It’s beginning to feel as though this winter is here to stay forever? The cold just keeps on coming, wave after wave of arctic blasts that make the simplest outdoor tasks monumentally challenging: snow that follows the waves of cold and keeps folks almost perpetually with shovel in hand or lining up behind their snow blowers. As bad as this winter has been so far, and though there’s no guarantee

There are aspects of winter that can be fun – snowmobiling, skiing, skating, snowball fights, building snowmen. Other aspects are less so.  So far, this is a tough winter in Northern Illinois.  Temperatures have dropped lower than is customary. Though the area hasn’t experienced one big blizzard yet, the accumulation of snow is still significant. And winter is still less than halfway

Ice cakes on the wiper blades leaving wide swipes of slush in the center of their reciprocal path. The headlights reflect back off the large and heavy flakes of snow falling in your path further reducing visibility to a matter of yards and the safe speed of travel proportionately. A drive that normally takes a little more than an hour has already taken three – and home is still several communities