Snow Day!

Snow day! I have been deluged with slush. Tons of slush, all piled up in my driveway in the form of massive icy boulders and stagnant rivers of slush courtesy of my friendly local snowplow driver. I have a special present for him the next time I see him... This photo, taken about 10 minutes ago (it is now 11:15 a.m.) doesn't quite catch the magnitude of the snow boulders left behind when I first saw them at 6:00 a.m. I started shovelling at 6:30 a.m. and shovelled until 7:50 a.m. - and managed to get a pathway done from the front stoop to the road. As "fast" as I could lift up a small load of slush and fling it aside more slush was forming from the wet heavy snow falling hard. It was 34 degrees F and it was raining earlier in the day.

Things are a mess out there. I thought I would be able to make it into the office and so after shovelling I cleaned up and left the house at 8:30, headed toward the nearest bus stop half a mile away. I got about 2 blocks from the house, armed with my umbrella to ward off the worst of the wet heavy snow. I turned around and came back home after my waterproof boots sprang leaks and I got sprayed twice by cars travelling on the roadway much too fast for conditions, considering only 1 lane on either side of the median strip was open. The curb area where I was walking was slush-filled, rutted, running with water, dangerous. No one has cleared their sidewalks yet and walking through the slush/snow is like walking through wet concrete. It took me 10 minutes to go those 2 blocks, another 10 minutes to get back home. Geez! This photo shows what happened to the yugo pine (one of two) that flank my front window - and this is what it looked like after I knocked off as much of the snow as I could. It's much safer and dryer here! It's snowing hard out there, and will continue to do so for hours yet. The worst of the storm is to visit us because even as it is slowly passing to the northeast, strong winds and plunging temperatures are trailing behind. By tonight the reports are 25 below zero F windchills. OUCH! My shoulders are already aching (good thing I have a strong, healthy back and strong legs) from my earlier sessions with the shovel, and more sessions are yet to come before the deep freeze hits. The plow will be coming through again, I just know it, and I'm going to be ready for him... The photo shows the present state of my neighbor's arbor vitae. Poor things!

Now the winds have really kicked up and there is a chill in the air inside the house that wasn't here before. That's a sure sign that the temperature is dropping rapidly outside. Time to change out of my work clothes and back into my shovelling clothes and get out there once again. Oh my, I am SO not looking forward to that. I can hear the vent to the range hood in the kitchen clacking loudly again so the winds are howling around the house.