Article Contributed on: 12/21/2006 1:21:38 PM
Editor's note: Post your own blizzard stories and photos on YourHub.com
Thursday, Dec. 21, 2006
Dear Friends, Family and other Interested Parties,
We are OK here. We've still got flurries, off and on, but no blowing snow. Looks like we had about 3' of snow. We awoke this morning to our neighbor calling to ask if Matt could plow their driveway, as they needed to get out to feed their horses. For those of you unfamiliar, I do believe one of the big reasons we bought this house is that this big brand new John Deere came with it with all the attachments. It's a man thing. However, we've found that for most snows around here, it's easier and much better exercise to just shovel ourselves. Especially since I flunked plow (heck, all tractor functions) lessons. So the tractor was sitting next to Kylie's car in the garage with the mowing deck still on it.
So this morning, our task (Kylie slept through all of this) was to open the garage and shovel out enough room in the driveway to pull Kylie's car out. Since the actual plow attachment sits on the side of the house, we also had to shovel a path for the tractor to get to the attachment. Who would have thought that we only own one snow shovel, which Matt gets, naturally? I take out the garden shovel and now have full understanding as why snow shovels are made with non-stick surfaces. But me and my little shovel worked on. After about an hour of shoveling, Matt takes the mowing deck off, and then the tractor promptly gets stuck in our little path. I'm no help sitting on the tractor while Matt pushes, I kept asking where the brake was, which I think was a bit annoying to Matt. Time to get out the tire chains. Never done that before. Not as easy as it looks. Meanwhile our neighbor across the street has been on his mini- John Deere for hours, plowing away. He's been at this off and on since yesterday with very little progress, but hey, he's moving. We, with our major Tim- the -tool- man -Taylor manly man tractor are struggling. Finally, with more shoveling, backing up, going forward, Matt makes it up to the plow attachment. However the only way to get back down to the driveway is in reverse, with more shoveling called for since the plow is quite large. Well, large if you look at the competition. Just as Kylie peeks out her head to see if we need any help, Matt, plow attached, tractor in the driveway and turned the right direction begins to plow.
And now, I can happily report, in the words of the great Martin Luther King we are "Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty we are free at last." So OK, we can now get down our driveway, the street next to us is closed. Hey, it's a start.
For those of you who have asked:
1. Yes, we have enough food (and alcohol) to make it for days
2. No, there has been no bloodshed or major fighting, but it's early yet
3. Mom, please don't worry about the trash getting piled up, I know, you worry about these things
Happy Holiday's!