Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 10:23 am Post subject: Hello, I'm Mary, Book 3
A common early morning view through my kitchen window. The horses all know where to find me, and they stand where they can see into the house while they wait for their breakfast, and sometimes doze off while waiting.
Breezy and Patch at play. The pictures were taken from inside the house after the sun had set. They were putting on quite a show but would have stopped if I had gone outside since it was time for their dinner.
We are in a series of storms that are coming into the west coast, bringing us a lot of snow and wind. After several mild winters, we are having a real one again. Getting around in it can be a bit challenging.
Yesterday morning my hubby made 2 attempts to drive out of the driveway which is several hundred feet long and uphill all the way. He got about half way the first time, and about 30 feet farther the next time, backed down again and came to the house, then called our neighbor who had plowed for us the day before. The snowdrifts were up to the car windows and getting deeper.
The neighbor has a v shaped plow mounted on a one ton feed truck. He made a pass coming down and another one going up, and the job was done in less than 5 minutes. It would have taken almost an hour to do the same thing with our tractor and front end loader. Good neighbors are such a blessing!
By mid day the sun came out and I went into the greenhouse to water plants, repot a few things, and pick some salad greens and ripe tomatoes for dinner. I have about 20 mostly ripe tomatoes sitting on my counter and windowsills. The fish in the big water tank were fed, and I sprayed a few plants for the annual infestation of aphids.
We had more snow and wind overnight, so this morning I watched and prayed as my hubby made a run for the top of the driveway. The car did some interesting gyrations but he made it to the top and through the big drift by the gate on the first try. I'll keep an eye on it through the day and might have to do some plowing so he can get back in tonight.
Yes, indeed, Smokey. You know about snowdrifts and such.
A previous owner of this place, the one who decided where this house would be and where the driveway should go, needed to study our wind patterns first, and then we wouldn't have this problem every time we have a snowy winter.
It's a new week but not new weather! Yesterday and the day before the temperatures warmed up enough so that the top layer of snow started to melt a bit, then everything froze solid again. The highway is plowed and has grit on it. I would say sand, but this is heavy duty, more the size of pea gravel. Our gravel county road was also plowed, so I guess we are ready for the next storm.
Saturday morning we went to our favorite cafe for breakfast and then shopped for groceries and other things before coming home. I have no plans to leave the place all week, so we did some stocking up to make sure we have enough milk, eggs, etc to last all week.
We weren't sure if venturing out on Sunday morning would be possible, but we made it. On the way home we spotted Neut, our wandering cat, at the neighbors, so he got a ride home in the car, purring all the way.
This morning I took more pictures of the horses playing in the snow before I went out to feed them, but haven't hooked the camera to the computer to look at them. The wind is blowing and they felt quite frisky. Even one of the older ones got into the game.
Our power was out this morning, I have no idea why, and they almost never tell us. If it is a significant event we might read about it in the local paper. Several years ago the power company put in a lot of new lines and other upgraded equipment which made the outages far less frequent. While the power was out today I did some reading and thought about the greenhouse heat situation. The propane furnace will operate but without the fans to circulate the air. When we bought that furnace we made sure it would operate without electricity. I'm sure everything is ok.
Often, just getting around in a snowy climate can be a very interesting experience. Such was the case yesterday morning.
Our neighbor had plowed our driveway about 24 hours before, but since the wind blew all day my hubby said there were some big drifts when he drove into the driveway, it's downhill all the way to the carport so he made it. The wind kept blowing all night and by yesterday morning there was no way anybody was getting out without help.
The neighbor came to plow again, and started down the driveway with his feed truck loaded with hay for the morning feeding of his cows. He got stuck coming down the hill and the truck slid sideways. The cows came to the fence because they know the sound of the feed truck, and there was their breakfast, just about 10 feet away.
Now it turned into some old fashioned work, trying to clear the snow with a snow shovel from around the wheels, off the plow itself, etc, so the truck was not encased in snow, and could move forward. Behind the truck there is a deep ditch. Here's a picture, I know you can't see much detail, but it gives you an idea of how deep the snow is. I was standing next to my trailer taking pictures and had expected to take one of the plow bursting through the last drift near the flagpole.
Last edited by Mary on Wed Jan 16, 2008 6:36 pm; edited 1 time in total
After some wiggling around the rear of the truck went to the left, closer to the ditch. The cows watched in hopeful anticipation, and Nip (the dark spot between the rail fence and the truck) barked and did all she could to help.
Hubby put on his insulated farm coveralls over his good clothes and got the tractor into action to rescue the plow truck. He backed up the driveway, then pushed snow out of his way coming back down, backed up again and pulled the truck out and down the driveway with a chain. I missed getting a picture of that because my camera was getting cold and the battery was low and slow.
The truck turned around in front of the hay barn and was ready to plow it's way back up the hill, almost getting stuck again in the process. This is a heavyduty truck that has a steel flatbed instead of the usual pickup type of bed with sides, better for hauling hay. The plow is close to 3 ft high, and hydraulic, each half is controlled independently. The whole thing can be angled to throw the snow either to the left or the right, and can also be raised and lowered. It is a formidable sight coming toward us down the road.
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