Digging out

When I got up Wednesday morning, the skies were clear and the wind was quiet.  I looked out to see the damage.  This is what I saw:

But you know how we are all a slave to our routine?  Since I was up, I thought maybe if I started in, I could get some of it dug out myself.  It's true, I had several cups of coffee in me at the time and was probably feeling a little bit like superwoman.  After all, the damage was done.  Now it was clear what we had to do.  The problem was, how to get to the snow without smashing it all down, and then, a bigger problem, what to DO with the snow, should I get any of it scooped up.  I opened the garage door:

This one I took because the sun was coming through the snow at the top.  I don't know how well it photographed but you can use your imagination, what else are blizzards really good for?

This is where the snow plows had made the street passable.  Unfortunately, this results, every time, in putting up a barricade at the end of all of our driveways.  Which can't be helped, but doesn't exactly add to our joy, as the end of the driveway will have be dug out many, many more times.

I called the neighbor to get on a list for a tractor to come and dig out the driveway, having quickly abandoned any thought of being able to make a dent in this myself, even with the Grand Finale's help.  I decided to start on the porch.

It took me about 45 minutes to do the porch and carve out a little place to stand at the end, so the tractor driving man could tell where the driveway was even supposed to be when he got here.  It was kind of strange, because I have never, ever seen things so quiet.  A few people ventured out and took in to digging.  I salute them.  They dug all morning long, and about noon, what do I see but this:

Yes, that is my neighbor and his son with his snow moving tractor.  He was poised to make many, many dollars this morning and I was so excited to give him some.  I was not the only one.  As the sound of the tractor came down the street, more people drifted out, checkbooks in hand to wave.  I know it doesn't look like it in this in the picture, but after shoveling my drive the tractor man went back to his dad's driveway and had to cross the yard to get my check.  He is a tall guy, I would say at least 6'2", and the drifts you see here came clear up to the place where God split him.  Pretty impressive, at least to me.  I would have had to try to get on top and try to roll over the top of it. 

What?  Desperate times call for desperate measures, and this is a small town.  I do not doubt he has seem me do far stupider things than that.  We have known each other pretty much our whole lives.  Small towns are accepting like that, and if you don't live in one, you have my sympathy. 

 Even lifting you legs and putting them down was really hard, particularly since you had no way to really know where your foot would stop.  He is a brave man and I salute him.  I gave him a shout out on FB and I am pretty sure it only added to the money he would make that day. 

Don't you just love America?

And farmers????

After some time, mostly trying to decide WHERE to put the snow, my porch looked like this:

Notice the freshly flung snow in the middle there?  My snow flinging was a little too enthusiastic at some point.  So sue me.

And my driveway looked like this:

So we were back on track, except for the periodic shoveling of the end of the driveway. 



Uptown, the center of the streets had huge piles of snow in the middle of them.  Street crews have been filling up dump trucks and dumping all the snow into an empty field over by a creek in the middle of town.  Yesteday I would say they had about the area of 1 block full of snow about 10 feet high.  Pretty impressive, I thought.

These days we have so much convenience in our lives that we have forgotten how to do things ourselves.  the old fashioned way. And I won't go into this further in this post, but it looks to me like there is a whole lot of people who either need to be told what to do, or are content to simply wait until someone comes along and helps them.  Not a good plan, folks.  Children can be forgiven for that kind of thinking, but not adults.  Take time to pay attention and do things right.  Look to the old people. And the farmers, who often are old people.   Quick, think of the oldest person you know.  Chances are they grew up working on a farm. 

Take a moment and contrast the people in LA after Katrina with the people of IA after the horrible flood they had up there.  You never saw the people from IA waiting for anybody to help them.  They all got out and started cleaning up.  Go ahead, google news stories from both events. I encourage you to research and verify, and then decide for yourselves.

I think we are coming to a time where we are going to have to depend on ourselves and think ahead in order to have a good life.  I could be wrong.  I hope I am.  But it never hurts to talk to the older generation and to LISTEN to them.  They know an incredible amount of things that you may think is obsolete.  You thinking that is just proof that you are still in your youth.  Enjoy it, but think for yourself and think to the future.  You never know when a blizzard will come along and shut everything down.  And a blizzard may just be the most you can hope for.

I haven't forgotten

We have survived The Blizzard of 2011.
I've just been too lazy to post again.
But I will.  Probably tonight, if THAT BABY says it's ok!!  And I have a bunch of pictures, which are always a challenge for me to figure out how to put in, but I'm learning.
If not, then soon.  I still have taxes to do too.........
Stay warm and have hope.
......and read a book, for Pete's sake, with all this time off from school everyone should be half way through Little House in the Big Woods by now, by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Blizzard - Seriously

We are having a blizzard.  This blizzard was predicted, prepared for and anticipated madly for at least two days.  The kids came home from school early yesterday and joyously proclaimed that they were not having school today.  Indeed, the blizzard was supposed to start last night here. 

