Does Something Smell Like Burnt Toast...?

Up here, 'Snow Removal' means the snow comes along and removes what you have by crushing it.

Almost two months after our series of Pineapple Express blizzards, the snow has finally melted off enough to see the totality of its work--this is the first day I could walk around the small run to see the back.

I must say, it was effective. And notice our next storm working up in the background, there.

The small chicken run it crushed, fortunately uninhabited at the time:

Really did a number on the door and popped it from its frame.

The side...

Yikes, this isn't getting any better as I round the corner...

Urgh...the back of the run.

The way the weight of the snow just...bent and snapped steel pipe is impressive. Tore the hardware cloth like it was nothing, too.

Le sigh...Welp, now to rebuild it from the ground up. We can reuse the door and some of the hardware cloth, possibly some of the steel pipe, fasteners, etc...

Our landscaping took a hit as well, luckily just broken branches. The house rode the storms like a champ, although it does now have some little gaps here and there where wall meets ceiling that weren't there before...

I'll take it.

A Little Time Lapse Of How Things Went...

So New Year's Eve started off okay. Husband at work, the kid and I at home. We'd prepared for the Pineapple Express by stocking up, securing everything, bringing in firewood...

It had been raining heavily for days, everything was a foot deep in water when it began to snow on NYE around 11AM. Anyone who recalls the Walker River CA flood of 1997 knows the conditions were identical...this is NOT a good thing.

11AM. BIG fat clumps of snow! Small run on right has a bit of a bent top from our last snowstorm, but is intact.

Same view, 3PM...Top of small run bending under heavy snow.

Front yard, 11AM...

Same view,  3PM...

Same view, 6PM... The chairs are disappearing and the fireplug outside the fence is gone, LOL.

Midnight! A foot and a half deep and still snowing heavily.

Requisite snow angel is made, second thoughts halfway through are evident.

At this point, the kid and I had our champagne, which had been properly chilled...

 ...and went to bed.

Things got way worse by dawn.

I'm Almost Afraid To Look...

The snow has mostly melted away and the mud has relented enough for me to set foot outside, so off I trot to inspect the damage the blizzard did to our small chicken run.

As expected, the top is toast.

Bonus wild crow on the top of the coop acting as supervisor.

Chonk, the large white Brahma in the foreground and our Head Hen, disavows any knowledge of how this happened--and for once is blameless in breaking this particular thing.

The top was constructed of steel pipe. The weight of the snow bent it like it was nothing.

Luckily, we can reuse the hardware cloth and corner attachments. The additional bend at each corner was in this same pipe, and hopefully the two uprights will spring back into place once we take this part out...if not, we're gonna be doin' us some diggin', those things are anchored in cement about two feet underground!