fall snowfall

I went to bed Saturday night to this

Snow. It added up real fast too. That's looking out back of the house. A heavy wet snow at that!
Sunday morning I woke up to this

And this. My lonely clothes rack, getting buried in snow.

And this was a little later in the morning. It finally stopped around 10.
More snow. And no power. AAaahhhhh! Thankfully we were ready, kinda. I'm so thankful for our wood stove. Makes winter power outages so much warmer!
When Matthew went out to milk the cow he quickly realized how much snow we got. 12-14 inches of heavy, wet snow. I was going to drive up and check on our neighbor, and went out the shed door and saw all the snow. Matthew was shoveling to get into the cow barn, and I realized I wasn't driving anywhere. The car was buried in snow. I really didn't want to walk all the way up there in 12 inches of snow, so I instead went to feed the horses, sheep, and check on the chickens, and Matthew decided he would take the tractor up and check on our neighbor and see if she needed anything with the power outages. I milked the cow so he could get going. I had to dump the milk, because we had no way to cool it and we needed to get to church, and with all the snow and moving it around we were a little behind. Just as we were about to head out the door to church our neighbor called and said his cows were out and was wondering if we could help get them in. They were way down to a different neighbors house, which for his cows was a surprise. He has beef cattle and they don't really do that far. I guess with the snow storm and loss of power they decided to go for a walk! Maybe they were confused. It's not time for snow, in my opinion. So Matthew put his snow boots back on and headed out the door to help. The kiddos and I stayed home. I was glad we were home to go and help. Our neighbors have helped chase our cow a few times and have stuck through till she was in, so it was only right that we help. I would have, but didn't have anyone to watch the kiddos. It took them 3 long hours to get the cattle back in. They had them rounded up, until someone drove by and scared them off, back into the woods. So back to square one and rounding them up, again!
The power had turned back on right when Matthew left, and I was happy, but I decided I better get some more water for the animals and the, ahem, toilet! I didn't know if it would stay on with all the wind, and knowing how wet the snow was I figured better be safe then sorry. Boy I was glad I did too. The power was only on for about an hour before it flickered and then went back out for a long time.
We left later in the afternoon to a fellowship meal and hang out with our church family, and the power was still off when we left. On the way to the party we heard on the radio that tons (they gave a number, but I don't remember it) of people were out  of power and probably would be for a while. I was again glad I had refilled up the buckets, and if all else failed we could melt snow in the house by the fire place. Thankfully when we got home that night it was back on! (Matthew had come home and done chores while I stayed at the party, and when he got home it was still on! Phew!)
Then Monday morning when I got up the sun was out and it quickly warmed up to the 50's!! The kiddos went out and played in it and made some snowmen and snow horses! They also deiced shoveling sounded like fun, so they did that too!
Now most of the snow is gone. Just a hard and fast reminder that winter is quickly knocking on the back door and we need to make sure we are ready, and I mean completely ready for it! Yikes, it came fast, and let us know that we still have a few more winterizing projects to do before it comes to stay!!