Good Intentions

Ya know I had really good intentions at the beginning of the year to post at least once a week. It's now been almost 7 weeks since my last post! Shame on me!!!

When I last posted we were facing a mountain of snow coming our way. We definitely got it and then some. Our first bout gave us 25 in. followed a few days later by about 10 in. I'm not too certain about the second snow total because we had a lot of drifts with that snow. It took just over 1 month with several days of temps in the 60's and a couple of days of rain to finally melt the last of the piled up snow. One full Month people! That's crazy!

The first batch of snow was so deep that we actually hired a guy with a bobcat to plow our driveway. DH and I tried at first to work on it but we just couldn't keep up. I'd shovel in front of the garage and, by the time I finished one car length, where I started would be covered in 1/4-1/2 in. of snow. Just for reference, our driveway is an L - about 5 car lengths long and one car length long, two car widths leading into the two car garage.

After the second snow, I looked outside and decided I could shovel it. (DH had hurt his back trying to shovel blizzard #1.) It honestly didn't look that deep from the living room window. Silly me! It took just over 3 hours with M's help to shovel the driveway. Because of the winds, half the driveway only had 3-4 inches but the other half rose up to 2 feet all the way down the driveway! Oh, well! It was good exercise.

The kids had a blast in the big snow piles, some of which were nearly 5 feet tall. We even created a sledding hill out of one at the end of the driveway.

I have to say that our electricity and road crews were great! The roads were cleared in no time, although, a few mailboxes and safety reflectors were destroyed on the main road near my house. At least a third of the pine trees in our area lost large branches or were knocked down, including right next to (and presumably into) many of the roads that I normally travel. Whatever fell into the road was removed and attempts were made to cut back the fallen trees on the embankments to the edge of the road. Granted some are still a little too close to the travel lanes but it's not horrible. We lost power for only about 4 hours during the storm. This is remarkable since there were reports of people without power for more than a week and they couldn't go to warming shelters either because their roads hadn't been cleared! Why did we fair so much better? For several weeks during the summer, I watched the power company guys work their way down the main road clearing tree branches well away from the power lines. That preparation really paid off this year.

I found out that one of my friends was without power for 5 days. And, like us, no power for her also meant no water since she needs power for the well pump. No, we're not WAY back out in the boonies. Just far enough out to have an acre of land and dependence on well water.

Oh, and my two friends who were expecting- One had her baby two days before the blizzard. The hospital actually sent her home during the blizzard. Insane! The other friend gave birth to her baby girl at 2 a.m. during the blizzard at home with NO power! The homebirth apparently was planned. The blizzard and blackout-Not so much! (It got so cold in their house by midday that she had to go stay with some of her in-laws for a few days.) In hindsight, the choice of the black and white log cabin blocks for her baby's quilt was highly appropriate! Get it-black out, blizzard and homebirth! heehee! (And no, the quilt's still not done. I've been busy.)