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Well, I probably didn’t sled much, other than being pulled around the yard, which I am sure I enjoyed. When I was a little older, however, I had to beg mom and dad to drive me to the nearest hill, which was the side of the ramp of a bridge downtown. How lucky Mona is she does not know.

Yesterday the village snow-crew was out bright and early with their back-hoe, blower, and a dump truck trying to get rid of some of the snow in the field next to our house. The back-hoe digs it out and piles it into the street where the blower blows it into the back of a dump-truck which drives it away and dumps it in the river.

They only did half the field, leaving us with a nice packed down play area. On the front wall we dug some snow caves for Mona, who is still too young apparently to enjoy the idea of an intricate maze of caves dug in snow. On the back side we have a perfect pitched sledding course with amazing views.

In the photo below you can see the brown roof of our house. peeking up above the snow. The snow there is literally more than two stories deep. I go out every time it snows and dig just enough to make sure it is not touching the eves of the roof, which will break under the weight. I have given up on trying to keep the area in front of the second floor windows cleared.

With a few warm days in a row though, and thanks to the village snow crew, we do get some sunlight into the living room again now. And since it will likely not snow nearly as much anymore, we have removed the boards from the second floor kitchen window, which we put there in December to make sure the windows didn’t break from the weight of the snow.

Hopefully the sunlight in the kitchen will now provide a little warmth to thaw the pipes and we will once again be able to use the kitchen sink.

My apologies to my sister for not taking her and her kids to see the monkeys when they were here. Mona loved it. I am guessing Oscar and Irene would have too. Oh, well. Next time, I guess.

As you can see, seeing the monkeys wasn’t just fun for her, but a bit inspirational too.

Haven’t been to visit some of the other near-by hamlets since we got back two-weeks ago, and Tomoe needs some time-away-from-Mona for study, so yesterday Mona and I made a short trip up to Izumidaira (map), a tiny two-road hamlet just up the mountain.

As you may have guessed, there was plenty of snow-photography to be done. Being a Saturday, there were more people outside, including this couple from nearby Nakano City. Despite being only 40 minutes away by car, and higher in altitude, they rarely get any snow. This day they had returned to his family home, no empty, to clear away this year’s bounty. He wishes he had had time to get out earlier in the year, as the windows you can see are on the houses third floor.

We finally finished shoveling a spot in front of the house to park the car yesterday, and are once again expecting another 70cm before tomorrow. Every time I go outside the front door I am surprised now because without being able to see out the window (snow is deeper than window) it is easy to forget how much it is snowing out there.

The photo above-top is just down the street from my house, the photo above-bottom is the public temporary housing for people displaced by the earthquake last year – kinda like a one-story apartment building.

There have been quite a few accidents this year throughout Japan’s heavy snow region. Usually it is an older person, so being the cold-hearted bastish that I am, I don’t give it too much thought, but a month ago the father of two young children was shoveling the roof of their slot in the public housing shown above, when he fell from the ladder and died a few days later from head injuries.

Just a few days ago a young girl was playing outside (in a different town) when the snow fell from the roof of a building she was playing nearby. The snow crushed and killed her. People blame the grandfather who was outside with her as he, of all people should have known the dangers and known where it was safe to play and not to.

I would have to agree as I have only been here for a few winters and I already know where not to walk, let alone not let Mona play. Then again, it wasn’t until a year or so before we came that they stopped shoveling a shortcut behind the local meeting hall in the photo below, and that was only after two children got trapped in an avalanche from the roof. Lucky for them someone saw it and was able to dig them out.

Tomoe herself was caught in a mini-avalanche while shoveling in front of the house last week. It wasn’t much snow, but was enough to leave her with a sore neck for a few days.

We don’t get out much now, so I only have photos of our trip to the bath, just a few minute walk down the street. Yesterday we took the van though, because the elderly neighbor hasn’t had a chance to go since the snow started falling, so we drove her.

I feel sad that she spends all day, every day at home and doesn’t even have Facebook to kill time on.

It has started to snow again after two days of being pleasantly calm and only a bit sprinkly. We are currently officially at 3.7 meters with more in some place and less in others (12.14 feet). Tomoe does nothing but stare through the kitchen window. If it gets any worse I may have to let her in.

