I mentioned the other day that we were getting a foot of snow.\u00a0 And in the current political environment, that means the state is shut down.\u00a0 Even First Selectman Cthulhu shut down the Dunwich government and spent the day eating the road salt that the state provides for town road clearance.\u00a0 He really likes salt even though it\u2019s bad for his blood pressure.\u00a0 His doctor told him to keep it below 10,000 atmospheres over 6,000.\u00a0 But what can you do?\u00a0 He loves him some salt.<\/p>\n
Now I decided not to start clearing the snow until today (Tuesday) because they said the snow could continue until 7am.\u00a0 And even though that turned out to be incorrect (it was a cloudless sky this morning) I was undismayed.\u00a0 I had nowhere to go today (everything is closed) so I had all day to blow the snow off the top driveway.\u00a0 I had a leisurely breakfast at 7am and by 9:30 am I sauntered out and started up the snowblower.\u00a0 And it turned over like a champ and I put it in gear and moved it to where I wanted to start the clearing.\u00a0 Then I turned the chute in the direction I wanted it and squeezed the trigger to start the auger.\u00a0 And horrible noises proceeded from this possessed contraption.<\/p>\n
Long story short; my snowblower is on the sidelines.\u00a0 And so, what started as a leisurely day of snow removal became the Bataan Death March.\u00a0 A foot of snow is kind of a lot when you have as much area as my driveways and other areas add up to.\u00a0 In the words of every action hero that reaches that golden age, \u201cI\u2019m getting too old for this crap.\u201d\u00a0 I performed a mental triage of what did and didn\u2019t have to be cleared to allow us to get out on Wednesday morning.\u00a0 I cleared the area in front of the garage.\u00a0 I cleared a path from Camera Girl\u2019s car to the upper driveway and I cleared the whole upper driveway including the thirty inches of compacted snow and ice that the plough trucks sealed my driveway in with.\u00a0 That last part was rough.\u00a0 I abandoned the lower driveway altogether.\u00a0 I left snow sitting close to the front door and I didn\u2019t even clear the area around the shed (other than a path to get in and out of it).\u00a0 And even with these omissions I didn\u2019t get finished until an hour after sunset.<\/p>\n
And now I ache in every joint and every muscle.\u00a0 The piles of snow have gotten so high that I had to pitch each shovelful with all the force I could generate by rotating the shovel in a long arc.\u00a0 If there were an Olympic event in snow tossing, I might have broken the world record.\u00a0 So, I got in and there was a very nice dinner waiting for the \u201cconquering hero.\u201d\u00a0 But then Camera Girl mentioned that the forecast had changed and now they\u2019re talking about snow in the morning.\u00a0 And more snow on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Sometimes there is no winning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I mentioned the other day that we were getting a foot of snow.\u00a0 And in the current political environment, that means the state is shut<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3366,818,1263],"tags":[3172,340,114],"class_list":["post-36157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-life-in-dunwich","category-ocf","category-stuff-that-personally-interests-me-miscellaneous","tag-new-england-weather","tag-new-england-winter","tag-snow"],"yoast_head":"\n