I live in southern New Jersey just across the Delaware River from Philadelphia and we received 28 inches of snow. I'm thankful the snow storm happened on a weekend so no one had to leave for work and my DH was home to help with the snow blower. Snowstorms always bring out my baking instinct and after clearing the sidewalk and driveway I baked brownies, bread and made a big pot of soup.

I'm just outside of Philadelphia, in the western suburbs. We too had 28 inches. I was rescued by a neighbor with a snowblower, although I did plenty of shoveling. Today I uncovered my car and dug a path for the mailman to the front door. Yesterday I made soup and today I am making pulled pork sandwiches to enjoy while watching the Super Bowl (American football).

Since I couldn't get to my Sunday paper through the drifts, I read some more of The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint, which I am enjoying.

Here's how it looked in my driveway yesterday, with the path I shoveled before the neighbor with the snowblower arrived;

Here in Virginia, we have just experienced a snow storm "of historic proportions" as our new governor labeled it. As I am on the coast, in Tidewater, we were not as severely affected as those inland. All around us, people got as much as 16 inches in VA with lots of power outages.

It was last weekend that brought us the most snow in 20 years -- over 6 inches, overlaid by ice on the roads. I did not go out four 3 days as the roads were not clear, and got a bad case of cabin fever. (Good weather for cleaning out closets and reading!)

And it looks like we get to do it again!

Vee -- I love the poem. I'm on the opposite coast, thank goodness, but I feel for RPers having to go through these storms.

Wow, that photo is amazing (from someone who has been skiing in the Australian Alps but not seen snow fall there, and had one brief fall while living in Wales).
I hope everyone is coping OK.

dedtired (and I bet you lived up to your name after all the shovelling) Now that is real snow.
People no longer bother to clear their pathways/pavements in the UK on the spurious assumption that they may be sued if someone has an accident when walking on the cleared ground. Of course it is not true but many so-called legal firms seem to encourage these sorts of ridiculous claims.
We also hear on the news that the Winter Olympics just about to open in Vancouver have a lack of snow caused by a very mild winter. I can see a few problems there.

Can someone please tell me in very simple language how to post one of their own photos here. I am technically challenged. ;-)

Vee, as far as I know, you first have to put your photo at a 'photo site'.
I use one at www.photobucket.com. You can then link the photo from there to another site.
Here is one of my sitting room:

{{gwi:2116745}}

I would never leave that room, were it mine.
Astrokath - it's beautiful. Thank you for sharing it. Veronica

Lovely room, Astrokath, if you have any other pictures you would like to share, I would love to see them! And thank you for the poem, Vee, I have used it a couple of times already.

In Boston we missed last weekend's storm, but one is bearing down on us right now. We are supposed to get a foot or so. Woo-hoo! Somehow it is easier to face now that spring is in sight, albeit at the very limit of my vision. Actually, I am home for another week or so after having minor surgery, and with a bad cold to boot.

The Powers That Be are pretty good with snow handling, although we do run into budget problems late in the winter, with local municipalities throwing up their hands and proclaiming the purse is empty and there will be no plowing. Somehow we always muddle through.

I am a birder, I love winter and the change of seasons which bring such interesting birds and wildlife to this beautiful area of the world.

I use Tinypic.com, which is part of Photobucket, I think. It's pretty easy -- or else I wouldn't be able to do it. When I have more time I will write down how I do it.

Astrokath, what a pretty and charming room. I can just see you snuggled on the sofa next to that fire. I can just see me there!

We have another 12 - 18 inches on the way. Now the weather people say it's more likely to be closer to 18 than 12. Oh joy. With this additional snow fall, we will have had the most cumulative snow ever in the Philadelphia area.

I hope the power stays on. I haven't used my fireplace in years and I don't have a generator. I do have a lot of good books, though!

Veer, we are required to clear a 30" path on our sidewalks with one day after the end of a storm. I don't always make it. My street is very quiet and people tend to walk on the street, which is alwAYS plowed.

Veer , after half an hour I managed to link a picture

here the steps you have to do

go to photobucket.com or another one

download a picture from your computer

then click the link "share" that is upon your downloaded image

then click on "Get link code"

then cut and past the address written under "HTML for Website & blogs" in the forum where you want them to appear

good luck

{{gwi:2116746}}

this dog is not mine, I found it surfing the web, he looked so at a loss that I adopted him, since then we've been getting on quite well

grelobe

Here we go again! More snow is headed to Virginia tonight and tomorrow. I'm a four season person myself, but this is a bit over the top! I can recall previous mild winters, when I spotted a snake in January and flowers blooming in February. No one down here has snow tires and no one knows how to drive in the snow and ice. Everything shuts down and we don't have enough salt or equipment to plow all the roads properly.

