Wednesday, January 13, 2016

First Chance To Plow Snow


Our weather forecast called for a possible total of  three inches of snow on the ground by this morning.  Once again we were on the short side of the storm.  With an early doctor's appointment on the day's schedule, plowing began in the dark.  Broken cloud cover revealed stars and a bright planet in the eastern sky.  This scant snowfall was a perfect match for our small plow.  Ready for many weeks, it felt great to be out in the biting cold moving snow with the day nearly ready to reveal itself.


We have seen few signs of the many animals that usually live here.  Apparently the bobcats have diminished some of the population. These marks show that a furry rodent is alive and well.  Mice in the garden is not usually a pleasant situation, but these tracks seem to point to a garden where all is as it should be.


Our habit is to plow widely early in the season.  There must be a clear place to receive future snow.  We also need to allow delivery trucks with ample space to turn around at the top of our hill.  Our reputation for safe passage preparations made no impact on the UPS driver.  Rather than chance our hill, she threw our package on the ground along side of the driveway.  The plow blade rolled the package to the side along with a curl of snow.  After a call to customer service I discovered that UPS has no problem with my package being thrown on the ground as long as their driver was quickly underway.  I'm sorry, we will try to do better would have worked better now I think if I cannot arrange for Fed Ex to deliver future parcels, no more packages will be ordered for winter delivery.


All of the snow is pushed downhill at the top of the driveway.  This keeps our three parking spots open and clears a wide path for propane deliveries.  After several passes were made with the plow, there was sufficient snow to call out the snow blower.  The cleared area is much larger than necessary but the machines have been sitting idle for many weeks.  It felt really good to be out in the crisp clear air actually getting something done.  Had I known a photo was in the works, a high arching plume of snow would have been sent into the oncoming wind.  Both the tractor and I would have been covered with fine stinging snow but the picture would have been impressive.

2 comments:

Beth at PlantPostings said...

Ha! I chuckled about the show for the camera! Too bad about the UPS parcel--that's so frustrating. Enjoy the white stuff! We still have a few inches on the ground here, too--just enough to keep the plants tucked in during the coldest days.

Indie said...

That's too bad about your packages! We haven't broken out the snowblower yet. We have maybe an inch of snow on the ground, but rain is forecasted for tonight. Very strange winter!