Monday, January 28, 2008

I think the snow won!

As I said before, we got somewhere between 2-3 feet of snow at the ranch about a week ago. I was really excited and couldn't wait to go out and ski this past weekend. We ended up in a battle royal with the snow and wind. I think we are finally through the worst of it although the weather forecast is looking for more snow and wind. And I am still weary about driving my car out. I am glad that I am not working today. Most of the road that we drive to get to East River Road is county but they seem to really neglect us up here. It sometimes takes them up to 3 days before they will plow up here even with feet of snow and knee deep drifts. The ironic this is that there is no way that they are just forgetting us. There are huge sand and gravel piles at the end of our road where they fill their truck so I know that they see that no one has gotten in or out yet they still pass it by.
Anyway, back to the story of how the snow kicked our asses. The combination of snow on an open field and our lovely high Livingston winds creates my favorite kind of now. The kind that becomes dense like cement and collects in places where you have removed the snow, like the driveway or road. The wind carries every last particle of snow across the field and as it moves across a place that either moves the wind upward (like a drift fence-ugly 4ft fence that lines our entire road from October to April) or downward (into the road) the wind drops the snow and created drifts. Grif and I were lucky enough to get to spend our entire weekend moving snow. We literally started Friday night. We plowed for a couple of hours after work before we went to town to see No Country for Old Men and then plowed again when we got back. Grif got up Sat morning and started plowing right away. It took both the plow truck and the tractor to get through what had accumulated over night. I spent the morning cleaning and then joined him at about noon. We were in the truck until about 1:30pm when we cam inside to eat and get ready to ski for a bit. The wind had not died down yet so it was tough skiing and it had turned the snow into such an inconsistent mess we didn't ski for as long as we had wanted to. We came back inside and Grif went back out to make another pass in the plow. We had plans to go into town and join our friends at Brooke and Peters house for Peters bday party. So we got all ready and headed out. There are 3 possible ways for us to get to East River Road but it was impossible to get through any of them. I told you before that most of the road around us is county road. The only reason that we are responsible fore clearing any of it is that we are at the end of the road so once the road passes onto the ranch it becomes private. Anyway, the county had still not cleared the road even once since it started drifting. We got through a few drifts but go to a point even if we had busted through it there was no way that we would be able to get back up, especially not a few hours later. Our tracks would soon be filled with even more dense cement like snow. We tried our 2 other options for getting out and there was not a chance. Grif apologized that we couldn't make it to town and we went back to the house. I made some dinner with what we had in the fridge and we fell asleep watching Planet Earth. By Sunday morning the county had plowed but we were up against the same thing as the day before. We plowed until 2pm. At one point we had gotten the plow truck stuck and had to pull it our with the tractor. (My least favorite thing to do in the world!!) We took our chances and went to town to the grocery store to stock up on food. It is a pretty scary feeling to not be able to leave your house. I thought our many different emergent situations. What if I was pregnant and went into labor......what would we do. Grif said if we wanted to have kids we would have to plan for summer babies. What if I severed off my arm in the plow.....Not likely to happen. Either way, I still think it is a helpless feeling.
I get really frustrated with the county plow trucks because I really feel like they ignore our road and I drive a low to the ground little car. I have great studded tires but if the snow is higher than the clearance of my car I have no chance.
Grif called me to let me know that he is pretty sure that I could get down the road. (Since the county plowed Sat night more drifts have developed) And he 'thinks' that I should be able to get back up. Not all that reassuring.
As I sit in the office I can see the trees outside thrashing in the wind and I can hear it howling out there. I think I might just stay home today.
Pics to come........................

1 comment:

Brooke and Peter said...

what a story!!!! i am so sorry you were stuck. we missed you at the party...but man, that was a pretty good reason not to make it.
never htought about a life or death emergency... tahth woudl have been terribe. definitely have a summer baby or rent a house in town during the 9th month.