Let It Snow 3.0
Actually, I have had power the last few days, but I've been doing two things on my winter break, shovelling snow and reading the historical novel Master and Commander. That particular piece of fiction fits with the grunt work of lifting and flinging the heavy snow. I've been working about two hours a day to clear our driveway, widen the narrow opening in our berm...ah but I've used a technical term for those of you who haven't lived in snow, let me talk about bermage (nothing worse than snow snobbery).
Without snow plows, modern transportation would not be possible in snow country. Meaning cars, even four wheel drives, even those with extra ground clearance and snow tires, can only drive in so much snow. Once it gets too deep, you need a snowmobile, skis, snow shoes, a horse and sleigh maybe. And once that beautiful powder begins to settle, pack down from time and pressure, it freezes and becomes very slippery. Ice. It has to be removed for commerce to continue.
Enter the snow plow. These range in size from small-size pickups with blades attached to the front to giant caterpillar monsters with multiple blades, the kind I've seen in Tahoe. Most plows are large truck-like things with enclosed cabs (some of the cockpits remind me a little of the pope-mobile) and large steel snow-pushers hanging off the front. They are heavy. They run tire chains on their wheels and you can feel them thundering down the street long before they get close to my house, that big steel shovel dragging, scraping, sparking down the asphalt.
The county's committment is to plow every road within twenty-four hours, and so far they've mostly met that. I don't know who decides what order the streets get plowed in though, because mine, I swear, is the last to be plowed in my town. It's also one of the highest streets, and shady, and we get slammed. Noticeably more snow than my friends who live just a hundred feet below me. My house also sits on an outside curve.
This is significant because when the plow rumbles down the street, shoving tons of snow onto the shoulder of the road (it would be nice if it could somehow actually remove the snow, but it just pushes it aside of course) the plow creates a berm, a wall of snow. If only a few inches have fallen, that berm might be a foot high. But when more than a foot it sitting on the road, maybe two feet as in the last storm, the berm grows exponentially. At this last storm the berm behind our cars was about five feet high and five feet thick, sitting like a defensive wall at the end of our driveway. And berms aren't the sweet white fluff powder, which is heavy enough. Berms are pressed, chunky, dense ice and snow. Even most blowers can't tackle a berm like that (and I have one little blower, a present from my mom, and it has never worked).
Therefore meet the snow shovel.
The plow didn't go wide enough across the street from our house in the last storm and S wanted me to deepen it, make it easier to get out of our driveway and turn down or up our street (literally of course; nothing in my neighborhood is flat). She said, 'is it possible, can you make that berm go back a ways;' and I philosophically responded, 'anything is possible with a shovel, a shovel and time.'
And indeed it is.
It took me all week to get as far as I have, an open area around both cars (my legacy was buried until yesterday) and a decently wide space in our wall of a berm (with shoveled snow thrown onto it, now probably six feet on each side). Yet my back is beginning to ache. The good news is this is a great way to burn off holiday calories which I ingested in prodigous quantity, but it's tough work. Glad I'm on vacation.
***
And the spooky news is more snow is coming. This last storm was probably the biggest snowfall I've seen in four years, or as big as any I've seen. What is supposed to hit this weekend will most certainly be huge. We could get as much as four feet. That much snow cripples a town. And it must be shovelled; what did Gandalf say when he saw the Balrog, 'and I am already weary.'
Mikey is supposed to fly down to see his dad, which means a drive to the airport tomorrow night, late. That's beginning to look unlikely. And S is working today and tomorrow. I hope she can get out tomorrow morning. Coming home is another story. My biggest fear (besides her actually getting into an accident) is that we'll lose our cell phones. It happens sometimes in big storms, and if it does and she can't make it home after work, I won't know where she is Friday night. Even if M and I stay home, which has yet to be arranged, I would hate to be up here, hoping/knowing she was staying with someone down the hill but not knowing for sure, while the snow drops in feet and buries the road.
For this storm is supposed to be very cold and very wet. Not a storm of the century, but maybe a storm of the decade. The neighbor that used to live next to me had been up here twenty years and the most he'd ever seen come down at once was five feet. Four, even three, is dramatic. Probably, though not certainly, we'll lose power and phones and have to wait (more than 24 hours I'd bet) for the plows to come by.
Then, of course, I shovel!
We have plenty of wood, half-buried under tarps in our yard, probably a cord and a half still of hardwood, and wood is all we really need. With wood comes heat and with heat life. Our wood stove will warm our living room, even if outside temperatures drop into the teens, enough to be comfortable in a sweater (and in this kind of weather, that stove can heat the room to 74 degrees, and it's a big room with a high ceiling). Once that stove is hot, we can cook on it, even melt snow on if if we had to (though the water pipe which froze three years ago is better-wrapped, and I have a torch to thaw it). We have oil lamps and spare oil, flashlights. Lamplight is quite beatiful, and I'm never out of books. Board game and charades are also good.
