Snow and more snow…
While hardly a record breaking amount, we have had more snowfall than we are accustomed to. We have far more than we are amused by. Gary and I purchased a snowblower last winter, and used it ONCE, just for fun, and this season it has been invaluable.
Gary worked for hours yesterday… 4 or 5 or more, clearing paths and kennels and part of the driveway. Our neighbour very kindly ploughed the rest of the driveway with his big tractor. The snow really never stopped falling all day and night.
Except for our dinner out in town on Monday night (which was mediocre, except for the atmosphere and company), I hadn’t been away from home for days. This morning I was VERY keen to get to McBride for mail, groceries, drinking water, and to do laundry. I felt overdue to visit whichever friends I could find at the coffee shop. When I took a look at our driveway, I thought, “That’s not so bad!”… and proudly announced to Gary that I didn’t think I’d have any trouble getting out.
As I left the yard in my trusty 4 wheel drive truck, I hesitated as I looked down our road… there were sizeable DRIFTS down there. Soon, however, I was past the point of “no return” and, though I was trying to pick up speed to blast through those drifts, I eventually found myself thoroughly bogged down in heavy snow.
I was only a few yards from the end of the driveway, but the snow was very deep, and Gary determined that we could more easily shovel the truck out in order to BACK back up the driveway. I was all for just waiting for help: waiting until our neighbour could just PULL the beast through the last drift. I walked back up to the house and couldn’t get an answer at the neighbour’s, so we just shovelled, and shovelled and shovelled.
Finally, after a few attempts and even more shovelling, Gary hopped into my truck, and suggested, “Why don’t you get in the back.”. I had noticed that we didn’t have the lengths of railway “rail” in the back for weight, and you know where this is going, don’t you? It was I who provided a wee bit more weight for traction. Okay… not such a wee bit. It was unnerving to ride back there as the the truck careened backwards, up the hill, through the drifts that I had just run through, but Gary’s expert driving saved the day. We finally got up the hill, and now the truck is out of the way for the snowblower and neighbour’s tractor… and I’m housebound again. This will be temporary, and probably some time today, I’ll be able to get to town.
I’ve been in the Robson Valley for almost thirty years. We used to have a lot more snow every winter; a few times at the farm in Dunster I even trudged in snowshoes over the tops of the fences in order to feed cows their square bales. I did so with baby in the backpack, and it didn’t even seem a hardship. NOW when we get even 2 feet of snow in a short time, as we have this week, it seems a huge inconvenience. We used to say that we got 4 to 6 feet of snow normally; also we didn’t have so many occasions when it all melted away, which it seems to these past few years.
Yesterday I spent many hours sorting photographs, but to say that they ended up “sorted” would be a stretch. I smiled and cried and shuffled pictures, but what a job it was, and often hard to categorize the images. Are they sorted as to which child is in which or vacation (of which there were few) or location or occasion? I owe my ex-husband these, or copies of these, but the task is absolutely daunting. I gave him the negatives of these, all in a jumble worse than the mess of photographs themselves, and I have a measure of guilt. We’ve ordered a new scanner as the old one has mysteriously quit working since its last use. I need more “hibernation” time, which is not for sleeping and reflection, but for paperwork, taxes, reading, sewing and such. I’m not fooling everyone… it is also time for Internet surfing, email and chatting.
I’m almost never bored, and though I’m “snowed in” again, I will get busy at SOMETHING here: the biggest issue is to choose what is most pressing. For a few minutes, YOU were at the top of the priority list!
Love you all for checking in. ~ Ann
