Bob, I’ve never tried snow shoes. I don’t really know what they look like actually. I imagine something like from polar expeditions 150 years ago 
Do you mind take pic maybe?
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You can put them on and take them off easy with the quick release straps. Very handy when the snow gets deep and crust on top with ice.
Bob
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JO. We normally get a lot of snow. Not so much the past couple of years, but our average is 13 feet total and usually a two to two and a half foot snow pack by spring. I walk my dog every morning a few miles when possible and right now it’s mostly up and down our own road that’s cleared. Boring. Sometime in March we get enough days above freezing to melt the top layers of snow which refreezes overnight and for a few hours in the morning you can walk right on top of it. One of my favorite things, especially if the sun shines off the snow and looks like millions of diamonds. Not that much snow pack again this year. It will probably melt down to bare ground in March instead of April, which is the usual total thaw. Anyway after being confined to walking the same route everyday for months the days walking on top is a total treat and we can walk in the swamp when that’s not possible for most of the year.
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Speaking of walking on ice.
When I was a kid we used to have an above ground pool. Being from the South it never got cold enough to freeze it over all the way until about 2006-2008. I walked on the top of the pool thinking it was cool as all get out until it went out underneath in the center and had to break away ice to get back to the ladder. Brrrrrrr had a hot soak right after that.
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I fell through the ice once when I was around 12years old ice-skating we were chasing coots on the ice they like to hang out where the ice is thin.
I know for a fact Almighty God YEHOVAH saved me from my stupidity that day. Skated two miles in freezing cold to the nearest wood fire. Nothing like a hot fire to warm you up.
Bob
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Thanks Bob. Good looking snow shoes.
@tcholton717 Wow, I don’t think we have ever had that much snow. One or two feet packed by March used to be the norm, but on avarage less recent decades. The line of occational thaw moved from a about 100 miles south of me to 100 miles north.
2018 was an exeption. No thaw for several months and the snow piled up. Shoveling roofs was necessary. These pics are 10th of March that year.
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JO that scene would make me consider visiting a tropical beach
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I remember looking at pictures from Norway. The houses were chalet style with a door in the gable. Apparently that was so you could get out when snow blocked the lower level door. Our snow is mostly Lake Effect because we live a little ways off the Eastern shore of Lake Michigan. Bruce gets the real snow. He is in the UP surrounded by Lake Superior. I think he said his average is like 240 inches. We used to get that much every ten years or so. The most I recall was 1995-96. That was 265 inches. 2014-15 was 240. It’s just snow. Keeps me from getting fat.
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Tom,
It’s pretty mellow this year.
Not too much snow this year. Still, I keep the snowshoes and the snowmobile tuned up. You never know when you wake up and suddenly you are buried.
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We are way down again this year as well Bruce. Third year in a row. I guess I shouldn’t complain. A lot less work for me. We got very little in December and had some decent snowfalls in January but it kept melting as well. I’ve never like snowshoes, especially the bearpaw ones BobM showed. With the type of snow we get they sink down and then it’s harder to pick them back up with snow on them. I have them, just don’t use them. I have the old style bent wooden frames with raw hide webbing. The work better in deep snow but I don’t like them either. I just stay on cleared paths. I have heard that the natives in Alaska have 70 different words of types of snow. I can think of about 10 for the kinds we get and not all of them are swear words.
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Can you not take a picture of what it looks like with you now Bruce and Tom, I think it seems unbelievable with so much snow:
I have probably never had over 1.2 meters (47 ") as far as I can remember
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Nothing impressive here this year Jan. We have less than a foot of snow pack right now. Things have definitely changed in the last few years. If you look at Bruce’s chart you will notice that Lake Effect snow comes a few inches at a time but it comes almost every day. Also it comes in narrow bands. Our snows get measured at the county garages. Ours is about 4 miles as the crow flies so pretty accurate for my area. We get more than most in this area. Fifteen miles farther north and they will get quite a bit less. Our elevation is a few hundred feet higher and that seems to make a difference. I’m sure Bruce will agree that nobody in these areas think anything about getting a foot of snow at a time. Two feet? Yeah, might have to do something about that.
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This is 10Feb2022 @9:10.
We are starting to get a big lake effect snowfall. By Saturday we have some feet of snow.
I just got out of the hospital last night, and I don’t dare try and do anything more then sit up. So…the boys don’t know how to run the blower truck. Their solution? One operates the excavator swatting the banks back, and the other boy cleans up behind him with the plow truck.
Our wood supply is strictly in sheds at this point. It simply doesn’t pay to try and get wet wood out of the drifts, if you don’t have to. Wet wood makes tar and corrosion as everyone knows.
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Bruce, My Prayers to YEHOVAH and by His Word Yesuha that you heal up and are back on your feet. So you can take care of the family’s needs.
Bob
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Thank you Bob! It means a lot. I pray that His Will be done.
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I made more wood today, I’ll keep doing this, I’ll probably think about making a cutter that JO has, so it’s faster to make wood.
But is going pretty well now after I fixed it and changed according to what JO said.
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Jan, just remember to forget when things I suggested don’t work out as good 
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Jan; How are you drying your wood in this weather. I see snow on the ground. I’m thinking IF I build another, it might be charcoal because I can make fuel during the winter months. With wood, I can only make fuel in the heat of the sun. TomC
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The boards I make wood from now, are old boards that are not fully edged and that have slightly different dimensions, I saved these this summer in the board storage.
But have made wood on fresh birch as well, I have it in the stove room, have two hot water tanks there that contain 2600 liters (687 gallons) and 500 liters (132 gallons), so the stove room is mostly over 25-30 (about 80F) degrees warm , dries pretty well there.
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