Posts Tagged ‘wet snow’
Delayed Escape
I’m still at home this morning. The snowstorm that the weather service named “Lola” created more work than I could complete in a day. And it was miserable work, indeed. On most occasions, I actually enjoy clearing snow. Yesterday was not one of those days.
First of all, we awoke to more than 8 inches of heavy, windblown snow plastering everything. Beneath that coating of white was a layer of slush left from the gradual transition from rain to sleet to snow. All of that rain had nowhere to go since the ground is frozen and once again, hydrostatic pressure pushed water up through the concrete floor in the basement or along the block walls and soaked all the area rugs.
Cyndie said she would tend to the horses so I could get a start on plowing. It would have been easier to stay with her. The wind was ferocious and new snow was still falling. My goal was to try just breaking through with a couple of passes to make it a bit easier to do when it stopped snowing. It was barely possible. The machine and I got coated with a complete layer of sticky snow as I tried blasting my way through the deep drifts with the blade only lowered part of the way down.
After breakfast, I was using a roof rake to pull down the giant drift overhanging our front door and letting Asher play with his favorite ball while dragging his 30’ leash behind him. I noticed he had stepped away from the ball and I called to him to command his return. He gave me that look of mischief, turned, and ran full speed the length of the driveway.
I knew right where he was headed, to the neighbors across the road, where he started barking ferociously at their cat. I needed to trudge through the deep snow on the unplowed road to climb the rise to their driveway and was completely exhausted when I finally reached him. The ONLY redeeming aspect of this angering situation was that I got to visit briefly with our neighbor, Eileen.
Walking the equally arduous distance back in my seething frustration left me too tired to finish shoveling away the snow I’d pulled off the roof. I went in for lunch and waited for it to stop snowing while Cyndie took up the task of clearing the mess of snow in front of the garage doors. Every scoop of the shovel would end up sticking.
It’s hard to plow by the house because there’s nowhere to push the snow, so hand shoveling is usually easier. When there is almost a foot of snow, nothing is easier.
I made reasonable progress cleaning up the rest of the driveway with the plow in the late afternoon. The township plow on the road left quite a thick mess I needed to hand shovel because it was too much for the Grizzly to push. At least the driver was nice enough to be cautious around our mailbox this time.
Looking back toward the barn, you can see by the snow line in the trees how that hill protects from the north wind. The whipping wind had cleaned all of the upper branches, but the lower half of all the trees still held snow.
I won’t be surprised today to find blowing snow has drifted into the driveway again. I’d like to head up north before dark, so I intend to do the absolute minimum of additional plowing or shoveling with that in mind. Best laid plans, and all that… Wish me luck.
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Just Weather
When a long-duration storm is dishing out its worst, there doesn’t seem to be any other news that rises above it. I tried to keep one eye on NCAA March Madness Tournament basketball games yesterday but the other eye was darting between the snow out the window or the radar updates online.
It snowed most of the day but we didn’t get a lot of accumulation until the sun went down. The temperature hovered right around freezing and the line where snow changed to rain appeared to be slowly moving north as we turned in for the night.
Cyndie put blankets on the horses in the afternoon because Mix and Mia were shivering from the wetness and also because of the likelihood that the cold precipitation would change to rain and soak them even more. We leave it up to them to decide whether they want to stay under the overhang or stand in the rain.
I’m always surprised by how often they choose to walk away from the cover of a roof over their heads.
I’m anxious to get out there this morning to see what the conditions are like in the paddock. Muddy, wet, and snowy all at the same time, I suspect.
As they say, we need the moisture.
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Not Waiting
Woke up yesterday morning to a winter wonderland.
It was sticky snow and continued to fall pretty much non-stop all day long.
The stickiness was creating some interesting viewing. One little branch could hold a surprising amount of snow.
The same thing was happening to the cable I strung between two trees to create a leash run for Delilah on the slope of our backyard.
She never liked it when we connected her retractable leash to the pulley over her head on the cable. I think it scared her. Now that she’s no longer with us, I suppose I should take the thing down. I’m sure the tree trunks would appreciate not having that constant pressure on them.
As soon as I finished feeding the horses in the morning, I decided to plow the snow off the driveway in hopes of taking advantage of the daytime warmth to melt new snow that was falling. For the most part, the plan worked as I’d hoped. At least the bottom layer hadn’t frozen solid yet, so that was a plus.
