Show of hands

We've been pretty much snowed in...again. I had a meeting in town last Thursday, four days ago, and had a hard enough time driving the snow-covered roads during yet another snow storm to get there. Driving home was quite nerve-wracking, as I frequently couldn't distinguish road from roadside due to all the snow, which was still falling. I stuck to the middle of what I thought was the road and, thankfully, met no oncoming traffic during my five-mile drive home, but the experience was harrowing. At least I had the snow tires! Under all that snow is ice, so without snow tires I couldn't drive on the roads at all. One good thing about it snowing, other than the beauty of fresh snow, is that it is warm enough to snow. It's been brutally cold here this winter, with temperatures dropping as low as minus 44C and staying very cold for days at a time, so the minus 6C temperature outside right now (on the way down to minus 16C tonight, with colder temps forecast for tomorrow) is relatively balmy. Sheesh.

A frequent sight at our house this winter21Feb09

Our expensive, relatively new (purchased December 2007) snow blower doesn't want to start when it is cold outside, even when warm enough to snow! Toad has to monkey with it to get it going, sometimes putting it under a tent with a heater. He couldn't get it going Friday but finally got it started Saturday afternoon and blew the snow out of the driveway in case we needed to drive anywhere in a hurry. There is still something wrong with the engine, it surges over and over (I know very little about engines but can hear that something is wrong), but at least it worked long enough for Toad to get the worst of the snow removed by dark yesterday.

Our driveway is a sheet of ice. Literally. See for yourself. It's been that way for several weeks. Ten days ago, on Friday the 13th, I had an appointment to get the windshield replaced on the truck, in preparation to have it inspected as part of the process to import it to Canada (unlike me, it is still a visitor here for now). It had no snow tires on and hadn't been driven since the winter weather set in due to the tire situation and to the fact that it had problems starting last fall. It started, thank goodness, since I suspect that the solenoid needs to be replaced yet again (I bought one in Indiana when I drove the car down to pick up my son for semester break, along with snow tires for the car). Although it started, it would not move! There was no traction, and the wheels had sunk into the ice beneath them. Neither of us could push hard enough to move the truck. Merda! The garage had to send out a tow truck to pull the truck back a few feet so that I could drive it. The mechanic was horrified by our sheet-of-ice-driveway and carefully drove the truck out of the drive and onto the road for me. At that point there was no snow cover to provide even a bit of traction. Now there is snow, which makes navigating the icy driveway a bit less risky, so there's another benefit of having snow. I had two snow tires put on the truck while it was at the garage and was able to make it home okay. Driving the winding, icy roads to get to the garage, though, was harrowing. The mechanic followed me all the way in the tow truck to be sure that I made it there alright. He's a good guy.

There's other stuff going on, and a lot of stuff not going on, in my life these days but now is not a good time to go into it. I've been in quite a funk. Perhaps I need a change of scenery. Or weather. Or something. I'm still trying to get it sorted out.