snow storm – New England's Narrow Road

January Snow

The winter has not been a good one. Last year (2013-14) there was a lot of snow and truthfully I handled it much better than all the sleet and freezing rain this year. Up until today there has been only a crusty frozen few inches covering the ground. The driveway is a mass of icy ruts from the melting, rain and re-freeze.

When it rains in winter I have water issues to deal with. After the all-day rain last weekend, I had many inches of water to push out of the garage. First I had to dig trenches in the driveway to direct the water off to the side. Thankfully I had a door put in on the back wall, and it comes in handy in pushing the water out the back.
The water problem is an easy fix. The garage has a drain, but it’s clogged with sand. It’s been like that since I moved here a few years ago. So a new drain, in the back corner at the lowest point would solve the problem.
Just like all the other problems, big and small, nothing can be done about fixing them without money to hire someone to do so. So I deal with the issues as they arise, as best I can.

At least today it’s snow coming down and not rain. It should never rain in winter. In fact it should never get above freezing. That is when all the problems occur. Ice forms and makes walking treacherous and shoveling impossible. These are the things I forgot about while living in Florida for 27 years. I remembered the snow, but not the ice. Shortly after I moved north in 2005 I fell and cracked my head open on black ice. A few stitches later and lesson learned.

If we end up getting more than the 3-7 inches predicted, I will have to start up the snowblower and try to clean up the driveway. It was a bit difficult getting the thing started last time, which was the only time I’ve had to use it so far this season. Usually by now we’ve had a number of big storms here in New Hampshire – like the big one in October 2011. My daughter is disappointed as she likes to go snowboarding. The slopes have been making snow, but it doesn’t compare to nice, fresh powder.

This snowfall looks so pretty. Maybe the rest of the winter will be normal.

More Snow Than I’ve Seen At One Time

Snow shovel storm — NEMO Blizzard in Feb. 2013

The snowstorm we got on February 9th dropped about 30 inches of snow in my area of New Hampshire. That is a lot of snow.
It was hard to know where to begin with the shoveling. It was fluffy snow, so not hard to move, but there was just so much. The ground had been bare in places so this pile up was all at once.
Then my plow guy called and said that his truck had broken down. Things like that really seem so normal for my life that I wasn’t really surprised, and I found someone else to come plow. I had kept the name handy just in case, and I’m glad I did.
The next day my old plow guy came with a snowblower and cleaned out the mailbox and fire hydrant that is right in front of my house. There was no way I could have dug that stuff out. I am considering buying a snowblower for myself.

That was a few weeks ago and now it’s melted some. The good that came from it was that I had to put my new roof rake together and try it out. It worked great and I highly recommend using one for big storms.

snowstorm mailbox — Forget about mail delivery

Snowfall in New Hampshire

Wednesday the northeast has some nasty weather. Many places saw a little snow and then it turned to rain, but where I live in the hills north of Mt. Monadnock, we had all snow. About a foot and a half of it!

It was the nasty, heavy wet stuff that was a pain to shovel and weighed down the hemlock trees.

Roxy in the snow — My neighbor's black lab loved it!

The dog had a blast chasing my snowballs. By the end of the day the snow depth was over my knees in the yard.

ruler in the snow — An early measurement

This is an early measurement. We got about 4 inches more after this…

high snow — Basement slider- I won't be using this door any time soon

The metal roof on this house emptied the snow off like it’s suppose to, but that meant lots more shoveling.

It is Thursday- the day after- as I post this and we are getting lots of rain on top of all this snow and flood watches are in effect. My friends in Florida sent me photos on Facebook of their trip to St. Lucia. It looked pretty nice.