In Focus

You would think that after living in Minnesota for all these years, I’d be used to the snow by now. I am not. Especially this much snow and the chilly days this early in October.

While the snow is inevitable, I’m much happier if it waits until after the yard is decorated for Christmas. And, I prefer that Mother Nature did not dump several inches of wet, sticky snow on my birthday, which did happen.

Needless to say, any plans I had made for that day were canceled, including shutting down the light show for the night because the yard was buried in the white stuff.

Once I was done with work for the day, I spent several hours outside attempting to clear as much snow as possible from the yard. The jack-o-lanterns were completely covered and the poor cemetery was entirely buried. I could barely see the tops of most of the headstones.

While keeping the display as visible as possible isn’t something new, the problem was it’s only Halloween. In order to set up Christmas decorations, I have to be able to get to the extension cords, that were now buried under the snow. I had to remove the snow all the way down to the ground to ensure I could get to them next weekend.

This was not a fun process. And most had to be done by hand as the shovel was too big for some areas. I ended up pushing the snow out of the yard and onto the sidewalks to be shoveled out. This took a few hours.

While my knees and back still hurt, the sun has been melting the remaining snow, and it’s supposed to warm up this weekend. Thank goodness! Now I just need the icicles to be gone.

This is also the final week of the Halloween light show. The final day will be on Sunday. Showtime is 7-9:30 p.m. on weekdays and 7-10:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. All donations are going to the Bertha Community Food Shelf. We will also have candy for trick-or-treaters on Halloween.

Have a safe and happy Halloween everyone!