Shoveling Snow and Icy Photos

Freezing water

The daily temperature here in Helsinki has been fairly mild / “mild” during the past week, averaging about -2 °C.  Temperatures are about to fall again with lots of snow on the way.  A while ago when it was bitterly cold (around -11 °C) we did an experiment.  We left a plastic cup half-filled with water outside on the balcony to see how long it will take for it to freeze.  We were amazed that it took only 45 minutes for the water to freeze solid.  See the evidence below.

 

Driving up the ramp

As mentioned before, driving in these icy conditions can be a bit of a challenge.  The picture below is of the ramp that connects our driveway to the road.

 

Very innocent looking, né?  But driving up the ramp with a small front wheel drive car like we have, this innocent looking ramp has received a fair amount of swear words.  Last week Dirkie had to make 3 separate attempts to get to the top.  The car simply starts to slide and the wheels start to spin and wheeeee… there you go back down again.  So the trick that we’ve learned is to first reverse the car as far back as you can, put it in first gear, charge up the ramp as fast as you can and then break at the top (or in some cases let the ABS take over).  On another day Dirkie got stuck on the bend turning into the ramp.  So what does one do in such a case?  You shovel and shovel and shovel until the wheels can get a grip.  Needless to say, we make detailed shopping lists in order to avoid having to go back to the shops to buy something that we forgot.

 

Snow shovelling

During the past week we’ve experienced a tremendous amount of snow.  Here are some photos that will give you an indication of how deep the snow in the backyard is.

 

The shovelling of snow from the driveway is one of Dirkie’s daily jobs.  Strangely, it’s something that he actually doesn’t mind doing.  It gives him a good dose of daily exercise and fresh air.  There are two basic rules to follow regarding the shovelling of snow:

• Never skip a day of shovelling snow as the next day you might find it a bit difficult to reverse the car out of the garage and
• even if it has only snowed a little bit, don’t leave it there as it will form ice during the night making an ice skating shovelling dancer of you the next day.

Here is a photo of the two basic tools one needs to shovel snow.

 

On the left is a shovel with a steel spade which one uses to break up hard compacted pieces of snow or ice.  The object on the right we do not have a name for.  It is used to push the show around and then dump it at our designated snow dumping site.

Since 5 January 2013 Dirkie has been shovelling show from our driveway on an almost daily basis.  The process takes about one and a half hours to complete.  The following two photos are of what our driveway look like.

 

Now to show you the amount of snow that has been shovelled since 5 January.  The following photo is of the front of Dirkie’s snow dumpsite.

 

This photo is of the middle of the snow dumpsite.

 

This photo is of the end of the snow dumpsite.

 

The following photo gives you an idea of how large the dumpsite is as well as an indication of the amount of snow that has been shovelled.

 

It has a slight resemblance to Table Mountain.  We’ll inform everybody when a cable car has been installed and when tickets are up for sale.

 

Afternoon walks

It has become a habit of ours to go for late afternoon walks on the frozen sea water and through the streets of Marjaniemi during weekends.  Here follow a few photos of our walks. 

In the following photo one can’t even see the frozen sea water as it is covered by a thick layer of snow.  Alex stands more than ankle deep in it.

 

Dirkie thinks that Alex looks very cute in his winter outfit.  Does he not resemble a certain South Park character?

 

 

One day Dirkie walked by a public sauna.  Have a look at the picture below.

 

When people are all hot and steamy from spending time inside the sauna they head outside and have a dip in the ice cold water.  Even though they look like bright red strawberries when they come out of the pool, it is apparently healthy for one to do it.

This photo is of a beautiful road not far from our house.  Just imagine how beautiful it must look during spring time!

 

We came across a very interesting house.  Somehow some of the snow on the roof of the house has melted and then froze again.  It created a stalactite effect that you can see in these photos.

 

The same thing happens with gutters and wastewater pipes around the house as seen below.

 

The next photo Dirkie took during a late afternoon walk when it was already dark.  The sky was completely open with no clouds present.  What is beautiful is that the snow reflects the moonlight in such a way that it almost looks as if the snow is glowing.  See the photo below (note that no flash was used to take the picture).

 

Our new furry friend

We found a very shy rabbit in our backyard which is probably scavenging for food in the snow.  We’ve only seen him once so the following photos of him (or her) are not of such good quality.  Dirkie had put some bread and dog food pellets outside to see if the rabbit will come and eat it.  But Dirkie can’t find the food again as it’s covered by heaps of snow.

 

We also came across the rabbit’s foot prints as seen below.

 

Snow photos

Here are some random photos of plants covered in snow and ice.  Dirkie hopes to maybe (“wink-wink”) get a better camera to take better and more artistic photos.

 

 

That’s it for now!  Thank you to everybody who follows our blog.  It is lovely chatting to you all but there’s some serious snow outside waiting for some serious shovelling. 

So cheers for now!