I stayed up until almost midnight reading because I fully expected to wake up and be in the middle of a blizzard.  I marveled at what a difference a "snow day" can make in your life.  We all remember the feeling from childhood of course, but as an adult with a job, snow days are few and far between.  If there is even the slightest suggestion that you may not have to get up and do that same thing at the same time, suddenly everything changes.  Normally I have to drink coffee when I get home in order to stay up until 10 pm, so "tired" am I.  Last night I wasn't tired at all and hated to stop reading even then, but I did because I knew there was the outside chance that the blizzard wouldn't come. Many years of experience has taught me this.  It may not hold true in your life.  I hope it doesn't.  But I do not count on "snow days" until they actually happen.  That's just kind of the way things go with my life.  I 've learned to roll with it.

I think I live most of my life under some kind of deadline pressure, only the deadline never comes.  It's just the perpetual pressure of what I have to do next with a clock ticking, ticking, ticking down in my head.  That needs to stop.  Enough is enough.  Why do we do this to ourselves?  DO other people do that to themselves?  Is it just me?  I know intellectually that there is no "finish line", no "prize", no point at which we will ever be "done", as long as we still live.  But I can't seem to shake the constant checking off of that list and the adding to it. 

So, this is one snow day that will not be wasted.  It will be treasured.  I give myself permission to take a break from the list and the pressure and especially the review of what I did wrong or didn't do at all.

I give you permission too.  

So I wake up this morning, nothing.  Not a thing.  It's just started snowing in KC and Joplin is already buried.  So I figure ok, I'll go to work and stay there till noon or it starts flying, whichever comes first.  Due to the delivery of the new doghouse, I have gotten my car back in the garage, and I am just reveling in the fact that it's inside out of the weather when I push the button to open the garage door and it doesn't work.  See what I mean about my life?  I shelled out the money for a new garage door opener last year and it has never worked right.  The remote almost never worked.  About 1/2 the time you can open it with the keypad on the outside, but most of the time the button works.  Not this morning, but most of the time.  So I sit there and keep hiting the button, which is my technique for things that don't work, and eventually, after stopping and starting repeatedly, it goes all the way up.  I back out the car, have to get back out, hit the button, repeatedly, again, and then have to beat it to make it under the infernal thing before I can even leave to go to work.  I was exhausted already.

So the great Blizzard of 2011 started about 9 am.  It grew steadily worse all morning, cancellations are rolling out of the radio, local law enforcement is advising that visibility is dropping rapidly and basically begging people not to go out, and still no one is calling off work.

I left at noon. I think most people did.  Eventually they all left, thank God, I do not know what time.

What I do know is that we had about 6 inches on the ground when I got home at noon.  If you can believe this, I got the car back in the garage and we battened down the hatches.  I changed my FB status to "let us put on our mother's aprons and cook it up!" and got busy.  I baked brownies, made hot chocolate and got baked beans and tenderloins ready to go for supper.   All this time the snow fell like crazy and the wind blew until you couldn't tell which way it was coming from or going.  We brought in the dogs and attended the Snowpocalypse on FB, ate brownies and watched movies. 

We just went out to check and see how bad it was (and I'm sorry I don't have pictures, but I tried and all I got was a wet camera), and we are officially snowed in, man!!  In front of the garage there is a drift at least 3 feet deep.  There was 8 inches on the porch, most of which I managed to get off.  You cannot tell, at the end of the porch where the steps are, where the steps are.  It's just all snow.  You have to step off and wait till you hit bottom.  The dogs went out and were up to their shoulders.  They had to make it to the street before they could pee! They were pretty excited about it and ran first up the street, then down the street, chased by my Youngest Baby.  He did not have his hat. gloves, or coveralls on either.  But you probably knew that.  The one concession he made was boots, and if he wore them you can bet that there was no other way he could make it off the porch.  He is short on preparation but long on dedication, and between him and me using my meanest voice yelling at the dogs to come back, we got them to come back home.  They had less enthusiasm breaking through the 40 feet of driveway drifted in 3 feet of snow. Never underestimate the effect that the sound of food being shaken in the container  you feed them from.  I recommend using metal container, as the sound carries better through blizzards and stuff.  We are all safe and sound, surrounded by food and many, many blankets.

It's supposed to go on into the night, they are saying.  I don't know when it will stops, but when it does, I am going to have to find someone with a tractor and blade or something to dig me out. 

I talked to my family down south and Neosho is reporting 18 inches.  It will be interesting to see how much we end up with.  I can't see either one of the wagons in the back yard anymore, but with it blowing like this it's really hard to tell how much is on the ground.

Enjoy the blizzard if you are in it.  It kind of makes you feel sorry for the ones who didn't get a snow day, doesn't it?