FIRST Blizzard

You know the FIRST robotics season is getting close when my snowblower shares garage space with last year's competition robot.  Our team's work space is currently occupied by the Spirit of Christmas, a most excellent organization that helps improve the holiday for those in need.  In that context it is only a minor inconvenience that our robot has to live elsewhere for a month.

Of course when the first (or FIRST?) blizzard of the year slams 8 inches of heavy wet snow down on Wisconsin it's time to shuffle things around and deploy the snowblower. 

A couple of images from what I assume to be only the beginning of a long series of Boreal insults.

Only yesterday I made some wire mesh cages to go around small tasty plants that were already being nibbled by rabbits.  When I dropped these on there was still green grass visible.  Now the poor things look like they are trying to climb out of a missile silo.

But they are doing a damn site better than our front yard Arbor Vitae tree.  This is a grizzled veteran, survivor of many a hard campaign.  Now it kneels in abject surrender before Cruel Elements that will offer it no quarter.