Enough with the snow

We had 3-4" of snow last night, not enough to use the snow blower so I was out there at a little after 8 AM clearing the deck and then the driveway. The deck is easy to do as the surface is level and flat, not so the driveway. It's gravel and stones stick up every which way to snag the blade of the shovel (or the snow blower) as I work the surface.

Luckily I had positioned the Tundra and the Explorer in the middle of the parking/driveway in front of the garage so I had rather short distances to push/throw the snow. Even so, by working steadily, it took me the better part of 2 hours to clear the whole area and the drive out to the road. Naturally, just after I had finished, the plow came up the road and put a little berm at the end of the drive that I had to shovel out. At least it was fairly light and fluffy and not a sodden mass of compacted slush.

I finished just in time to run out to the post office to get the mail. (The post office is only open from 9 AM to 1 AM on Saturdays; 8:30 AM-5 PM with a lunch break of 12 noon to 1:30 AM during the week.) Got there and opened the PO Box to find nothing but junk mail and bills. Guess I could have taken my time with the shovel.

Getting home, the temperature had risen to just below freezing and the sun would occasionally peek out from behind the leaden clouds, so I took some rock salt out in an attempt to melt the ice that had formed at the end of the driveway and in front of the garage. Later, I emptied the fireplace of ash and cinder and scattered that on the drive, too. Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny and warm for a change, so I'm hopeful that the ice will disappear before Terry comes home on Monday.

Monday night and into Tuesday we are supposed to be getting some precipitation but, as the temperatures will be well above freezing, this should be rain. Right now the forecasters are calling for just over an inch.


Up north at the Bolt Hole things are a little worse. Since I returned from there a week and a half ago, it's done little but snow, snow, snow. Eight inches fell on the day that I left and another 38 has fallen since then. Mark hasn't been up to check the buildings and no one has cleared the drives in a week. The Bolt Hole will NOT get the 50 degree temperature forecast for Monday at the Aerie (it will only reach 40 degrees) and it will likely see freezing rain and ice instead of straight rain Tuesday night into Wednesday. The good news is that's the last serious precipitation on the books until the 10th of March rolls around. Then it's snow on the 10-11 period and again on the 14-15.

Did I mention that the Iditarod folks had to move the start because they had little snow last year? Maybe they should run it from Syracuse to Portland, Maine?