Short Spring

The other day, I posted that Spring had done sprung here locally. Boy, talk about I shoulda kept my trap shut!

When I went to bed Saturday night, my deck and my driveway and the cars were completely free of snow. My roof was a day or so from being snow-free. The snowpack was receding all over the 'hood and water was flowing everywhere on its way to the Truckee River on its journey to end up flushing toilets in Reno. This morning there is 20" of fresh snow, two feet in some spots. Back to square one.

I went out about noon yesterday to clear the first foot of snow off my driveway. Being as it's nominally Spring, the snow was pretty heavy stuff. I'm used to wet snow clogging the snowthrower's discharge chute, but this stuff clogged the augur blades about every fifty feet. I usually stick a motorcycle tire iron in my boot with which to clear clogs, and it got a workout. I had to shovel the snow to break up the pack so the machine would clear it. A job that normally takes me 45 minutes took two hours, but I got 'er done.

By the way, if you've ever seen a pine tree unload a bunch of wet, heavy snow, let me know what it looks like. When they go, you can hear 'em all over the neighborhood, but when one of 'em does it anywhere near me, I'm usually under it. The first little bit goes, causing the branches to spring upwards, dislodging more snow, over and over. Sometimes I'm standing in an absolute wet cold whiteout for several seconds. Some of it always goes down my neck or my waistband, no matter what I'm wearing it finds a way in. Brrr. I just hunker down and cuss!

Just as I finished up, my next-door neighbor Bill came chugging down his driveway with his little sneezer of a Honda. I waited in the street, both to chat and to tell him his augur was clogged up, which it was. Honda actually provides a factory stick to clear clogs. No wonder them Asians are winnin', they're smart little fuckers. Bill gave me the hot scoop, which was that the Town had laid off the plow drivers, so we probably wouldn't have to worry about berms in our driveways. That was good news: I'd rather drive in a foot of snow than clear a berm.

I went back in the house, whereupon a snowplow promptly went by and bermed us in. I guess one of the plow guys has a phone. Bill stood his ground in front of his driveway and glared at the guy. He didn't get a berm. Seems I have all the luck!

Mrs. G told me that Toni had called, wanting to know how come I hadn't got her moped goin' yet. They had a laugh, and then Toni admitted the snowstorm was all her fault for bringing the moped over. I asked Mrs. G to call her back and tell her that I didn't mind working on it in a cold garage in a snowstorm, but that it'd cost extra.

I went back out and cleared the berm. It was about 5 feet wide, 2 feet deep, and the length of my two-car-wide driveway. That shit was really wet and packed, but it clogged up the chute this time like it's supposed to. Tire iron and shovel time again. Took an hour.

I cleared the snow off Mrs. G's pickup at 8PM, and another 6 inches off it this morning. Later this morning I gotta go run my snowthrowers again, the 8-horse and the "cordless" one with the long handle.

I don't mind a bit. Sometimes the bill comes due fer livin' in these beautiful mountains and ya gotta cough it up. Won't be too bad, the Sun is shining right now and I hope it holds. Yesterday, I got soaked to the skin, used up a dryerload of flannel shirts and sweatshirts in the course of 3 hours, and today I'll be out there at 40 degrees in a T-shirt and Hollywoods worrying about getting an even tan.

How's your Spring goin'?