snow place like home

So I was standing by this junction, and the traffic light was green, and yet no traffic was moving. Why?

This is why.

We get a LOT of snow here. The snowploughs and removal machines are very efficient, so the roads are usually clear, but they are usually only clear because the snow is shoved to the sides. We get so much snow that it piles up on the roofs to depths of three feet or more. It refuses to fall off. This becomes a problem when the sun shines on it, melting it slightly but not enough to make it move. Night falls, and it freezes into blocks of solid ice, in nice cubic yard chunks. THEN it falls. Often on someone - causing them, we can safely assume, a fair amount of surprise and not a little dismay.

My regular short-cut...

So every so often we have a snow removal week, for safety reasons - this is one such week. Different streets are done on different days - and these are not small backstreets, by the way, they are the main thoroughfares - so as not to cause too much kerfuffle. Everyone pushes the snow off their roof and into the street below, which is cordoned off. After there is enough (i.e. so much snow it looks like... well, like these pictures), a bulldozer comes along and loads the snow into enormous trucks, commandeered from the local construction companies. They drive in a constant convoy, dozens of them, to the river, where they dump the snow.


One benefit of this exhausting hoopla is that it becomes much easier to walk everywhere. Yay for exercise, I guess.

Now let's end on a nice counterpoint to the first photo. See, I understand about bookending and whatnot. I went to college, y'know.

Good thing that sign's there.