Lots of Snow!

We now have at least a foot of lovely, light powder on top of a substantial snow base - skiers and riders must be ecstatic if they are lucky enough to be able to get out on the slopes and trails. It is still chilly, but warmer by a lot than it has been, and very little wind today. I's at  13 above right now - about as high as I've seen all day. It is really pretty - trees are loaded with snow, and it is so light and fluffy, clearing it is really no chore at all.I got my whole front deck cleared easily this morning after measuring 15 inches on it. That was an accumulation over the past three days because it was just too darned cold to go out there this weekend with the wind blowing a gale. I decided I'd wait for it to warm up, so when I saw 5 above early this morning and no wind, I knew I couldn't put it off any longer. This is the first time for a couple years that I've had to get out my yardstick to measure the snow. It happens. I think this last storm amounted to just about a foot of snow - the rest was from squalls this weekend.

Here are some photos I took early this morning: top is the steps up to my porch and the back lawn; before I shoveled the deck; and then after Jamie came and cleared the driveway. 

Snow banks are getting getting up there - even though he uses the snow blower to get the snow away from the drive as much as possible.

I have decided I must be jinxed when it comes to computers. It seems every day I have a new problem to solve. This weekend I got a message that I was out of cloud storage. I have put off doing "housekeeping" chores to remove old files, etc, so I decided to concentrate on deleting as much as possible and storing seldom used files on auxiliary USB drives. It was going so well - I deleted lots of old photos and carefully collected precious ones I wanted to keep in a separate file to transfer to the USB drive. After I made the transfer, I decided I should check to see what might be deleted from the USB drive to make room if I needed it, but I got a message that I had to reformat it in order to use it/ I knew reformatting would wipe everything, so that wasn't an option.

So I spent most of Sunday afternoon trying desperately to retrieve the files on that USB drive using AI assistance called "Copilot" in Windows 11.  I tried two different programs, neither of which worked. The  conclusion was that I need a professional help. I've reached out to Seth O'Brien, but haven't heard back from him. The thing is, I had just said to someone recently that I don't worry about losing stuff on my computer because I know it's somewhere - in a hidden file, with a different name, in recycling, or floating in the clouds. But this is different. I might be able to find the files I was loading onto the stick from my computer, but the stuff already there was from other computers, some not even mine, so that is just gone and I really don't know what I've lost until I go looking for it someday and can't find it. 

In the process, I learned that USB drives are notorious for failing. They apparently have moving parts or chips that wear out. I have a lot of files stored on those things - so now I'm going to put all of that onto little SD cards (not the mini ones - they are way too tiny to keep track of!). Fortunately, you can buy special cases (of course) for storing SDs, but I'm not at that point yet - I only have a couple. Each little SD gadget can hold an enormous amount of data so I've decided I'll just give each a number and keep a list somewhere of what's them.That should be fun -- I can't imagine anything going wrong in that process, right?

And so it goes. Stay warm and be safe.