Snow Snow Snow

The first winter storm finally hit. The boys so wanted to miss school. The first front came and school was delayed two hours. The boys' bus was on snow route so they had to walk to the bottom of the hill. Trevor called from the stop saying they were the only ones there. Turns out most families either skip school or drive their children. I think that is crazy, to take your car out and potentially slide off the road or have someone else slide into you, when there is a perfectly good bus to deliver everyone.The boys said there were a lot of children missing from school.

I shoveled the deck.


The next storm hits with even more snow the next night. School is officially canceled. The boys are ecstatic. Trevor wants me to go pick up his best friend. I tell him I am not driving in this weather with these road conditions. It is just not worth the risks. I tell him to go wonder the neighborhood and find some local kids. He rides the bus with a big crowd. He needs to meet the neighbors. Trevor puts on his snow clothes, well the equivalent for a teen, which consists of jeans and jacket, hat and gloves.

Several hours later he returns wet and frozen, but extremely happy. One of the dead end streets had barricaded itself off from the snow plows and made a sled run. Nice and safe, not headed into traffic or anything. I know the block from the summer neighborhood picnic. some one even allowed Trevor to ride a snow mobile. Trevor had a soft sled which worked really well in the slush of the afternoon, but not so well in the heavy snow of earlier. He was able to share with some other kids and trade sleds back and forth and find different routes that worked. His legs were red from the cold when he got home and his clothes were soaking wet.

Riley stayed inside safe and warm. Eventually I had him help shovel the walkways and the deck with me, so he could get some fresh air and exercises. He enjoyed the work. I shovelled all the snow away from the drains to promote easy run off. The big deck was a challenge and I worked up a sweat.

My goal is to have the snow moved away from the house. My mom has a beach house that flooded because the snow created a dam around the house that wouldn't allow for the melt to escape. The snow forced the water into the house under the door. I wanted to make sure the melt went down the hill, not into my basement. The easiest way to achieve that is to shovel the snow well away from the house

Trevor's best friend convinced his parents to drive him up and pick him up later. When he arrived, the boys went back out to look for more snow activities in fresh dry clothes. The neighbors were setting up a snow ball fight with fortresses of snow in their big back yard. Trevor and his best friend were invited to join in the fun. The play date only lasted a few hours though as the friend's parents were picking him up during daylight, to make sure they got home safely before things started to freeze up in the evening.

Freezing didn't happen though. The snow melted and melted all night. In the morning it was back to school. It was a perfect snow day, enough to really play in, at least 10 inches, yet virtually gone the next day. No big effort on my part with a long drive to the mountain. It was right here in my own front yard.

I am having issues with water in my basement as the snow melts. I found water heavily dripping out of the main power box which is a lock out box owned by the utility company. I put a call in to have someone come look at it. with all the outages we are low on the priority list.

It is nice to find the source of the water in the basement, and that it might be something someone else has to deal with. I am hopeful this is a utility company problem and that they can resolve it.

Nasty, while cleaning up the excess water, I finally put down two buckets to catch the drips and prevent more water mess, while I waited for the utility company to call and come over. I was using towels to mop up the mess. I swept a wet towel back behind the furnace intake and pulled out a mummified rat. Probably ate some of my Decon poison way back when we first moved into the house. Good to know that stuff really works. It is just really yucky having to deal with the wet carcass, but my floors will be mopped clean now.

I also checked out my drain lines that I had reattached to the house in the fall. I shifted a couple to promote better drainage. The end result was there was no more water coming in under the door like there had been when we first moved in. I am dealing with the water issues, one spot at a time and I love resolving the problems!!