset, viewed from our front porch...

The magnificent double-rainbow after the storms...

The sun sets upon a stormy evening...

God's Beauty

Sometimes the view from the front porch takes my breath away. Check out the mammatus clouds in advance of the oncoming storm.

I love living where we can see the vistas (including the tornadoes, says the weather-freak).

The Never-Ending Winter

With snow to fill the record books and then some (nearly ninety inches this winter!), Joe and his plow got a good workout.












Joe's plow got stuck a few times this winter. Yes, that's Joe back there, digging out.














Your challenge: Find Joe amidst the snow. Looks like a white-out? Look carefully now... There you go... Right in the middle of the photo... Yes, that's the plow blade to the left, and the body of the tractor (with Joe atop) toward the right--just a shadow in the middle of one of our blizzards.









Before dark fell and before the storm was over, our deck was already piling up with mounds of snow...












And here's the backyard view from our bedroom window the next morning. Look at how the wind pushed the snow overnight! Beautiful!

More blizzard photos

Just had to share a few more blizzard photos.

The first photo was taken by yours truly as the blizzard was just getting underway. I don't know precisely what the wind gusts were on top of our barren hill, but suffice it to say that we've never had to remove the closed umbrella from the table on our deck. Usually it just sits there closed through the winter and does fine. However, we were certain it was going to snap off at the point where it met the table, so Joe and Anna Marie went out there in the blinding snow (note the ski goggles on hubby), and attempted to remove the umbrella. Joe was standing on top of a slippery, snowy table in some 40 MPH winds, near the deck rail, approximately 14 feet off the ground, making his wife just a wee bit nervous.

The second photo was taken the next morning, with the snow blown and drifted up against our deck's sliding door. Yes, the wind did all that overnight -- the same wind that was giving me gray hairs while Joe was standing on the table the night before. (Note that the umbrella remains. It was sticking and we couldn't muscle it out in that wind, despite about 20 minutes of trying. Glad it didn't break!)

After the Blizzard

The blizzard of 2007 came and went with much excitement in the Leone household. Weather junkie Elizabeth watched the radar loop intently while Joe and the kids went for a nighttime walk in whiteout conditions. Our windswept acreage made that more than a challenge, and they got only partway down the driveway. Our neighbor noticed a car in the ditch at the base of our county highway about two hours into the blizzard and, thanks to his snowmobile, was able to access them and get them to safety. When morning arrived and the wind died, we found breathtaking views of enormously drifted snow. We also noticed our neighbor's truck stuck in his very long driveway. This photo shows Joe and Anna Marie, standing on the neighbor's driveway (which runs between the two tree lines). The truck is completely stuck (and he subsequently got a Bobcat and a front loader stuck on the same driveway the same morning), and as you can see from where Anna Marie is standing, the drifting left nothing more than a footpath between the 4' drift and the embankment on the other side of the driveway. (Yes, there is a plow on the front of that truck, completely hidden by the snow.)