Last Snowfall Ever, For Our Gazebo

To quote some old poet (Amadeus?? Nipsy Russell?), “what fools we mortals be…”

Believing that even by Canadian standards, mid-April meant an end to winter, we foolishly chose to erect our backyard gazebo. There was an entire week of +20°C here in Calgary – we even managed to squeeze in a little barbecue one sunny afternoon.

Sure, there were still light snowfalls, as you can see from the pictures I posted a few days ago. Mrs. That Dan Guy and I got a big kick out of the snow gathered on the top of our Tiki torches.

Then, the weather turned. Back to what might be considered normal for a Canadian prairie town, even when the calendar indicates that it’s almost May. We got a blizzard.

A blizzard of record-setting proportions. And frankly, I don’t care if that’s not a nice way to describe a blizzard – not after what it did to our poor gazebo.

This blizzard raged overnight, but managed to wreak the most damage early yesterday morning. That’s when it dumped over a litre of snow on the canvas roof of our humble cabana.

Wait – that doesn’t sound right. Aren’t pop bottles about a litre?? Curse my lack of general metric knowledge…

At any rate, this aggressive blizzard dumped heavy, slushy snow, with a texture similar to wet cement, just before it hardens for all of eternity. The flimsy roof structure was no match, folding like a shrewd poker player holding a two and a seven off-suit. We were now the proud owners of a gazebo with a retractable roof. Although Humpty Dumpty’s horsemen gave it one look, laughed profusely, and galloped away without even quoting on putting it back together again.

As you can tell by the pictures, we’ll spend this weekend dismantling the deceased mosquito shelter.

If we ever decide to replace it, it’ll be a frosty Friday in August before we ever erect it before…well, August.

And a frosty Friday in Canada is always a distinct possibility…

Chow for now!!