SNOW!!!!!!

 Oops – I thought I posted last week – but when I looked at my copy of saved posts – last week's post was blank.

I did start taking the ornaments off the trees – but got sidetracked by snow – plus somehow I am missing 2 ornaments and broke one.

We have had SNOW!  We had about 18 inches, while to the east of us it was close to 24 inches.  This is suppose to be the 3rd highest amount of snow in the area – so those of you who read this and think “2 feet – big deal” will understand.

The storm started late Friday night – before it started coming down the county plow/sander trucks put down salt mixture on our street to keep the snow from sticking as much.  

Per the newscast husband likes, when we went to bed the night before (Thursday night) we were to get 6-12 inches.  Since we are towards the west side of our county and the county west of us was to have up to 6 inches and the county to the east of us was to have 12 and up inches – we sort of figured we would get be getting towards the low end of the 6-12 inches.  Husband falls asleep much quicker than I do and when I checked the weather again a couple of hours later we had been upgraded to 8-12 inches.  He was in a panic straight through the week in anticipating of any snow – let alone this much. When we woke on Friday morning  - anticipated snow amounts from the storm had been raised and our area could get as much as 20 inches!!  He was very upset and nervous.  

When we came home on Thursday we had parked our car as close to the sidewalk as we could so in an emergency we could just clear out behind it and back out of the driveway – this is not easy to do, remember we live on 4 lane main road -  but we do so with our RV – I stand in the street with a walkie talkie and tell him when to pull out.  

It snowed – and it snowed – and it snowed.  We guess that by the end of the storm late Saturday we had 16-18 inches of snow. The general advice on the weather reports was to wait until Sunday to clear the snow as it was fluffy, light snow and would remain same.  After the snow stopped on Saturday we heard a snowblower close by – looked out and a man was clearing our sidewalk.  He went on to clear our two driveway cuts and run the blower one trip through our semi-circular drive – he also cleared the sidewalk in front of the house north of us – and then he went across the street to the one house there which faces our street.  Our best guess is that he is the neighbor who lives 2 hours south of us – we met him once, during another bad snowstorm when he was helping the neighbor in the house between us as her husband has medical problems.  I am am going to mail a note to him thanking him (hope it was him).  

Sunday we went out and cleared the snow remaining in front of our house.  It only took us about 2 hours and husband felt much more comfortable and better as we could easily get out of our driveway in an emergency.  

Since the salting process Thursday night we had not seen anyone from the county come through – no plow – the road on Sunday had one lane centered on the two lanes that actually exist in each direction which had been worn through the snow by vehicles traveling on the road.  

Sometime between when we went to bed on Saturday night around 4 am and when we woke up Sunday (early afternoon) the plow finally had come through.  Both cuts of our driveway now had about 3 ft of heavy, packed snow in them!  

We ate a quick lunch, dressed in heavy winter clothing and went out to again clear the cuts.  We were working at it – using a light duty snow blower,  snow shovels and a metal spade shaped garden shovel (to slice/hit the packed snow and break it loose).  Husband was just this side of crying.  Then a miracle.  In the 30+ years we have lived no one has stopped to help us before the neighbor went through with his snow blower  - a fellow in a pickup trip with a snow plow on the front saw our situation and came to help – he drove his snow plow into the packed snow on one of our driveway cuts – the “exit” side no vehicles parked there.  The broken up snow we could deal with.  He was then going to do the same with the “entrance” side of our driveway,  but -

The plow was coming through again – he was waiting across the street to come back, but someone got out of the plow truck and talked to him and apparently told him he had to leave!  

So the cut we had just cleared had snow in it again and we still had the second cut to clear.  We recleared this cut (and we have to be careful not to block the adjacent driveway of our neighbor, about 2 ft away from ours, when we clear ours).  We then went to the other side – husband pushed our snowblower into the snow again and again and would break apart part of what was there until we able to clear a path through the packed snow that looked wide enough for the car to fit through.  

Well, it is wide enough if we make a left turn into the driveway from across the street so that we come in straight.  Monday he cleared a bit more away from our “exit” cut so we could leave on a bit of an angle.  

More snow might be coming early to mid week next week!  

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
One can only do their best – we still have a lot of untouched snow around the driveway near our house as we did not need it cleared.  

Sometimes “angels” appear to help.