In like a lion

Okay! I had to go there. I think a snowstorm on March 4-5 still counts in the "in like a lion" category.

It added up gradually this winter, a few inches at a time, but all of a sudden, it seems like St. Paul has an absolutely mammoth amount of snow - especially on my walk tonight, when many of the sidewalks had been cleared and their snow was piled up where grass will sometime eventually grow again. It has been a much snowier winter than last year's, and the last couple of days delivered around eight inches of more snow.

One fun part of that has been watching winter through Wish's perspective for the first time. He loves to trundle through the snow. The only downside is that sometimes when he tromps through loose snow, he thinks it's the exact perfect play time to bite his leash and yank it around. This was pretty funny the first time it happened (and because he obviously won't be reading this, I can admit that I still have to fight to not laugh because he gets this glint in his eye) - but we have to discourage it because he actually can make his leash, uh, less structurally sound. He doesn't do it in any other circumstances, so I have no idea what about the snow brings this out.

Something we don't have to discourage? His love for shoving his face into snowbanks to investigate. Today he finished the walk with his face covered in snow.

When there's this much snow, the scenery on our walks is totally different - that's part of why I love Minnesota's seasons. Today one stretch of run-of-the-mill sidewalk had turned into a stretch of fluffy little meringues.

A better look, minus the dog ears:

Of course, a big snow brings challenges, too, especially when there is basically a scary layer of ice under the snow like there is now. Fortunately, any mishaps we had were minor. My little car got stuck and it took Josh and a Good Samaritan to push me out. In a separate incident, I slipped and fell into a snowbank before work. (Oops.) Finally, Josh slipped and fell on our walk (he is okay) and Wish jumped on him in alarm and started licking his face.

But one definite upside of a March snowstorm: there's less chance of a serious cold snap afterward. It might be 43 by the weekend! It's funny to remember that spring is close - and Opening Day is less than a month away!