Snowfall

Sooo...

We got a couple of feet of snow over two days in mid-December.  Because I was on shift at the time, I didn't have much opportunity to clear it out of the driveway (which is long).  As a result, I only cleared a little of it before daylight ended and I needed to get ready for work.  As I left for work, the truck got stuck in the driveway.  I had to take the wife's AWD to work that night.

The following day I shoveled snow from under the truck's tires and pulled it back to the garage using the tractor.  I decided that I needed a lot of weight above the rear axles and some excellent snow tires - to replace the crappy snow tires that were on the truck.

I was still on shift however, so I continued to take the wife's car each night until I got a day off.  Meanwhile, the weather warmed up enough to melt some of the snow, then froze again.  So the snow that I didn't get removed is now clumpy and icy.  Due to the ice and the slope of the driveway it still sometimes requires 4WD to get the truck rolling after I back out of the garage.

We also had a really cold snap where it got down to 5 degrees overnight, but fortunately I wasn't on shift and just had to sleep through it!

The Christmas decorations that we used to put up in the yard in Bakersfield were totally buried in snow (which is now snow with a thick icy crust).  They also tripped the GFCI circuits.  Digging them out would be a total pain in the ass and would probably damage them.  So I guess they will remain encased in ice until spring thaws them out.

I used to have something like this in front of the house:

Now I have this:

On the bright side, it's nice not having to pay a lawn guy year round :)

One day, not long after the big snow, we were in Coeur d'Alene doing some last minute Christmas shopping.  When we returned home, we found that a snowplow had cleared the road in front of the house, leaving a 4 ft wall of snow blocking the driveway.  I hopped over it and got the tractor out while the rest of the family waited in the car on the street.  After about 10 minutes I had enough snow removed that the car could get over the hump without bottoming out.