Posted By FarmerJ on December 27, 2009

As you heard from Abigail, we had a few days of blizzard which made for a very white Christmas.  The weather began turning last Tuesday, and as the winter storm warnings and blizzard advisories came out, so did all the last minute Christmas shoppers.

As I sat and enjoyed an extra-special dining out with my most Darling Husbie Tuesday afternoon before heading back to the Farmstead, I had to wonder if this storm wasn’t the Lord’s way of getting people to slow down and focus on Him during this season rather than worrying about rushing to the store Thursday evening for those last-minute gifts.

The freezing fog and rain began Wednesday morning, just as the weather forecasters had predicted.  By noon, the rain had turned to snow and a nice layer of ice had formed on everything, including the roads.  By midnight, the winds were in full force blowing the snow sideways with its 35 – 40 mph gusts.  Visibility was less than 500 feet.

And, that’s pretty much the way it stayed until this morning.  I never did hear what the total snow accumulation was for our area, but I know there were record-breaking amounts each day, with 9.2 inches on Christmas Day alone!

What was most interesting and rather incredible to me about this storm was how the snow accumulated.  There are places where the drifts are easily 5 feet deep, yet other places are completely bare and the grass is still showing.  Ironically, the 5-foot drifts are all located rather inconveniently ~ like outside the front door; like along all the doors to Husbie’s shop; and, like across and all the way down the driveway.

In the photo above, you can see the snow is half way up the window ~ this is the window beside the front door.  I generally don’t keep the snow shovel inside the house to shovel out, so it was a good thing we had another exit where the snow wasn’t as deep!  You can vaguely make out the Mon-kay in the lower right portion of the photo.  She was not pleased that her view from her window sill had been blocked.

I know it’s difficult to tell dimensions in these photos, so I will try to point certain things out in order to hopefully make it a little more clear.  Here, yesterday morning, Darling Husbie is beginning to dig his way down the driveway.  Tym the Tractor is a fairly good size tractor.  You can see that his rear tire is as tall as the trash dumpster, and the trash dumpster is one of those big ones like you see behind stores.  You can also see just above Tym a pine tree that is between 7 – 8 feet tall ~ the snow is well over half way up the tree.

We were going to wait until it stopped snowing and the wind quit blowing so severely before plowing, but we had noticed that our neighbors across the street were trying to dig their way out with a shovel ~ not even a snow shovel, at that.  I quickly called them to tell them to cease such craziness because Husbie was on his way…just as soon as he shoveled his way into the doorway to the shop where Tym was stored nice and toasty.

Which would you rather have?  Tym with big scoopfuls like this and a blade on the back to scrape away what the bucket missed powered by four-wheel drive and hydraulics, or an aluminum scoop shovel powered by the muscles in your arms and back?  Uh, yeah.  Our neighbors were most appreciative of Husbie ~ Husbie was just tickled to get some more seat time.  Yes, he really worked hard out there in his heated cab and FM stereo playing tunes.

After a while, Darling Husbie was beginning to punch through the biggest drift in our driveway.  Only about 200 feet to go to reach the road!

He had already cleared the neighbor’s driveway and the road across the bridge so they could at least make it to the main paved road.  They were needing to leave in order to visit with other relatives.  Once they reached the paved road, though, they were on their own…the transportation department had not been plowing the roads throughout the storm because with the blowing winds, it was useless.

Just as Husbie was finishing making the bridge passable, our other neighbor from about 1/2 mile down the road shows up with his Big Yeller and starts pushing more snow around.  Really, he was going over areas Husbie had already done, but he was making the passageways wider.

It sure was comforting to know that we don’t need to rely on the county or the transportation department in times like this.  Living in the country, there are too many farmers who ‘tend to their own’ ~ and when you’re blessed to live in the Midwest, neighbors tend to fall into that category as well.

Categories: Plainly Ponderings
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