I, too, am most afraid of an extended power outage, which I've endured before. I do not have a generator, either, and my fireplace is not working.

Right now we have bright sun, but that is, we are assured, only temporary. Here in central PA we got about 24" over the weekend, today into tomorrow another 8-18" is forecast (how lovely to be in a business where that is an acceptable range.) Snow was up to my thighs today when I waded out to refill the birdfeeders before the next storm. But our main roads were clear by mid-day Sunday. This morning the brine trucks went by preparing the roads. Bad news is that most municipalities have all ready exhausted their snow-coping budgets for the year....and we have a while to go in snow season.
DS, who this semester transferred to a new college and has been commuting to the next county over, left this morning with books and laptop, enough clothes for three days, boots, snow shovel, blanket and pillow and an invite to crash on a new friend's couch until Thursday. Residential colleges and universities very rarely close up completely here-most of the students live there, and if the prof can get onto campus they have class. DD and DS-i-L live in Maryland-they got 30" and are forecast for another 18-24" this time. He teaches in a high school-they have been closed since last Friday and will probably be closed the rest of this week. So so glad the epic honeymoon was last summer-he'll be teaching far into June at this rate, and they wouldn't have made it all the way across in time.

Here I sit in the very Southern Tier of New York State with barely any snow at all this season.
We are accustomed to getting the amounts of snow that you poor souls in the south and northeastern coast are getting!
I'd love to have one of those storms here.
We are predicted to get only 7 inches or less.

I'm still amazed at the amount of snow all you mid-Atlantic folks got -- wow! The latest forecast for mid-state Connecticut is 4 - 6 inches, unless the storm path veers north, in which case they're predicting 10. I'm betting on the low end of that range since we've had a mild winter snow-wise. Hang in there!

Astrokath, what a beautiful room -- I love your fireplace!

We are just outside Washington, DC, and are socked in by snow. We got about 28 inches over the weekend, and are getting another 20 or so tonight into tomorrow (it's snowing right now). We lost power for 2 days, and I wouldn't be surprised if we did again! Here is a photo of my back yard from the kitchen window.

{{gwi:2116747}}

I live in central New York and we usually get the major snowfalls, but this winter has been very mild (snow fall wise at least). We didn't get any of the previous snow storm and the new one is supposed to only deal us a light blow with anywhere from a trace up to 8 inches depending on how far north the storm actually moves.

yoyo-DS-i-L grew up around the corner from you-we tell him it is his fault for moving south. He complains that he moved south to get AWAY from this weather! His parents are having the last laugh this year.

Right now it is coming down an inch an hour. It is supposed to get worse. Hoping the power hangs in.

The snow is coming down at a pretty good clip now. I tried to move my car farther up the driveway but the tires just spun. I think i need new tires. My son is trying to make it over here because he has some kind of intestinal bug an doesn't want to be stuck in the house with his room mates while he is sick.

Anyway I use tinypic for uploading photos. Just click on the browse button, find the phto you want on your computer, click on it and it will be uploaded. Then cut the appropriate link and paste it inot your post here. I bet that is as clear as mud.

Here is a link that might be useful: Tinypic

ccrdmrbks..........where did you live? !

( I hate to admit ignorance, but in this instance I must....what does DS-i-L mean? Sorry!!) I will take a wild stab and say : Dear Spouse in Love......OR.....Dreadful Sister in Law !!! I have one of those.

yoyobon: It could be Dear sister-in-law, or dear-son-in-law. It's why I don't like those abbreviations, you can't always understand them. DBF? does that apply to best friend or boy friend.

It is, in this case, dear son-in-law. I know that his parents live just across that semi-major north south numbered route from you because of the bookmark exchange. half-mile, tops.

Thanks for all the feedback re photo posting; I shall shall have a go sometime.
Kath your fireplace looks like something out of an English Stately Home. Is that real nutty slack in the grate?
Woodnymph/Mary sorry to hear your fireplace 'isn't working'
You must hire a small boy to crawl up the chimney to sweep out the soot, place screwed-up newspaper, kindling and possibly coal or wood into the grate and apply a lighted match. It works every time. ;-)
I think snowfall of anything over 10 ins would be very rare in the southern parts of England and Wales, which just don't get that much precipitation. What we 'suffer' from in the winter (and often the so-called summer) is lack of sunshine. Yesterday and today are the first days with some blue sky for a almost a week and three weeks of heavy cloud and NO sun is not uncommon.
It is very cold here at the moment, with temps well below freezing and a strong NE wind straight off the Siberian steppes.
Slightly warmer indoors although the temperature still only hovers around the 50F mark . . . hence many layers of clothing.
How warm/hot do you keep your homes at this time of year?

