By the time the wind settled down and the snow stopped falling, it was Wednesday morning - almost 36 hours of storming!
A had had to work all day Tuesday and it took him almost three hours to get home on a drive that usually takes him about 35 minutes. A few miles from our house, a woman in a sedan, a car with NO business being on the road, high-centered in a drift near the airport and because crews had only managed to keep one lane sort of open, the 15-20 vehicles behind her were stuck with no option of turning around. After an hour or so, the town's front end loader came and cleared the way and A picked his way home only to get high-centered at the end of our driveway in his truck. It was DEEP! We shoveled him in so he could get off the road.
The view of him trying to get in the driveway.
Wednesday morning arrived bright and clear so he headed out with a shovel to get started. About 20 minutes into shoveling, our neighbor told him he had an extra snowblower that just needed a shear pin and we were welcome to use it if we could find a pin. A quick (considering the roads) trip to the store and we were in business!
We spent the next five hours clearing our driveway, a path in the yard for the dogs, a path to our wood shed, finishing off cleaning up a friend's driveway down the street, and then clearing the driveway of an older couple two doors down. I had walked by their house a few times and saw that they were attempting to shovel the whole thing by hand and by the time we knocked on the door, they had given up for the day. At first they refused the offer (we've only met these neighbors once in the 7 years we've lived here so they didn't recognize me) but when I insisted on at least getting some of the driveway open for them, he relented. In the end, we did the whole driveway and they were SO grateful. We know he's got a bad back from years as a stone mason and she weighs about 84lbs (but is pretty feisty!) so we were happy to help!
As we were doing that, the neighbor we borrowed the machine from cleared some of the road and all around the fire hydrant. We had already had a visit from the fire department during the peak of the storm due to a carbon monoxide issue at another neighbor's house.
Many people are complaining that their roads haven't been plowed but this was a HUGE storm to handle so we did what we could to take care of ourselves and our neighbors.
This was a low spot they could get around in.
The best part, as far as the dogs were concerned that with no vehicles coming or going, the road was theirs to romps on! One of my neighbors can't seem to sit still at home so he went out a couple of times during the storm which at least put down some tracks for the dogs to run in. Otherwise the snow was over their shoulders and hard to play or do business in!
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