Snow and Other Stuff

1/21/2016

It snowed a bit last night.  A dusting actually, but snow all the same.  They are calling for a blizzard for Saturday.  It'll be the kind of weather where you probably shouldn't be on the road, unless you absolutely have to. And no, running to the store to buy alcohol doesn't constitute an emergency, as far as I am concerned.  You may feel differently.

The forecast is for "foots" not inches of snow.  To those of us who have good sense, this means that you should get your extra car out of the street and onto your driveway.  If cars are parked on the street, then snow plows can't adequately do their job.

We live at the top of a hill on a cul-de-sac.  This means that as the snow plow comes around the top of the street, he has nowhere to put the snow except in front of your driveway.  This can be hugely irritating if you have already plowed out your driveway, and then find snow piled up at the bottom.  This has happened to us more than once.  

Jeff drove the Ox to work today and if he goes into work tomorrow, he'll definitely use the Ox.  Years ago, a different truck and two teenage boys, wanted to see what the roads were like outside of the neighborhood.  Well long story short: the truck high centered (it was not as big a truck as the Ox) in the middle of our street.  They had to come up and get Jeff to help them dig out under the truck, so that they could get the truck turned around and back home.  End of adventure.  It was one of those things like - done that - hated it moments.

We are supposed to have high winds which may cause havoc to our Leland Cypress trees in the backyard.  They are very tall and shallow rooted, so we'll just keep our fingers crossed.  And Jeff will have to shovel a path in the backyard for Sam, who may or may not, use it.  He'll also shovel the snow that will build up at the doggy door.  Maggie is big and heavy so a lot of snow isn't a problem for her.  But old Sam is another matter entirely.  First, he's small, old and white and he can't maneuver very well in deep snow.  I do have a sweater for him somewhere, but since I know he'll only venture out just long enough to make yellow snow, there's no reason to wear myself out trying to get it on him.

Since Jenny has a test run every Saturday, we know that she's ready and up to the task of providing us with electricity should the power go out.  Jeff has told me, in case I'm home alone and the power goes out, to remain sitting.  It takes a minute or two for Jenny to come on, and since I'm not too steady on my feet, better to just be patient and sit.  Since our installation of Jenny, we've never actually had to use her for more than a few minutes during a brief outage.  This weekend could be Jenny's finest moment, as we sit inside our house with all of our appliances working as well as the television as well as everything else electric. 

I finally put the duvet back inside it's cover yesterday.  I saw on the internet how to do so with relative ease.  I was skeptical but it actually worked!  You turn the duvet cover inside out and put the zipper or button end at the top of your bed.  You put the duvet on top of the cover and turn down an inch or so of the cover and put the duvet inside.  Then you simply turn (and it's easier with two people) the cover over and over like a sausage and when you get to the end you have the duvet inside.  It solved my problem of years struggling to try and get the duvet inside the cover neatly and probably more important, easily.  

Stay warm and safe wherever you are.

P