Snow on drive with Bean and George on a deep winter.
Snow on driveway with Lil & Frank on a light winter.
Shoveling the barn roof.
Cutting Christmas trees.
Steel roofs are important.
Snow: Love it or hate it, Northern Michigan gets more than its fair share. As of April 3rd, 2026, Antrim County has received 195″ of snow. That’s almost 17 feet! Personally, I am thankful
for the lighter load this year; last season, we ended up with 236 inches of the fluffy stuff. According to Fox Weather, the three snowiest cities in the US with official NWS observing sites this week are Marquette, MI (250″), Sault Ste. Marie, MI (181″), and Gaylord, MI (170″). There are even isolated spots in the Upper Peninsula reporting nearly 300″—that’s almost 25 feet!
The Good: Snow insulates the ground, meaning our soil rarely freezes. I was even able to dig up some evergreens well into January this year. Water pipes rarely freeze here if we get our usual delivery of snow. Furthermore, if you get stuck on the hill leading to the house, you can just grab a shovel, dig along the driveway, and find ample unfrozen sand. By the way, that driveway makes for one heck of a sledding hill: it’s 1,000 feet long with a 60-foot drop.
Deer accidents also drop off dramatically with four feet of snow on the ground; the deer tend to hole up in cedar swamps rather than working their way through the deep powder. Snowshoeing is great in mid-winter, too—just don’t fall down, as it is extremely hard to get back up in four feet of powder! Oh, I almost forgot: when my granddaughter was in elementary school, I would take the Ski-Doo to pick her up after class. In mid-winter, the older kids would even drive their snowmobiles to school themselves.
The Bad: Without snowshoes, you are restricted to the plowed driveway for walking. From mid-December until Lake Michigan freezes over, you might have to plow that driveway every single day. With little traffic on the roads here in the boondocks, you can usually sail along at 50 mph with no problem, but you have to watch out when trailing a county plow truck. The fluffy, loose snow billows up so badly that passing becomes very dangerous. Lets not forget roof shoveling. When I built my house I decided I would never shovel the roof so I built it with heavy roof trusses.
The Ugly: Getting stuck! Surprisingly, few locals actually get their vehicles stuck because most people use real snow tires. Our dear Aunt Bean only made it halfway to the house one winter day long ago. She walked the rest of the way up, absolutely fuming. She marched into the house and let loose on me: “Why don’t you do a better job on the driveway?” She was madder than a hornet. On her next visit to the farm, however, she apologized for yelling. She had swapped her all-season tires for a set of Blizzaks, and her car climbed our hill like a mountain goat, she lived happily ever after!