Our first week of going to the gym begins with half a foot of snow last night, atop the 2 inches from the night before, almost the heaviest single fall we’ve had since we came here. It’s beautiful, but we live on a regularly plowed (every few hours) arterial, and it’s moving like molasses in, well, January. It’s going to require snowblowing a way to the garage, clearing enough driveway for one car, and most of all, getting through the berm the plow will have given us last night.
So…..we work this morning, then kit up like a polar expedition and dig our way out before the berm gets worse!
I think we’ll call that exercise for the day!
Try living in Central or Northern Illinois, where son falls (used to be) measured by the foot. Of course, they may not be gone – we had three feet in one storm in February of 2011.
Actually, since the winters have warmed up, my weight has increased, so it is exercise. Just hope it isn’t a wet “heart attack” snow.
For the want of a nail, a shoe was lost, for the want of a shoe a horse was lost…
Remember the pond heater problems?
We took all the backyard-garage extensions rigging that heater to run from the house plugin to the heater because we didn’t trust the garage-side connections.
Our snowblower is electric and requires power cords. SO I shovel my way through a foot of snow to the blower, and discover a power cord coiled at the base—I pull on it. It unplugs about 8 feet into a drift. I dig to the connection. It’s the heater power cord. I’ve just unplugged it. I dig to reach the connection about 20 feet on. Its alternatives are buried in snow, ditto the garden seat that conceals the electrics. I dig my way back and clear the path by hand and replug what I hope I have not accidentally unplugged somewhere among the plantings on the pond berm: if the pond freezes over, I did, and will have to fix that. Meanwhile I’m going to have to rob the front power cord for the back walk to clear the foot of snow from the drive from the garage to the street in order to get to the plow berm, which is turning to solid ice. We’ll probably need picks to clear that. THEN I can get the car out to go to Ace and get (I hope) another hundred foot power cord so I can handle the snowfalls that are coming.
I’m real glad not to be in Illinois when this one dumps there.
Stay warm and dry up there!
I’ve just looked at the weather report here. Rain almost all the rest of the week and into next.
Discovered the sensor or the whole unit for one porch light has gone out, so I’ll have a trip to the hardware store for that, but will need to have someone install it. Always something!
Fido and Fidette have done their jobs—OUR sidewalks and drive are clear. Our poor neighbor tried for over half an hour to get his gaspowered monster to work—it started, but apparently the blades won’t turn: he was out there with a hand shovel casting envious looks at our neat bare walk with the foot-high slice through the snow. We splurged, since we’re getting no younger, and got Fidette this year, and have one machine prepped for the front, one for the back, and our two machines together cost less than that gas-powered one, I’ll be willing to bet. Toro is the brand we have, and I swear by that brand: good mowers, and good snow equipment. Their electric, bless it, even took some of the berm—admittedly a soggy berm, since the air is a bit warmer, but still pretty impressive.
WE, meanwhile, have had our workout for the day. We have a clear driveway, clear back walk, clear berm, and clear front sidewalk to the curb and a little out in the street, so we can at least get the garbage out. That’s a foot of very wet, heavy snow, what Jane calls heart-attack snow, and she says it’s the worst we’ve ever had. I tend to agree with her.
We are forecast to have snow constant daily and nightly at least as far as next Monday and beyond—so we are very glad to have carved that beginning-of-season path: defining the path makes the next go at it that much easier.
I predict your next trip will be to the drugstore, to stock up on whatever your favorite painkillers and muscle rejuvenators might be: Advil, Tylenol, Satohap, Tiger Balm, Icy-Hot, or the old standby, a hot bath and glass of wine 😀 Nonetheless, I am glad you did the do without damaging yourselves, one hopes!
Oh, and after doing my own yard work (no snow, but leaf raking and hacking off 2 dead branches from the front yard plumeria, plus climbing up on the roof and trying to untangle a flag [no luck, it is well and truly wrapped around those guy wires!] then replacing it), I went to take a well-deserved hot shower. Emerged to find my towel had been claimed by Zorro, who gave me the classic “Wot? Boddah you?” local kitteh Look.
I am truly glad I live on this side of the mountains. I hate snow and all the attendant hassle. I love it on postcards and calendar pictures though, but unless I am forced to, you’ll NOT see me dinking around in it, even for things such as skiing. Winter sports have never appealed to me. I’m good for a snowball or two, and then back inside I go! Comes right down to it, I just hate being cold.
Off-Topic: I now have working audio recording again. The new setup picks up *everything*. Still fiddling with audio levels, but I think I’ve got something usable now! Hurray!
Just heard KPBX say we’re getting another 2 inches.
for us, here in John Scalzi land, (west central Ohio), we are predicted to have warm temperatures, and rain through the week. Friday should get up to about 60 degrees (dammit, El Nino!). Then colder on Sunday night and a chance of snow/rain mix, with snow on Monday, but nothing like the day after Christmas or the Saturday after Christmas.
I bought a Craftsman 2-stage gas snow blower in September 2011, thinking that my 200 foot driveway was just too much to shovel, and it hardly snowed! So, this year, I had it in the garage, and thankfully so, because the depths were near 10 inches when it quit snowing the first day. The second snowstorm only dropped a couple of inches. My snow blower has an electric start, but not battery powered, this has to be plugged into an AC outlet, and then you can fire up the starter motor. The idea is that once you’ve gotten the engine warmed up, you can pull-start it fairly easily. So far, I haven’t had any trouble with it after the initial starting woes on Christmas night. Once it started, it was fine.