In the short term, electricity is over-rated. I'd never do laundry any other way though.
***
It is truly beautiful up here now. I've just come back from taking Mikey to school and I'm wearing a gore-tex parka, fleece lined jeans, and baffin snow boots, sitting here in my office at my computer. How zany is that? The snow is so deep in my yard M and I could build a snow cave; we want to, but that takes shovelling and all the shovel muscle I have is going into clearing our drive. The temperatures have not gone high enough since the last storm to melt much of anything, and the trees remain full of snow, though the saplings aren't bent over with the weight as they were.
The sun has not come out all week, and now the sky is thick-gray and still, ominous considering the forecast.
Pray, briefly, that we all end up here safe Friday night. That's the big issue. S may have to stay in p-ville, true. I just hope I have a phone to get the news. M may end up at his dad's, though I doubt I want to come back up the hill Friday night at ten. There should be a foot or more on the ground by then if the forecasters are right. Apparently this is polar express (but they call it something else here) meets subtropical moisture...this means butt-cold air from Canada is going to mix with the Alaskan storm track and moisture from the south. Oh yeah baby. We be slammed.
I wish I had snow shoes of my own. Or telemark skis. Then I'd know I could get out if I had to (though I've never used skis like that, I have snow shoed). It's a little wierd, knowing I'm truly stuck, when the snow is very deep and no plows have come by, especially when the cells go out (we got rid of our land line, but it went out in storms more than the cells). I think of Thoreau, living at Walden Pond, and the things his neighbors in town asked him, 'what if you get sick out there, are you lonely, who do you talk to?' All that. I'll forgoe the ten thousand word philosophical response Thoreau spits out every time he addresses any issue, and stick to what I know: I'll be okay. I've backpacked and been a day or two away from medical care no matter what before. Still, it's something that takes a little getting used to. It's not the cities of so. cal., where everything is always available at any time.
***
Thanks for listening guys. I may not get to post during the storm itself, but if I can I'll try and let you know on Sat. that we're all okay and riding out the white stuff. Today on the radio they didn't say 'blizzard-like conditions,' they said 'blizzard conditions.' True white-outs, where the snow is so heavy and the wind so strong you can't see, even at my elevation perhaps. I already have two feet sitting on my roof; where will the rest go?
Peace. And happy Epiphany.
Without snow plows, modern transportation would not be possible in snow country. Meaning cars, even four wheel drives, even those with extra ground clearance and snow tires, can only drive in so much snow. Once it gets too deep, you need a snowmobile, skis, snow shoes, a horse and sleigh maybe. And once that beautiful powder begins to settle, pack down from time and pressure, it freezes and becomes very slippery. Ice. It has to be removed for commerce to continue.
Enter the snow plow. These range in size from small-size pickups with blades attached to the front to giant caterpillar monsters with multiple blades, the kind I've seen in Tahoe. Most plows are large truck-like things with enclosed cabs (some of the cockpits remind me a little of the pope-mobile) and large steel snow-pushers hanging off the front. They are heavy. They run tire chains on their wheels and you can feel them thundering down the street long before they get close to my house, that big steel shovel dragging, scraping, sparking down the asphalt.
The county's committment is to plow every road within twenty-four hours, and so far they've mostly met that. I don't know who decides what order the streets get plowed in though, because mine, I swear, is the last to be plowed in my town. It's also one of the highest streets, and shady, and we get slammed. Noticeably more snow than my friends who live just a hundred feet below me. My house also sits on an outside curve.
This is significant because when the plow rumbles down the street, shoving tons of snow onto the shoulder of the road (it would be nice if it could somehow actually remove the snow, but it just pushes it aside of course) the plow creates a berm, a wall of snow. If only a few inches have fallen, that berm might be a foot high. But when more than a foot it sitting on the road, maybe two feet as in the last storm, the berm grows exponentially. At this last storm the berm behind our cars was about five feet high and five feet thick, sitting like a defensive wall at the end of our driveway. And berms aren't the sweet white fluff powder, which is heavy enough. Berms are pressed, chunky, dense ice and snow. Even most blowers can't tackle a berm like that (and I have one little blower, a present from my mom, and it has never worked).
Therefore meet the snow shovel.
The plow didn't go wide enough across the street from our house in the last storm and S wanted me to deepen it, make it easier to get out of our driveway and turn down or up our street (literally of course; nothing in my neighborhood is flat). She said, 'is it possible, can you make that berm go back a ways;' and I philosophically responded, 'anything is possible with a shovel, a shovel and time.'