There was so much snow stuck in tree branches that warming daytime temperatures caused large amounts to fall out of the trees and mess up the freshly cleaned pavement.
Because the snow was sticky, I resorted to a fair amount of hand shoveling in areas where I couldn’t run the ATV at a good speed to get the snow to slide off the angled blade. That made for some heavy shovel strokes where the plow had rolled up big blocks of plowed snow.
Based on the weather forecast and the radar images of the precipitation spinning around the low-pressure center of the storm, I will get to do this all over again today! That’s okay. I was well aware of that likelihood as I toiled away yesterday. Everything I accomplished yesterday will be that much less snow I will have to deal with today.
I learned long ago –the hard way– that it doesn’t pay to wait until the very end of multiple-day snowfalls to start clearing snow.
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Rocky Maturing
Caught Rocky giving a few shout-outs yesterday when I stopped by to check if the brood might be turning in early for the night. I wondered if he might be trying to help me out by calling them all in.
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It turned out they weren’t done for the day and the few who headed inside for a short time were soon back out again. Some decided to scamper up the path toward the barn again. That’s my sign to leave them be and come back when it is much closer to dark.
As can be seen in my video, the added overhang extension performed flawlessly in protecting the chicken ladder from the sloppy, wet snow sliding off the roof. We received a serious dose of “heart-attack” snow that was a bear to plow, but it made for great snow sculpting.
To heck with simple snowmen. Cyndie went with a snowchicken.
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If that isn’t enough to show how much we love our chickens, I actually went along with my wife’s accommodating their tender-footedness and succumbed to her philosophy of shoveling a path to the barn.
Ralphie, is that dorky or what!?
I figure it’s just a sign of true love. I risked my heart for them.
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Sticky Mess
Sure, it’s beautiful, but it was a sticky, wet mess of a snowfall yesterday. Today’s episode of the ongoing saga that is our adventures on the ranch involves wet horses, warm winter precipitation, Christmas preparations, and knee replacement recovery.
Who could this be?
Why, it’s none other than our stoic herd leader, Legacy. The wet snow had given his long winter coat a curly design that called out to me for a close-up photograph. I find it interesting that so many of his little ringlets contain a strand of color.
A first impression generally perceives him as a white horse, but he does have a subtle distribution of color to him.
I was walking Delilah around the perimeter of the hay-field fence and the horses were out standing in the wet precipitation in the far distance of the field. The horses are well familiar with our routine of trekking this path and most days pay us little attention. Yesterday, at a moment of pause for Delilah to bury her nose in the snow in search of some potential snack, I noticed Cayenne’s energy kick up a bit toward us.
I stepped up to the fence and invited them over, and to my surprise, they came! It is funny how Legacy reacts to these situations, as Cayenne was definitely the instigator and leading the way, but he makes sure to get right on her flank as leader and protector.
When they have closed the distance, he takes command and steps up to make first contact. The other three obediently concede his authority and stay back a length or two.
We visited for a bit and I took pictures of them. Then it was time to move on with Delilah and the herd responded immediately to my movement by turning and running off through the snow back to the fence line in the distance from which they had come. It was a gorgeous visual, their playful equine energy gallivanting away through the falling wet flakes.
They knew what was on the other end of Delilah’s and my little walk. We completed our loop and made our way back to the barn to do the daily afternoon housekeeping, serve up pans of feed, and refill the hay boxes.
I decided to wait out the falling wet snow before starting the plowing and shoveling routine, so spent the afternoon wrapping Christmas gifts and doing laundry. Cyndie had her last in-home physical therapy session and achieved the milestone of reaching 120° bend on the leg with the new knee. She has completely ditched the walker and is getting around with just a cane.
She went on her first outing last night to a Christmas party of the Wildwood Lodge Club clan, the community of families with vacation homes on Big Round Lake near Hayward, WI.
I can see some light at the end of the tunnel of full responsibility for chores around here, and none too soon. I am exhausted. I think the horses miss seeing Cyndie, and I have to admit, I’m growing tired of being their primary caregiver. It’s a bit much when I am also working full-time an hour’s drive away. Add in the requirement of walking Delilah several times a day and my candle is burning at all three ends.
Happily, Cyndie is active again in the kitchen, so at least I’m no longer needing to pretend I have skills there. The next two days will be a whirlwind of driving to and fro from the ranch to Cyndie’s parents’ house for Christmas events.
I hope I can stay awake behind the wheel.
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Relative Something 