2 weeks ago, we had snow on the ground that stayed there. This was the first time this winter that the snow stuck around over the weekend. It was the most snow we'd had in almost 20 years.
When something happens for the first time in 20 years, you take advantage of it.
Hey, it's Saturday. The grownups can deal with the shoveling, right? The Pumpkin Daddy bought snow chains for the Pumpkin Prius, so I could go grocery shopping. The kids had fun sledding in the front yard, and the worst of it melted by the time Monday rolled around.
The Friday after that, it snowed again. And it kept snowing right through Saturday night. I think the city schools had their first snow day in recent history. And when I say recent history, I mean since I started living in this city circa 1986. And when I say snow day, it's not a "wussy city freaking out over three inches of snow" day. Sapporo/ Minneapolis/ Chicago would have a snow day if you woke up in the morning and it looked like this.
I think we had something like 70 cm on the ground by the time it was done snowing. Apparently this is some kind of record. It's the first time in nearly 120 years that it has snowed this much…and they're saying about 120 years because that is when they started keeping records about how much it snowed. And it was wet, sticky, heavy snow. Pumpkin City doesn't have a snowplow fleet. It contracts local construction businesses to get out there and plow the streets. And of course with snow like that, they couldn't get the bulldozers out from the parking lot into the streets, so the city basically shut down. When it got semi-moving again, people tried to go shopping but there was nothing to buy. It was like post 3-11 quake/ tsunami all over again. At least we had water and electricity and gas the whole time (although the snow got on the power lines and they snapped from the weight and some communities in the prefecture lost electricity too…how terrible for them…)
Our neighbor's car port caved in with the weight of the wet, sticky, heavy snow, so the Pumpkin Daddy decided to do what he could to keep it from happening.
He's our hero. Our cars and car port are intact.
I thought about getting a snowblower just in case, but for the kind of snow we got this time, snowblowers are not very helpful (they're good for dry, powdery snow from cold temps like they get in Chicago).
So I think I will just buy a few more snow shovels. I'll tell the Pumpkin Prince and Princess they're grownup snow shovels that are a privilege to own and use. Think it will work?
1 comment:
Wow.
And, ugh.
Pumpkin Daddy is an absolute prince.
And I do think the snow shovel tactic will work.
At least with the wet snow you were probably able to do some good snowman/snowball activities? All our snow has been dry and near impossible to do anything with.
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