Digging Out - Again!

We got dumped on again - another almost 10 inches of heavy, wet snow fell starting around mid-day Sunday and continuing through the night. These pictures were at my house at about 7 o'clock this morning as I was heading out to clear off my deck.  The top left is my two small birch trees next to the driveway. Birches are notorious for bending under weight, and both of them were sagging under the weight of almost 10 inches of snow. The one in the foreground was almost on the driveway and at 3 a.m. I realized the outside security light was on. Apparently there was a bit of wind that kept the tree moving and at that low level, it activated the security light. As you can see, everything was loaded with wet, heavy snow - clearing all of that off my 8 x 12 deck was a workout, but I got it done.

Jamie came with his truck plow and made a couple of passes on my driveway before he had to leave for work. He came back later in the morning and finished, pushing the snow back with his tractor. It was really too heavy to move the large solid rolls with the pickup truck plow. He likes to get the banks back as far as possible to leave plenty of room for what's ahead during the rest of the winter. I have an idea this is going to be our "normal" - big wet snow drops, every week or so, then probably in January a real deep freeze period. 

We lost power for a short time last night and again very briefly this morning. Apparently last night there was a problem with the power line on Cabot Plain and several people reported seeing the fire - no serious damage done, and the power company got it fixed quickly. All is good now, I think, although there are probably some people still without power. I am thankful every time the power goes out that the boys insisted I have a generator installed. I would hate to think of having to build a fire every time we've had an outage recently - but at least I have wood stoves for backup if needed. However, I don't have much wood on hand, so it would still be a scramble. I still have a backup wood stove in the basement that we never had to use. It's brand new, just sitting there, never even been piped into the chimney, but all we had everything needed so we could do that in a couple minutes and have it going. We heated the upstairs with wood for years - using oil backup only occasionally, if we were away. I always enjoyed the wood stove, even though it was a lot of work and kind of messy. Fred did most of the work - including cutting the trees each winter so we'd have plenty of our own wood to burn. Later on we bought wood - after Fred had thinned out most of the available wood on our property.

Our neighbors, the Randalls have experienced two big snowstorms at their place just below me. Liz sent these pictures taken from their house. No wonder they love it here and come often to stay for as long as possible. That's John clearing their deck, and the views are from their deck. Except for the one of the cows - those are the cattle at Burtt's farm on the way to Cabot Village. I particularly like the one Liz took at night - the same view as the one above it. I'm not sure which storm is which, Liz said the pictures are from both this week's and the one we had last week. Still pretty, and thanks for sharing, Liz.

We received news this weekend that Barbara Pollock (West Shore Road) fell at her home in Arizona and broke some bones in her neck. She was operated on today and is doing well, but will need to be in the hospital for several days. Barbara comes to Joe's Pond each summer for at least a short stay. This is an unfortunate occurrence and she will probably need physical therapy to get everything working properly again. Friends may send her a card at her home address: Ms. Barbara Pollack, 13500 N.Rancho Vistoso #423, Tucson AZ 85755. I'm sure she will enjoy hearing from Joe's Pond folks as she recuperates. 

Drive carefully - not everyone on the road is experienced at or equipped for winter driving and sometimes you have to be ready to dodge them. Roads can be slick and visibility impaired by snow.