We are officially SNOWED IN!

Woe!  When they said this was going to be a big snowstorm they were NOT kidding!  We have gotten about 4 feet by now in the past 3 days and it is still falling steadily! 

Here is what I had to shovel yesterday morning after I had cleared the same walkway of a foot of snow twice earlier.

That is well over 2 feet of freshly fallen snow, needing to be shoveled by yours truly. Oh, yeah! 

See how far I have to shovel, and that is not the half of it.

Yep, that is my trusty, dusty, 4 wheel drive Suburban buried in the snow right there and quite useless as the plows have not come thru.  Even 4 wheel drive cannot take on this deep slippery stuff.

 After shoveling this I have to go twice as far to get to my chicken house and feed the ladies, fortunately the path to the woodshed is the same as to the chicken house but since I had not shoveled the foot of snow fallen on it the day before I had even deeper snow to move! Oh my aching back!

I lost power the night before, no surprise as I am sure all this heavy snow fall has taken down some trees. They get so heavy that the weaker ones just succumb and when these babies fall they take out everything around them. How would you like one of these falling on your house.

With no power (which means no internet) I was amazed at what I accomplished.  After digging my way to the road and to the chicken house I jumped right in and started on my house.  I super cleaned the upstairs, unpacked a box or two that had yet to be touched since we moved back here in July! I swept the entire downstairs, took a hot spa bath (to ease my back from all the shoveling), made a batch of blackberry jam (my range is propane and works great even if the power is off, gotta love gas stoves), stewed some chicken to make a dish with, crocheted a dish cloth, part of a scarf and tested out a tank top pattern than I ended up not liking and quit that.  Phew! Lesson learned.  I am going to have to set strict limits on myself when I am on the internet so I can keep on getting things done.

My day did not get better...the power did come back on at about 2:30pm.  My husband called on his way home from his business trip (which was a success by the way) and was sicker than a dog with the flu.  I told him of the road conditions but did not suggest he not even TRY to get up to our house in his truck.  He has a one ton duelly 4 wheel drive with aggressive snow tires on it. 

At 3:30 I get a call from him, he is stuck 3 blocks from our house in the deep snow covering the road.  I know I cannot get the Burb out to drive down to get him and was completely taken by surpirse when I step onto the road and sink to my thighs in the snow.  I had more than 3 blocks to get thru to get to him.  I was not looking forward to this trek.  I had a shovel in each hand and I had to use one to shovel a bit of a path.  I get a block and fortunately my neighbor had been out and had walked in the snow so I used his foot steps to walk in, the snow still came to my knees but it was much easier than the thigh deep stuff.

I finally get to him and it takes an hour of shoveling, a neighbors help and putting chains on his truck (they were still in the package we had bought them in about 10 years ago, we have never had to use them)

to get him unstuck.  He pulled down to the only parking space in the neighborhood that was plowed and many neighbors were parked down there too, we all call it the Gazebo.  We grabbed his stuff and the shovels and hiked back home.  He blazed the trail and was amazed I was able to get to him thru all that deep stuff. It was quite the adventure neither of us want to repeat.  He headed straight for a hot shower and I cleaned up all the snow that fell off our clothes and boots when we stepped into the house.

Now this morning there is a new 8 inches to shovel and I cannot even get to my studio.  There is 4 feet in my path to it.

My husband is still down with that flu so it is up to yours truly to get out and shovel, again. It is quite the workout and I need it.  I woke up so stiff and sore this morning after all that physical work yesterday but what must be done, must be done. Time to bundle up and grab the shovel!

Ah the joy of living in the mountains!

Pamela

For step by step plans of this little cottage nestled in the snow just click my website button.