Home Temps.........

I like to keep my living areas around 69 degrees during the daytime ( unless I am babysitting Precious Grandson, then I must push it up to 72 ).
At bedtime I turn it way down around 60 and always keep a window cracked open for fresh air to blow in on me.

*** Note to the Creator: What great joke have you made in having a cold-seeker marry a I-need- humid- heat seeker!??
The eternal battle of the themostat.

We were socked with more snow yesterday and had Whiteout conditions, with zero visibility. There were major car pile-ups on the roads with power outages. And more is on the way, again coming up from the south.

It seems that this winter, a lot of the storms are coming up from the deep South, to hit the East Coast. A few have petered out before they even reach New England. When they come from the South, I've noticed, they often bring ice storms in their wake. I've never been so ready for spring!

More? Shudder... My husband works for Congress, so of course, he's been home doing useful things like trying to save our evergreens, shoveling out the walk, clearing snow off the porch roof, and most recently, investigating the attic for leaks.

The worst about the storms has been keeping enough food in the house to feed my 6'3" 16 year-old son and his legion of friends who are in walking distance. I'm about to suggest a supper club, to encourage them to descend on other kitchens. It was a real challenge during the 2 days we had no electricity...

Hello, just back after 21 hours without power. Brrr. My house was 52 degrees inside when I woke up. It actually was warmer outside in the sun. There is so much snow on the side of the roads it is like driving through a trench.

I was hoping to curl up with a good book, but instead I was outside shoveling. My son did most of it, thank heavens.

Veer, my family came from Wales, many generations ago. I've been told they were from "the valley". Perhaps a place called Dukestown?

Schools closed for the third day tomorrow. I wish work was closed although I haven't been able to get there for the past two days.

And yes -- more snow on the way next week, but not like this.

We had a snow event this morning (about two inches), but it's all but gone by now. Roads were clear so no probs driving around.

As for the temp in the house internally: we usually keep ours about 68 or so except on one occasion when I came home from work to find my MIL had turned the thermostat up to 85 "because she was cold". It was like walking into a sauna except a lot more expensive.

Vee, the aim for that room was the English house look, which I particularly like. Alas it isn't a real fire, it is a gas fire with pretend 'coals'.

We don't have central heating or cooling, although more and more people do (either reverse cycle ducted air conditioning or gas heating and evaporative cooling). We have a reverse cycle airconditioner which is on the wall in the kitchen/family area, but for most of the year the house is just 'room temperature', due to our lovely climate. Once the outside temperature gets above about 34°C (92°F) for more than a day, we would probably put the cooling on, but we never leave it on overnight, except for that amazing night last year when it was 37°C all night!
Winter day temperatures here are rarely below about 15°C (59°F) so we put the heating on for a couple of hours when we get home from work, but rarely use it during the day time when moving about keeps us warm enough. Our house is very well insulated, although we don't have double glazing, which is rare in Australia.

We have an electric heat pump-pricey now that rate caps have been lifted. We keep the house at 62 during the day, down to 60 at night. Lots of blankets and lap robes and one sweatshirt over another(I have my hood up as I type.) We do light a fire in the evenings if we are all going to be in the sitting room together watching something. Sometimes I bake something just to warm up the kitchen. (I know,electric oven costs money too....)

We got a measly 6.5 inches of snow in Louisville, and the interstates and main streets were brined early and scraped very quickly. Makes a change for us when formerly the attitude was that it will soon melt. Unfortunately, the temperature is several degrees below normal, although we did have sunshine today. It has been below freezing for days now, and more snow is forecast for the weekend.

Vee, our old house was well insulated, but this one, built in 1967 and which we have been in one month today, is not. Plus, it has two sliding glass patio doors, one in the den and one in the master bedroom. What were they thinking? Anyway, I have upped the thermostat to 70 degrees during the day unless DH happens to notice and turns it up to 72. He is on blood thinner and feels the cold. We are also wearing sweat shirts or sweaters. We turn the temp down to 65 at night to sleep. I love my electric blanket.

Mention of double-glazing reminds me that when we went to the UK and rented a house, I had a call from a firm about getting my windows done. I thought they meant cleaned and agreed that the man could come but would need a ladder as there was an upstairs floor.(Not common in my home town.)
The caller said he could measure from indoors, so I thought he needed to do this to arrange a price. When the smartly dressed man came, empty-handed, and I asked him if he needed a bucket....oh dear!

