Relative Something

*this* John W. Hays' take on things and experiences

Archive for January 15th, 2014

Clean Steps

leave a comment »

The snow just kept falling and falling. It also was blowing. I left for work as early as possible yesterday to get ahead of the expected slow commute. It looked like there was hardly any snow on our deck, and they predicted the accumulations would increase toward the east, so I headed west, hoping for the best.

The first thing I discovered was that our deck was a bad reference point. The wind must have been blowing it clean. There was over two times as much snow on the roads in our area as I anticipated. It took me twice as long as usual to get to work. By noon, Cyndie had called to alert me that it was deep at our place and drifting even deeper. I needed to get home to plow so she could get out for an evening commitment.

It was almost too much snow for the Grizzly. As I tried to push snow beyond the full width of the driveway, a fair percentage would roll back down. Just like I did with the diesel tractor last year, I got the ATV stuck at the end of the driveway. Luckily, our neighbor spotted the Griz tilted over the edge and came down to rescue me, but not before I hoofed it back up to the garage to start the New Holland and begin putting the chains on its wheels.

I couldn’t find one of the mating links for the chains, so I was wandering around in a search when I spotted the neighbor uphill from us headed down on his tractor. He would be able to save me work, so I hustled down to meet him, only to find he was headed back up to his place already. I was able to catch his attention with a wave, and we eventually were able to make short work of it. IMG_iP0458e

All that was left for me to do at that point was plowing in front of the shop/garage, plowing around the barn and the hay shed, retrieving the mailbox from the ditch, re-mounting the mailbox again, shoveling to clean up the areas I can’t navigate with the Grizzly, and then shoveling out the front steps.

It was a nice dry snow, so I was able to get the front steps pretty clean again. Unfortunately, high winds are forecast, so I may be doing this all one more time in the near future to clear out drifts that pile up. I took a picture of the drifts on the roof over the front door because I thought they looked interesting.

IMG_3332eMaybe the reason I think they look interesting is because I don’t have to shovel them. I wonder if the gutter company that wanted to start installing on our house yesterday is glad I asked them to wait until later.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Written by johnwhays

January 15, 2014 at 7:00 am

Posted in Wintervale Ranch

Tagged with , , ,