The snow has come!  (I'm thinking y'all already knew that)  I'm surprised by the number of people who are, well, surprised by the snow.  Did I tell you or did I tell you?  Are you going to believe me or that lying realtor of yours?

Anyway, count on it being like this pretty much until May.  Until the snow falls on the dogwood blooms, Winter isn't over yet.  Trust me.

To tell the truth, I really don't like snow and never have.  I grew up in Kentucky and we have nasty, slushy, deep snow.  Didn't like it then and I don't like it now.  I spent three years in England where it snows like mad and not only does it snow like mad, but you only get daylight from about 10am until 3pm to try and melt it off, so it sticks around forever.  Didn't like it then either.

When I got up here, I was one of the wide-eyed, "this can't possibly BE" kind of newbies.  Year #2 and I was thinking maybe the first year was a fluke.  Now it's just how things are.  I've talked to people who have lived here forever and although newcomers will always talk about how unusually deep and persistent the snow is on the mountain top, the vets say it's mostly like this every year. 

Walt Tyler will tell you stories of walking all the way to Somerset in the deep snow as a kid to bring the mail up to Grizzly Flats, only to get back up here again and find out that they got the wrong mail.

This is how life is up here in Grizzly Flats for a few months out of the year and you learn to make peace with it and anticipate it and get through it.  Although there is a whole snow survival guide on this site, there are a few things you absolutely have to do or you are totally doomed:

1) Have a four-wheel drive vehicle and chains for 2 wheel drive vehicles.

2) Have a non-electric heat source available and, if possible, a generator.

3) Have plenty of nonperishable foods and a can opener.

4) Keep your car gassed up

5) Have a non-electric alarm clock if you are on a schedule.

6)  No, I don't know anyone who clears driveways.

It is going to snow.  It's going to snow and snow and snow deeper than you can imagine.  Get used to that idea.  On String Canyon, there are a couple of "snowlines."  One is just past Cosumnes Mine Road.  The next is Pearts.  The snow will typically cut off at one of those two places.  Drive slowly and respect the mountain when there are weather conditions present that aren't dry and warm. 

If you are on the mail route, expect that your mail will be delivered with the exception of my friends on Logan's Grade.  I got really hung up there on Thursday and had no luck getting up.  Eric was able to deliver on Friday and Saturday (he's much better at driving on snow and ice than I am, but then, he's from New York, so fuggetaboutit), but I had to try today and didn't make it.  He's going to give it a shot tomorrow.

Another Grizzly Fact is that our beloved snow plows, great as they are about keeping these roads clear, are also ravenously carnivorous when it comes to mailboxes.  They're like tornados too in that they will eat a mailbox and leave one standing on each side of the victim.  It's like Charlie Brown's kite eating tree except that it's a mailbox eating snow plow.

For the record, if a snow plow eats your mailbox, they don't come back and fix it.

Now we have the giant snow plow berms against the boxes, already up to the bottoms of the boxes and extending out into the road.  It's quite an act of flexibility to get the mail into the boxes around those!  Brace one foot on the road, jam the other foot into the snow, stretch your whole body over the wall of snow and deftly pop open the box and jam in the mail.

A bunch of you people have leaky boxes too, just so's you'll know.

If you see me lying unconscious in the road by a row of mailboxes, having been knocked out by one of the snow avalanches dropping from the mammoth trees, please just push me aside with your foot.  Do not take me to the hospital because I have no medical insurance.  Just feed me candy and give me a foot rub and I'll be back shortly.  Oh, and shut off my jeep because it has an overheating problem and by the time you find me, it's likely been idling for a while.  I don't want to wake up and have TWO cracked heads.

So yes, with the exception of those good and kindly folks who live on Logan's Grade, presume that your mail will be delivered more often than not through the Winter.  Y'all remember that stuff at Christmas time when you're putting goodies in the mailbox for your long-suffering mail carrier. 

Stay warm.  Go out only when you have to.  Clean off your satellite dish, dry it with a paper towel and spray the heck out of it with Pam Cooking Spray (Has to be the actual Pam brand) so the snow won't stick. 

Just like the baby who ate the button:  This too shall pass.