The Blizzard of ‘06

We got about two feet of snow dumped on us in a 24-hour period. If you're like me and aren't very good at imagining the depth, imagine wading though snow that comes up to between your knees and your mid-thighs. We have at least 2 feet of snow on the ground (everywhere), with drifts 3 to 4 feet high in places on our property.

This blizzard did a good job of shutting down most of Colorado. Every large and small city government, school/university, and business east of the mountains is closed. The airport closed yesterday (Weds) and is not planned to re-open until at least noon on Friday. Every major highway in Colorado is closed…I-25 is closed from Wyoming to New Mexico, I-70 is closed from the Kansas border to the mountains, and on and on.
For more snow pictures, visit my online photo album.


Michael and I have been talking a lot about the possibility of selling out and moving to town. We want to be closer to our friends and our workplaces. We like the idea of being closer to our community. However, this blizzard has got me thinking that right now we are living in a community…a slightly different one than the one we've got in Boulder.

When you live in a pseudo-rural environment, your neighbors become your community. Your neighbors watch over your animals while you're out of town, and you watch over theirs while they are at the state fair. Your neighbors grade the dirt road you all share with their tractors in the summer and plow the dirt road when it snows. You pay a neighbor to cut and bale your hay, and you buy stuff from their kids' school fundraisers. You all own shares of the same ditch, and you meet once a year to talk about the hopes for more water for the coming year.

Today three of our neighbors had out their tractors clearing the dirt road all the way to the highway. One of them even helped us dig out our driveway. Michael and I spent several hours helping out another neighbor that needed help getting paths dug to her hay and to all the animals on her property. We know that there are a lot of people on our little street that we can call on if we need help.