Well it's been quite the week. The storm that they talked about was supposed to dump maybe a foot of snow...we got closer to 2 feet. I worked Sunday 7a-7p and finally left around 7:30. It was the worst ride home ever. Rt 4 was awful, I followed 2 cars and we went about 20 mph the whole way. 22A was even worse, very drifted and scary as it is so narrow with tractor trailers coming both ways. I headed up the hill into Benson and was a bit alarmed by how much snow and drifts were on the road. I headed past Martha's and a little voice said "you are never going to make it home, TURN AROUND" so I pulled into Freddie Hollenby's trailer and headed back to Martha's. When I got in her driveway I called her on my cell phone (as she bolts the door from the inside to keep it from blowing open) Luckily she picked up the phone and came right down. I called Molly and told her to tell John NOT to go to work and that I was staying at Grammy's. Only bad part was that I had to sleep in Tom's bed!!! Her neighbor Wayne plowed her out around 10 the next morning. John ended up going to work ("Nobody tells me what to do") and made it in fine. Coming home was another story. He got into town and couldn't get in Martha's driveway as the snowplow drifts were so high. He ended up going to Jeff's and then attempted to follow Darryl in the town snowplow out to our house. He called me and said Darryl was having alot of trouble getting through the drifts by Burleson's. He had to keep driving hard forward, then back again. Finally he got to Money hole road but then John got stuck with a huge CVPS truck behind him. Darryl tried to pull him out and wasn't successful. The CVPS guys were not happy..they were apparently headed out towards Grant's as no one had power beyond us. (We have the automatic generator now but didn't lose power) John ended up going in the truck with Darryl as he plowed down to the Temple Schoolhouse. He dropped him off and John put on warmer clothes and layers and better boots and then headed back to his truck with Darryl. They ended up getting him unstuck (I think with the town payloader) but almost ripped his bumper off. He didn't care and was grateful to be out of the snowbank. He headed toward home and got stuck again almost as he got to our driveway. He plowed the driveway out with the Kubota and then got Molly to help him get the truck out. (Neither one of us knows how to drive the kubota, but I foresee an instructional session in the future!
I ended up heading home from Martha's around 3:30. The drifts by Phillip's hill were huge, probably 8-9 feet and only enough room for one vehicle to get through. I just hoped no one was coming up the hill from the other direction.....luckily made it fine. The meadow past Burleson's was the same way. Very rutted and drifty with only enough room for one car. I was very happy to be home! We listened to the town crew on the scanner and there were similar issues all over the town.
Molly and I decided to walk down and feed Kacee around 4. I was afraid to drive down if there was no place to park. John was attempting to plow Sue's and Robin's. (All on 0 hours of sleep!) Kacee was fine, Sue fed her that morning. She had to call in from work. While we were there this huge snowcat like tractor trailer thing from CVcame by and headed out toward's Grant's to deal with their power issues.
This morning he headed down to finish Robin's and found the town truck mired in the snowbank just below Robin's. Apparently Pete Flynn was driving...while helping dig that out somewhat waiting for the big wrecker to come pull it out, another person Danny Lussier got stuck trying to plow out Darryl's driveway. He met me at the barn and we walked down to get John and the tractor. He managed to pull him out and then plowed out Darryl's driveway to thank him for helping him out of the ditch yesterday!
Oh, I forgot the other excitement. While I was drinking my coffee at Martha's, (she fixed me a delicious breakfast too) she started to get bundled up to go outside. I offered to go out and see if her paper arrived, and she said "no, I have to go shovel out the generator" (mind you it is located at the back of her house) I was like, "what? John will be here soon...I don't have any boots but when we get shoveled out I'll come back and do it" She was adamant that she would be fine, she does it all the time. She is a very determined person so I figured ok...we'll see. I went out to the back window to see how she was doing....no Martha. So I ran to the bathroom window and looked out and she was stuck up to her crotch in the snow. I opened the window and yelled that I would be right there.....ran out in my sneakers and scrub pants, (thin, cotton and not warm!) She was stuck. I tried to get my arms under hers and pull her backwards but couldn't. (I was also afraid I would hurt her) I ended up digging down in the snow with my hands (also ungloved!) and grabbing her boot and pulling it up as her leg was stuck. She kind of fell to the side....then I got under her arms again and helped her turn around. (She did balance on 2 ski poles to keep from falling) I then stomped down the snow and made a path and helped her back to the house. Also very sternly told her she was not to ever do that again. We can go out with the snowshoes...or I'm sure her grandson Jake would dig it out for her. She was worried as it is "aircooled" and the test was going to happen at 7am that morning. Well we watched the generator during the test...it lasted 5 minutes. I didn't shake the snow off but seemed to be fine.
Also that night while listening to the scanner were shocked to here that there was another house fire. A few weeks ago, Morgan Phillip's lost his home to fire. (The original Phillip's home) He moved down the road temporarily to the old Ladd place, where Howard Bowen used to live and they had a chimney fire and I guess the house burnt too. Talk about bad luck! Multiple towns responded and it was a nightmare due to the roads...
WHAT A STORM!!!!
Here are some pictures....
