Life shifted into a different, slower gear last Tuesday morning as winter, real winter (you remember winter, don’t you?) announced itself a little early, transforming Gas Valley overnight with five inches of wet, heavy snow.

There had been no wind. The sticky snow stacked itself thin on every tree branch and twig. Our car and trucks sported big white hats. The clutter of tires, tools and trash in front of the garage were anonymous white bumps. The yuccas were frozen white explosions; the forsythia, ocean waves stopped in mid-crest. Even the weeds and briars pretended elegance, graceful sweeps from an artist’s brush.

The winter storm had been well forecast and came exactly as predicted. Yet it surprised us.

My wife Honey, who suffers from the cold and endures rather than enjoys winter, couldn’t stop smiling at the picture-postcard scene the dawning day revealed outside our windows. The beauty of the snow, and perhaps its reminder of winters past, worked on her mood. She was euphoric all day.

My plan for the day had been to work indoors on the ceiling drywall, and my mind dwelt on that goal through the first cup of coffee. Then I thought, hey, I’ve got to dig us out!

It’s something I’ve hardly had to do for at least two winters. Last winter was so clear and mild that we worked well into January with grandson Bob and his friend Dru to build their log cabin up on the hill. I used the snowblower once, to help clear the pond for ice skating.

I donned insulated hunting pants, a long-sleeved shirt and a heavy vest, dug out my favorite stocking cap and insulated gloves from their place in the top of my closet, pocketed an extra pair of gloves and slipped on my current favorite muck boots. I spent the next three hours clearing the vehicles and re-connecting us to civilization, meaning Gas Valley Road, via my engineering marvel of a 1,500-foot brick driveway.

Walking to the barn to feed the barn cats, I saw two trails of paw prints in the snow, evidence that Pumpkin and Miss Betty had ventured out once already in hopes of seeing breakfast on the way. They are hardy winter veterans. Miss Betty, a skittish neutered male we named when we thought he was a female, was one of a gang of five cats who busted out of our nearby animal shelter. He/she/it lived through at least one winter in the wild, surviving by hunting, before showing up to volunteer as our second barn cat.

Our two housecats, Snit and Felix, themselves savvy outside cats, venture outside in all weather, but don’t stay long in rain or extreme cold and snow.

Our three kittens, Leo, Alexander and Russell who are growing up fast, have begun trying to sneak outside. Honey decided that the deep snow and freezing temperatures would a good time to let them go out, figuring they would be scared back inside.

The opposite happened, of course. They leaped fearlessly into the snow, ready to play in this stuff until they froze to death. We had to snatch them back inside. So much for training them as house cats.

If the forecasters are right, this winter could be like those I remember from my boyhood, when the Robinson boys and I made icy sled runs with our steel-runnered Flyers and dug tunnels through deep snow drifts. My dad had to get up early on mornings like this one to put rear tire chains on his Ford sedan so he could make it on time for daylight shift at the mill.

Gas Valley points to the west-northwest. If there are extreme polar temperatures or an Alberta Clipper’s snowstorm available, Gas Valley will funnel it to us.

I was born in 1950, the year that a Thanksgiving snow dropped 35 inches and was dubbed the Snowstorm of the Century. Tanks and half-tracks from the East Liverpool Armory were used to deliver food, medicine and even a doctor to deliver a baby. My grandfather Fred had to dig a tunnel to the barn to milk his cows.

I don’t expect I’ll live to see another like that, but you never know.