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 