My family did a similar thing after just a couple of years in Landscatter. Dad took early retirement and we moved to the other extreme - the high sierras - Lake Almanor - near Mt. Lassen, where winter began in Sept and ended in June! It snowed on my HS graduation day, June 2! So we traded sand for snow. I preferred the sand! An in Landscatter, we never got 5 feet of sand over a weekend, just an inch or two on everything!

And Dad didn't invest in a snow blower till I moved out. Nor a log splitter, yet we cut our own wood and used 12-15 cords per winter (big house, three fireplaces and two wood stoves). Character building! LOL

SGE