SnowBound 2010

It snowed on December 5, 2009. We were excited, since we don't get much snow around here in the Middle Atlantic states. So we took some pictures. But on December 19, we had 30" followed by three weeks of sub freezing temperatures. It finally was on the way out by the end of January 2010 when another eight inches arrived. I plowed and then and left for another country. During my absense, another four snow inches showed up, followed by the promise of another 24" on the Friday I was coming back. That 28" of snow cake arrived and was promptly iced by another six inches three days later. Six storms, 76 inches. Remember, that's Virginia.

Here's the start of it - Friday, December 18. Here it's only two or three inches.

By Saturday morning, we had about 25". The yard tub is barely visible above the Round Garden and Pergola (that's pronounced per'-go-la, not per-go'-la) The old vines hold lots of snow.

Junior schleping around in the snow, when it was still sort of novel. She get's the chore of shoveling a 8" wide path about 10 feet. Then I finish.

All shovelled. This is Sunday morning. I had already been out with the pickup (seems we had a crisis at the mines on Saturday night). The fence pickets are 42" tall, so you get an idea of the depth.

Sunday morning, figuring out what to do about the roof glacier. This was before I figured out my great warm coat and pants.

Using the EF-3 to clean up some ice paving. This was on Christmas eve. The ice chunks were result of three or four days of driving the truck on the snow pack. This gave me practice should I ever have a big hoe and have to remove pavement. Dump Truck is of no use since the ice absorbs gravel and I prefer gravel in the driveway.

A few weeks later. The snow pile has shrunk and the driveway is clear (just the part I broke up above). Note where I store the bucket on the EF-3. This makes it much easier to connect, but dangerously menacing to slipping into the side of some high dollar tuner coming to visit. The front wall is starting to emerge - of all the years to have the coldest, wettest, heavingiest winter.

Here's the third snow storm, coming on January 27, 2010 - this one was six inches or so. Buster tolerates it for about a five minutes. He's tired of it too.

Looking towards the Pergola for reference, as this third storm recoated all that had melted from the December 20 storm.

Storm #4 came the week after the above, but I wasn't here to see it. I had just returned from far away lands for #5, on February 5, 2010, the second really big one. Here, Junior starts pushing the north blow off the porch.

Normally, tractors are fun. But when the wheels slip and the back blade acts like a rudder, its not. Here, I perservere through blinding snow fall. Note the $15 coat and cool snow pant overalls. Makes me feel like Charlie Brown (can't bend at the joints), but I'm warm and dry.

Junior and Buster poke around that evening, looking for the ground. Buster doesn't like to walk around in the snow. Seems to be too much like water.

Evening shot of the garage and its snow wreath. See the little yellow sticks? These help me see where the road is so I can throw gravel into the yard instead of sod.

Another Sunday morning, this time its February 14. Maybe not a full 24" there, but it was everywhere else! I know it was. Maybe it had all melted by this time, cause it may have been a week later.

The house and garage, pummeled by the blanket of air frost.

Here's the Ironman Pickup. Its the only thing that can get around on our flatless driveways. Here it sits after a test drive around the 6.9' wide driveway plow job, a result of pulling a seven foot blade around at an angle. The truck is about 7' wide so it uses its tires and body to clear a trail.

This baby's waiting for Spring - no cold weather driving for it. The Dump Truck likes it high and dry (and warm). It looks better this way too. It'll wait till spring since that's when it gets new quarterly plates anyway.

The driveway exiting to the east. This is where the sharp turn can throw you into the guard rails of the driveway. Its also the place that's very hard to see when plowing. So I put in these little yellow stakes to mark the road. They work better than the rebar ones that pierce the body and tires of cars that can't see their 1/4" width.

Another view of the little yellow Dump Truck, this time with the permanent little red wagon impaled in the snow blanket. Note the road markers on this side also.

Here's a common view. Its on the driveway and front wall pages. In this mode, you can see the secondary snow/gravel storage mound. When we were kids, pop would pile up snow like this. We would tunnel miles and miles of tunnel through these mounds. I expect it was more like a few inches into the base of one. But memories become richer over time.

Finally, we see Blanche and Magic. Here Blanche bogarts the goat house. Magic has to stand outside until its really windy. Then Blanche goes in and Magic has to stand across the door.

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