SNOW<><><><><>

In the last 2 weeks or so we have gotten about 18+ inches of snow. One morning it was 8 inches at a time. I had to walk out to a truck yesterday to get something I've been storing in it and the snow was to my knees, and that was on a path that had been used before. When I opened the truck door the door pushed snow as I opened it. This morning I went and fed my chickens with a 5 gallon bucket and the bucket dragged through the snow, PUSHING snow, the whole way. And the amazing thing about that is that Papa already plowed there once this year. The boys went out side yesterday to play in the deep snow and loved it. They both said deep snow was hard work. I believe it. On them the snow is past waist deep and they are light enough to walk on one layer and play on the other. I think if they were to fall through the bottom layers they'd be to their eyeballs. :) They had a great time though and no one sunk. E would be to her eyeballs in the top layer which is why she is staying inside.


I had a flash back this morning watching Papa try and get out of the driveway. :) Flashed back to living on Jackknife Mountain where we often got a foot of snow at a time, over night, and rarely got our driveway plowed out. I remember many mornings where I would stand at the window and watch Papa go back and forwards, back and forwards and gain some ground. Then our little Toyota would rock again until he'd gain some more ground. When he stopped moving I'd pull on some boots and a coat and gloves and go stand on the bumper and push in turns until we got the car all the way out the driveway and on to the plowed main road. We lived on a bus run so the road was always plowed before he went to work. Only twice do I remember it wasn't plowed, but then it was all downhill so Papa (before he was a Papa:) would just ride in someones tracks as best he could all the way down the mountain. I never envied him these trips. That road scared me in summer, winter was horrible!!! The only difference this morning was that our Betsy car was red and this Toyota, Annabell, is white. When he came home at night I could here him rev it up all the way up the last 1/4 mile and then pull the brake and HIT the driveway with as much speed as he could and in this way he could make it too the house without help. After a few days of this he had a nice set of tire tracks to follow and could make it out on his own until the next snow. We lived there 3 winters and we never got less then 6 feet of snow. We did enjoy living there and I often miss the stove in the living room on cold winter nights (and I'm planning on in our house). But I don't miss that road at all.

Yesterday after Papa had put a bunch of 50lb bags of feed in the backseat of the car and did his back and forth thing all the way out of the driveway I went out and took some pictures. The car is so low that he PUSHES snow with it all the way down the driveway (which thankfully is shorter then our driveway on the mountain.) In the snow you can see his wheel tracks, and drag marks where stuff under the car is making it's own marks as he pushes the car through the deep snow. Last night when he came home he had to back and forth it a bit to get in (hard to get up a run where we live now) and every time he backed he'd leave a pile of snow where the bumper stopped. Then he'd have to push through that pile and plow it and the rest of the snow forwards until he wasn't moving or was where he wanted to be. Why?, your probably thinking, doesn't he take the 4x4 Travelall to work?? That wonderfully high heavy 4x4?? That moves through snow like it's not even there??? Because it's an 37 year old rig and last Saturday on our way to the "CITY" we realized that the U-joints in the front are going, going, pretty much gone and Papa is waiting for parts so he can fix it. The parts should be here today and he'll hopefully take it to work tomorrow and then we will be a 2 car family again. He doesn't want to drive it, unless it's to work to get fixed, because the U joints could go gone and then we'd have a mess. :) I guess that's what we get for driving such a old rig... but I'd rather have the odd fix-it every once and a while then a car payment every month.