We had barely any snow at all, maybe 2 inches, max. However, the state practically shut down for the day and the kids had a snow day during which it never actually snowed -- we got our few inches during the evening rush hour and overnight and the kids got an extra school day tacked on to June *sigh*

We keep our house at 68 degrees, though what the thermostat says and what the upstairs feels like are two completely different things (the bedrooms tend to be cold, which is fine with me). The house was built in 1949 when, evidently, insulation didn't exist, so even after 15 years here we're still adding insulation and replacing drafty windows. It's a work in progress.

Our night time setting is 59. The house was built in the early 1940's, plaster walls...and we had blow in foam insulation added many years ago, so it is fairly draft free. We could use new windows still in some of the rooms.
Day time, we "fight" between 61 and 63. Active, we are comfortable with long sleeve tee-shirt (though I wear an extra camisole layer)...sitting is a sweat shirt/ sweater for me, and a light down vest for him.

We got about 10 inches, but yesterday morning the roads were good, and our son and his family were able to return to OH (via PA) - the trip that had been planned for Tues.

We had the temperature up a little with guests in the house...my husband was "dying" with the heat. It did get a little hot at times! I am much happier at the 62 we have it today.

What amazed us as we took over care of the house, is that the bay windows were nothing in their base but a layer of wood and the trim framing. So there was about an inch of wood between us and the NY winter.

dedtired, I checked out Dukestown and found that is part of the old iron working town of Tredegar in Monmouthshire, probably so called after the then local land owner the Dukes of Beaufort.
Today the place does not have much going for it after all the closures of the mines and heavy industry. A run-down area of high unemployment with all the problems that brings. However the countryside to the North, known as the Brecon Beacons, is very beautiful in a rugged sort of way, with farms in the lowlands, lots of streams and small rivers, tiny villages and lonely farm houses.
You can read about the general area in the fiction of Alexander Cordell; the best known is The Rape of the Fair Country set in the time of the Industrial Revolution.
In this area of South Wales there are a series of 'valleys' running generally from N to S. The roads follow the same pattern as do the narrow rows of houses. The people seem to have little contact with their fellows in the next valleys to the E or W. It used to be a place of gaunt-looking chapels for a Sunday, Male Voice Choirs and brass bands. And the women rule the roost!
The Tredegar/Dukestown valley is the 'Sirhowy' named after the river which runs through it.

Here is a link that might be useful: info on Cordell and the area.

Oh my goodness, Veer. That is the place and it all fits together. My ancestors on my mother's side came to Pennsylvania to work in the coal mines. That was probably five generations back.

The little town where they ended up sounds exactly the same as what you describe in Wales, located in the mountains in a long narrow valley. It too has seen better days and anyone living there has to travel far to find work. The last remaining small stores are being put out of business by a dreaded Walmart.

Yes, I was told Dukestown, Sirhowy. Thank you so much for this description. The town where my family lived is called Tower City, Pennsylvania. I no longer have family there. There's no reason to stay, but I spent magical time there with my great aunt and grandmother -- such a different place for a young suburban girl, more accustomed to the city.

I would love to travel to Wales one day. In the meantime I'll try the book you mentioned. I have always associated "How Green Was My Valley" with my family's story.

dedtired, below is a youtube clip of Tredegar people talking about the National Health service; recorded a couple of years ago. The system came into being in 1948 and their then local MP (Aneurin Bevan) had been responsible for getting the Act through Parliament.
This is just to give you all an idea of what the people from the South Wales valleys sound like, although, to American ears you may find their thoughts on the Welfare State equally interesting. ;-)

detired, if you email me through the garden web site I can give you some more information.

Here is a link that might be useful: Tredegar Voices

Thank you, Veer. I would say whether or not I agree with what they are saying but I can barely understand them. Ironically there is a place called Pam's Cafe in one picture, (you can see it over a woman's shoulder) and my name is Pam.

Very interesting to hear them! A woman at work is originally from Wales and speaks Welsh, which I love to hear. There are many Welsh place names where I live -- Bryn Mawr, Tredyffrin, Bala Cynwyd, Llanfair, Uwchlan and more.

There are parts of PA that have very strong accents and I have to listen closely to understand them. It is mostly a Pennsylvania Dutch (German, from Deutsch) accent.

This has been fun to learn about my ancestoral home (well, the Welsh one, as I also am German and Polish on my father's side).

The weather here remains very cold and now we may have even more snow.