And indeed it is.
It took me all week to get as far as I have, an open area around both cars (my legacy was buried until yesterday) and a decently wide space in our wall of a berm (with shoveled snow thrown onto it, now probably six feet on each side). Yet my back is beginning to ache. The good news is this is a great way to burn off holiday calories which I ingested in prodigous quantity, but it's tough work. Glad I'm on vacation.
***
And the spooky news is more snow is coming. This last storm was probably the biggest snowfall I've seen in four years, or as big as any I've seen. What is supposed to hit this weekend will most certainly be huge. We could get as much as four feet. That much snow cripples a town. And it must be shovelled; what did Gandalf say when he saw the Balrog, 'and I am already weary.'
Mikey is supposed to fly down to see his dad, which means a drive to the airport tomorrow night, late. That's beginning to look unlikely. And S is working today and tomorrow. I hope she can get out tomorrow morning. Coming home is another story. My biggest fear (besides her actually getting into an accident) is that we'll lose our cell phones. It happens sometimes in big storms, and if it does and she can't make it home after work, I won't know where she is Friday night. Even if M and I stay home, which has yet to be arranged, I would hate to be up here, hoping/knowing she was staying with someone down the hill but not knowing for sure, while the snow drops in feet and buries the road.
For this storm is supposed to be very cold and very wet. Not a storm of the century, but maybe a storm of the decade. The neighbor that used to live next to me had been up here twenty years and the most he'd ever seen come down at once was five feet. Four, even three, is dramatic. Probably, though not certainly, we'll lose power and phones and have to wait (more than 24 hours I'd bet) for the plows to come by.
Then, of course, I shovel!
We have plenty of wood, half-buried under tarps in our yard, probably a cord and a half still of hardwood, and wood is all we really need. With wood comes heat and with heat life. Our wood stove will warm our living room, even if outside temperatures drop into the teens, enough to be comfortable in a sweater (and in this kind of weather, that stove can heat the room to 74 degrees, and it's a big room with a high ceiling). Once that stove is hot, we can cook on it, even melt snow on if if we had to (though the water pipe which froze three years ago is better-wrapped, and I have a torch to thaw it). We have oil lamps and spare oil, flashlights. Lamplight is quite beatiful, and I'm never out of books. Board game and charades are also good.
In the short term, electricity is over-rated. I'd never do laundry any other way though.
***
It is truly beautiful up here now. I've just come back from taking Mikey to school and I'm wearing a gore-tex parka, fleece lined jeans, and baffin snow boots, sitting here in my office at my computer. How zany is that? The snow is so deep in my yard M and I could build a snow cave; we want to, but that takes shovelling and all the shovel muscle I have is going into clearing our drive. The temperatures have not gone high enough since the last storm to melt much of anything, and the trees remain full of snow, though the saplings aren't bent over with the weight as they were.
The sun has not come out all week, and now the sky is thick-gray and still, ominous considering the forecast.
Pray, briefly, that we all end up here safe Friday night. That's the big issue. S may have to stay in p-ville, true. I just hope I have a phone to get the news. M may end up at his dad's, though I doubt I want to come back up the hill Friday night at ten. There should be a foot or more on the ground by then if the forecasters are right. Apparently this is polar express (but they call it something else here) meets subtropical moisture...this means butt-cold air from Canada is going to mix with the Alaskan storm track and moisture from the south. Oh yeah baby. We be slammed.
I wish I had snow shoes of my own. Or telemark skis. Then I'd know I could get out if I had to (though I've never used skis like that, I have snow shoed). It's a little wierd, knowing I'm truly stuck, when the snow is very deep and no plows have come by, especially when the cells go out (we got rid of our land line, but it went out in storms more than the cells). I think of Thoreau, living at Walden Pond, and the things his neighbors in town asked him, 'what if you get sick out there, are you lonely, who do you talk to?' All that. I'll forgoe the ten thousand word philosophical response Thoreau spits out every time he addresses any issue, and stick to what I know: I'll be okay. I've backpacked and been a day or two away from medical care no matter what before. Still, it's something that takes a little getting used to. It's not the cities of so. cal., where everything is always available at any time.
***
Thanks for listening guys. I may not get to post during the storm itself, but if I can I'll try and let you know on Sat. that we're all okay and riding out the white stuff. Today on the radio they didn't say 'blizzard-like conditions,' they said 'blizzard conditions.' True white-outs, where the snow is so heavy and the wind so strong you can't see, even at my elevation perhaps. I already have two feet sitting on my roof; where will the rest go?
Peace. And happy Epiphany.
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