Terry and I woke up this morning to the sound of rain drumming on the roof. That was a most welcome sound as when we went to bed last night it was supposed to be snow. It was a sound that made you want to just spend the morning lazing beneath the comforter but, unfortunately, Chester was on the other side of the bedroom door insisting we get the hell up and feed him, and, by the way, Julie and Shadow too.
We had to get up anyway since we were expecting a delivery of some furniture form Raymore and Flanagan this morning. Terry has been harping about the need for a hutch in the dining area so she can put her teapots on display and I finally caved to her demands and told her to do some shopping while she was up in Horseheads earlier in the week. She picked out a nice craftsman style hutch and, since it was a floor model and they don't usually deliver floor models, a craftsman style hunt table for the foyer as well. (There goes our tax return!)
Arrangements were made for delivery today and the store called to confirm that the truck would be here between 9 and 11 AM. Due to a cancellation, they pulled in the driveway around 8 AM.
Our driveway is not the easiest to get into or out of with a large truck such as they had. The drive forms a fairly tight Y with the road with the point aimed up the hill while most traffic comes from down the hill where Route 6 is located. The deliverymen made the correct choice of driving past the driveway and then backing in to the house. The process of unloading and moving the furniture indoors went smoothly enough. While they were doing so we asked what the weather was like up in NY State. (Horseheads is just on the north side of Elmira on Route 17.) The response was that it was hellish. They had around 6 inches of heavy wet snow with some freezing rain mixed in and figured they would find the same here. Coming down Route 15, however, they were pleasantly surprised to find nothing but rain on the PA side of the border.
Anyway, they got the hutch and table in the house and headed out to their next stop.
They didn't get far. The driver tried to make the sharp turn to head down the hill at the end of the driveway and didn't swing wide enough to accomplish his goal. Then, when he tried to back up as if to make a K-turn, he buried his tires in the mud at the end of the drive and grounded his platform lift in the driveway itself. He was stuck. He couldn't back up and he had nowhere to go forward as a tree was 4 inches in front of his hood.
I went out with the Tundra to see if I could pull him out of his predicament but it was no use. I couldn't pull him straight back as there was only the width of the driveway before there is a stone hillside. I tried dragging his ass end to the side but again had no luck. His tires were buried in deep grooves and I was trying to pull him up the hill to boot. We tried digging the tires out only to find that beneath the soft muddy clay and stone there was still lots of ice. (The combination of wet clay, loose stone and ice made my attempts at towing near impossible as I could get no traction.) The only hope was to get a tow truck up here from Mansfield. If I knew my neighbors better, I could have seen about getting a tractor to pull on the front end of the truck, but....
When the truck arrived it was on the downhill side of the R & F truck and was able to hook up to the front end and slide it down hill until it was near the middle of the road again. At 10 AM they were free to go to their next delivery. What was supposed to be a quick in-and-out became a two hour affair. During the entire time they were blocking the road (nearly 2 hours) not one vehicle attempted to go up or down the road. Aaah, rural living!
Terry had a club meeting at the Bradford County Library she wanted to attend but was stuck in the house during all this since the end of the driveway was pretty well occupied. As soon as things were cleared, however, ziiiip! she was gone with only a caution to me that there was something in the wood stove in the basement.
A starling had come down the chimney, despite the spark arrester at the top, and was keeping the cats entertained. Feeling magnanimous, I released it to the outdoors unharmed. (We had two do the same thing last spring and I wasn't so gentle with the second. Should this or another show up again....)
New sign of spring: We have had a Purple Finch showing up at the feeders with the freeloading Redpolls.
No comments:
Post a Comment