Old Man Winter Says Hello!

Blue Hill City employees have been busy clearing snow from streets today as Old Man winter has arrived in Nebraska a couple weeks before his official day of December 21st. Following the city's snow plow's dash through the streets locals residents have gotten their tractors and snow blowers out and removed piles of snow from driveways and walkway. Three to four foot piles of snow are seen everywhere. Local youngsters (and some not so young) with snow shovels have also been seen removing snow in front of doors and on sidewalks. One local teen stated that he has never in his life seen snow pile up like what he is seeing here in Blue Hill today. Older residents can remember this kind of snow storm but not in recent years. With Nebraska temperatures forecast to remain in the single digits for the next several days the snow will undoubtedly be with us for a while and a white Christmas will remind us of Christmas's past. Today's high is forecast to be 5. The local televsions stations have lists of closing scrolling across the screen constantly, from schools to banks, to day care and church programs. Old Man winter has slowed us all down. This area of Nebraska received the 12 inches of new snow predicted following the 4 inches the day before. Snow fell pretty level until early evening when the winds began to blow, by morning the whole landscape had changed with snow lying across the lawns in waves, sculpted by 40 mile an hour gusts. With bare lawn on one side of the house and waist high drifts on the other, maybe soon we will be seeing snowmen and snow angels that we haven't seen in recent years but were part of winter and snowstorms past. Reports were heard yesterday of a semi truck transporting a load of corn mash rolling over onits side on highway 281 at the 14 mile corner south of Blue Hill , the driver was not seriously hurt. The Blue Hill fire department was alerted. It took about three hours for the highway department to get the truck and it's contents cleared off the highway to make it safe for travel again . Highway 136 at Red Cloud was closed due to snow yesterday. Readers are invited to post their memories of winters past and share those experiences with others.