It’s 2023! New Year’s Eve here was snowy. Lots of snow. Well, not Buffalo New York amount of snow, but for the desert, it was a lot of snow. We’re talking between 9 to 12 inches, depending on who was shoveling the driveway. I know, some of you are saying, “That’s nothing, we get three feet in a typical storm.” Well, here in the high desert, we normally get an inch or two, two or three times a year. Scraping two inches of snow from the driveway is kind of fun. Nine inches is work, a lot of work.
No, I don’t own a snow blower. They’re expensive and in the three winters we’ve been here, I could have used one, twice. Maybe three times, but Murphy’s Law states that at the three times I would have needed the snow blower, it would break or I’d be out of gas or something. Happened to my neighbor today. He’s got one of those fancy quad off road things with a snow plow attachment on the front. He would have plowed my driveway, except – yup it was broken and every time I looked out my window he was either in the garage getting a tool or lying under the thing with a tool. I thought about loaning him one of my shovels, but somehow that seemed insensitive.
I have to say that the snow is pretty to look at – from the inside of the house while standing in front of the fireplace. Standing in it while wearing snow boots and holding a snow shovel, it doesn’t look as nice. It’s cold, wet and heavy. You have to remove quickly because tonight it’s predicted to drop to nine degrees and anything not removed will be ice tomorrow and just that extra level harder to remove or walk on or drive over. Which would be fine as long as you don’t need to leave the house, but we’re down to three pizzas in the freezer and only have half a package of pepperoni left.
Driving in snow isn’t fun either. I am prepared for driving in the snow. I’ve got a fancy car with all wheel drive with snow tires, but it doesn’t travel well in nine inches of snow. I did drive my grandson’s Honda Element out in it today (had to drive over to our daughter’s place). It has all wheel drive, snow tires and a higher ground clearance than my Subaru, but there were moments that I wondered if this was a good idea. The drive did convince me that my Subaru would have required a tow truck to get anywhere in that deep snow.
Tonight we’re having our pizza and hoping that the county might actually plow our street this week. Likely just a false hope as so far I haven’t found a neighbor who recalls the county ever plowing our street. So I’m just hoping that my neighbor gets his plow fixed before I run out of pepperoni.
Pepperoni moment: Next house I buy will have a smaller driveway.
Andrew's View of the Week 
Smaller house is easier to keep up, too!
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Yes, very true.
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I just love snow. 🙂 (Sorry about that!) I guess that is why I moved up to the Great White North! LOL
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I love looking at the snow. Actually being in it, not so much.
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Wishing you Happiness & Health in the New Year Andrew! 🎊🥂🍾
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Thank you!
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It’s a real pain when your driveway is 150 feet long like ours. That’s why we have a snowblower AND a lawn and garden tractor with a snow plow on it. But it is pretty when you don’t have to shovel and when you can stay inside and eat pizza!
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9-10 inches! Yikes!
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That’s what I said when I looked out the window.
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Oh, that four-letter s-word! That’s a lot of snow – take good care of your back in all your shovelling.
(You made me laugh out loud with “I thought about loaning him one of my shovels, but somehow that seemed insensitive.”)
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I only got about 2/3 of the driveway shoveled when I figured I had enough to get our cars out and when my back said, “you’d better stop now.” I do try to be sensitive to others. 🙂
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Storm chips, you must always have storm chips on hand!
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Absolutely! You can’t survive without that.
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High desert too and the called for 5-8 inches was well over 2 feet of super wet sierra cement. Grinding coffee for the next storm/power outage.
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This storm started as a predicted rainy day for us and the quickly changed its mind and turned to snow. We’re east of Reno and rarely get much in the way of snow or rain, but we get a great view of all the snow on the sierra.
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It is a gorgeous view. We’re just south and it’s nice to have a few days before the next system. here’s to getting out of drought – with any luck!
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This has got to make a big dent it the drought and now it’s snowing again.
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When a snow storm is about to hit Iowa, everyone runs to the grocery for milk and bread. Pizza sounds a lot better!
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We normally have 3-4 frozen pizzas on hand for “emergencies” and normally we wait for the sales before buying our pizza. And, yes we always keep an eye on the weather and the grocery list just to make sure we don’t run out of important stuff.
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We get very little snow here in Nottingham but my piece of magic to keep it away completely was to buy a snow shovel in the 40% off Summer sale of snow shovels about ten years ago. And so far it’s worked perfectly. Not a sign of the cold wet stuff!
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My first winter here I went out an bought a snow shovel and it worked for about six months then we had an inch of snow. The next snow was 12 months later at nearly half an inch so it mostly works at keep the snow away.
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