Snow- pocalypse

As I said, we woke up Monday morning to between 15 and 18 inches of fresh snow on the ground. And, while the white stuff certainly made for a beautiful picture, enough is enough already!

Looking out to the parking area in front of the Aerie I could view the nearly buried Aveo sitting next to the Tundra.

Vehicles beneath the snow.

I got the tractor running and started to use the front end loader to move the snow off the driveway. There was a wee bit of a learning curve involved. I had looked at the manual and paid attention when the delivery man pointed out the controls, but, never having run a tractor before, found the actual operation of same to be...well...interesting.

First off, let me repeat that 4-wheel drive does not guarantee that you will not get stuck in deep snow. I did. On the first attempt. I had pushed snow out from the garage door with the front end loader but then made the mistake of trying to lift the loader and dump the snow off to the side instead of just, you know, continuing to use it as a plow. Not that that would have helped. The snow, although light and powdery when in situ, compacted nicely. (It would have made one hell of a snowman!) Pushed into a mound it proved rather obstinate in its ways. Trying to back up on the sloping driveway proved futile so I had to park the tractor where it was and get out the snow thrower.

The thrower did a fine job in moving snow about and cleared a sizable chunk of the driveway and the borders of the parking area. But could not reach the edges from the center of the parking area. No problem. It did manage to clear enough of the area immediately around the tractor so I could get IT moving again. (Plus, I learned how to use the front end loader to propel the tractor backwards using the tipping mechanism. Learning curve.)

Once free, the tractor was able to move the snow now mounded by the blower and I managed to clear the parking area. And it proved invaluable in moving heavy, wet, compacted snow at the end of the driveway after the plow finally made an appearance. ( Side note: The tire tracks of vehicles on the sloping road--and the fresh scraping on the trunks of several trees along the sides of the road--told some interesting stories as did the pickup sitting in the ditch just up the hill from us. Why people thought they could get up the hill in anything less than a dump truck loaded with grit--such as the town plow--is beyond me.)

I spend the better part of 8 hours using the snow thrower, tractor and shovel clearing the driveway and parking area. As the temperature rose and snow melted under the bright sun and upper 30 degree temperatures (it reached 41 on the deck)I moved snow and dumped it over the edge of the hill so any melt water would not flood the driveway any more than it will already. I played with the tractor and had a ball doing so. In the end, I parked it and the thrower in the late afternoon sun so the snow on the surfaces would melt off and then put all my toys away--something I seldom did when I played with my Tonka trucks on the sand pile way back when.

Vehicles sans snow.

Viewed from the deck.

Mound at the end of the driveway.
Said mound is over 5' in height.

A view down the road.
Usually 1-1/2 lanes it's narrower now.

Snowy Aerie.

A peek under the deck.
Heh, won't be walking out this way for a while.

We're supposed to have another beautifully sunny and warm day today so there should be plenty of melting happening. Not that that will help at the end of the driveway. Yesterday's melting produced lots of rutted ice this morning and a thin sheet on the road where water had washed out over the surface. I expect that will be the story for some time to come.

Tomorrow we'll start the day with some cloudy skies with a bit of rain in the afternoon followed by--ta-da!--2+ inches of snow overnight. (Or so AccuHunch claims. I hope like hell they are wrong this time.) That snow can lay where it falls, however, because there will be a warming trend and rain (heavy at times) on Thursday with temperatures in the mid to upper 40s.