It finally warmed up enough that the snow on our roof slid off. We have been waiting because we want to shovel the area around the house, but have been afraid to go near it for fear of it avalanching on-top of us. Still, it is too cold to completely dispose of the snow in front of our house, so for now we just dug a tunnel to the firewood.

The sound of the snow sliding off the roof is very loud, so we knew when it started and had time to go outside to watch the show. Better than fireworks if you ask me. The only down-side is that it is also fun to be inside the house as it slides. It feels like a small earthquake, but not as scary because we know what is going on. Although, this year is a bit more worrisome with the snow because the back half of our house is very visibly leaning since the quake last April. For all we know the weight of two meters of snow crushing down on it might be a bit much.

We went “downtown” today to take Mona to her two-year doctor visit. We are terrible parents because she is one-kilogram below the average weight range for her age (not sure the nurse has stopped to think that maybe the other kids skew the average by eating too many cookies) and she has minor frost-bite on her feet (she refuses to wear socks and we refuse to heat the floor). The doctor had to really scrape the bottom, though and mentioned her strangely shaped head. That is Tomoe’s fault because apparently she did something bad while giving birth. At least Mona had clean teeth, but I don’t think we get any points for that as the local pre-school teacher’s kid had millimeter thick layer of plaque and scum on his teeth and the nurse said “Don’t worry. That is unavoidable with children”.

The photos are from the village center. The tall white pillar indicates the record for deepest snow in an inhabited area in Japan (it is, of course, much deeper on mountain tops). With any luck we will not match or beat the record this year, but it is always a possibility.

The village has officially declared a winter snow disaster with several meters in just a few days and a few more days of heavy snow-fall on the way.

Tomoe and I returned from a month in the US to find our house literally buried. The front door took an hour to dig out this morning, so luckily we were able to squeeze in through a narrow hole in the garage when we arrived back last night.

Our neighbors had shoveled the roof of the entrance twice, and already cleared away over two meters of snow from the front of the house before another big dump came and left what is seen in the photo above.

The entrance is still not shoveled because there is not enough water flowing through the underground trenches to melt all the snow. If too much is dumped in there the entire street begins to flood and the neighbors are not too happy about that (as I found out earlier today)

I am afraid to shovel behind the house because there is a meter of snow on the roof just waiting to slide off. I certainly don’t want to be shoveling under it when it does. I also don’t want to make a wrong step and end up in our backyard pond that is now surrounded by three meter walls of snow.

All the family has gone back to South Carolina or Korea save Mona and me. Thursday we too are off to Seattle for a week so tomorrow is Mona’s last day with Grandma and Grandpa. Tomoe has been in Seattle for a week already, and until tonight Mona has been extremely calm about it – so much so that I felt bed telling Tomoe that when Mona does wake up in the middle of the night she crys “Elmo” instead of “mommy”.

Tonight, I was chatting with Tomoe on skype and despite Tomoe’s pleas for Mona to interact with her, Mona was all but ignoring. Even when Mona was ready for bed we could not get her to say goodnight or even wave – until I hung up and took her to brush her teeth that is.

Brushing her teeth is always like performing an exorsim, and though I did have a little more trouble holding her down tonight, I didn’t make the connection until I finished and let her up and she rushed out of the bathroom to computer screaming “po-po” (Korean for “kiss”, a word we adopted from my sister’s family) I got Tomoe on skype again and Mona spent five minutes kissing the screen again and again and again. I stopped counting at about twenty-five. Then, when she was done she happily went to bed and smiled and laughed and asked for a pre-bed snack… of broccoli.

More from the festivities.

No particular reason for not updating the blog, other than getting ready to go to, and finally making the journey to grandma and grandpa’s house in Michigan.

Its a bit worrisome leaving home for a month when we had a meter and a half of snow in just the four days before leaving. I was out shoveling for eight hours, but know full well that by the time our plane took off, the snow was most likely up to the roof again. There is a serious possibility that our house will be under snow by the time our return flight touches down.

Michigan has been great. All Mona’s aunts uncles and cousins are visiting from around the world. Its a crazy time at Grandma’s house this week.