Digging Out!

Ok, so I really love the snow. When other people are complaining about having to shovel constantly during a season of our notorious winter, I am rejoicing and wanting more as my driveway and road in front of my house becomes impassible. Yes, I'm sick! I noticed this morning after a pretty good snow overnight that Herman, my neighbor, was headed out somewhere in his four-wheel-drive vehicle early this morning. Here's Herman making his way down our street.... As you can see it was a pretty good snow last night (and continues some today)! We have been getting some pretty steady snows off and on most of December and now January with the exception of that one goofy Saturday after Christmas where it hit 65F!!! NOT a good day! In fact, it was a pretty rotten day (refrigerator died, water was coming up in the basement since the sump pump died.. you get the idea). But today is much happier and we got a nice snow and I'm happy again. You can see there are some pretty good drifts around our cars! (we have 4 this weekend in the drive - wow! since Aubrey is visiting with us and you aren't allowed to park on the street which prevents the snow plows from doing their thing! - or you can have a nice ticket!) So, you just have to remember the "winter rules" and everything goes along just fine for the most part.

However, one of the "bains" of our winter existence in this area and also one of our best friends is the lowly snow plow operator. Without this dedicated, tireless and sleepless civil servant, we would not be able to get out of our houses and go to work or buy groceries, go to movies, church or do just about anything at all besides build snowmen! This of course is due to the snow clogged arteries over which we attempt to drive after a "big dump". So, we are in debt to this fellow indeed because he lets us get out and buy more groceries! When snows are light, he shows up in a really big truck with a really big blade on the front with which he can clear the snow out of our street. When snows are heavier (like today), he shows up in an industrial strength road grader! Here he is as he goes by.... wave to the nice snow plow driver! :O)

However, as with most civil servants, his presence is not always so dearly appreciated. One of the less enamoring aspects of his job is that he periodically (and completely) buries the entrance to our driveways with his snow plow. Now look at the picture again. That's a shot of him burying the driveway entrance to our neighbor Herman's house. This will no doubt come as somewhat of a shock to Herman as he just drove away from his home a few minutes before our friendly snow plow driver buried his driveway (as he is doing in this photo). So, when Herman returns, he may have a bit of a problem getting into his driveway! If you have a moderately sized snow blower, then you might not mind quite so much this sudden onslaught at the entrance of your driveway. However, if all you have to work with is a snow shovel, a sore back and weary hands, you may wish to greet the poor snow plow driver with less than a friendly jesture as he drives by piling another two foot tall and three foot wide strip of snow across the entire entrance to your driveway with nary so much as a glance as to the damages. Our poor civil servant; so unappreciated! There he is just doing his job and us all lathered up and mad at him for burying the driveway once again that took us an hour to clear out from his last onslaught! I guess greatness in snow removal is just never fully appreciated.

Oh well, for those of us who are sick enough to love snow, we just fire up the tenacious snow blower in our garage and go after the mountain of snow between us and freedom (while secretly hoping that rotten snow plow guy is gone and doesn't come back by our street again today!!!!) :)

Oh yeah, For REALLY heavy snows.... we have this!

LOL!!

Cheers and I hope you stay warm and dry!

Jerry