Digging Out

We didn't get the eight inches of snow. More like three inches of sleet, with a glossy topcoat of ice. Lots and lots of ice.

Click to enlarge photos:











And the driveway's probably had it. We had to chop the crusty mess off with shovels, then go over it again with the snow blower.

We've had so much snow now, that there's nowhere to put it anymore.

I call this: Surrendering To The Avalanche:



Then, out of the white, desolate winter, Mother Nature does something amazing. She gives us the double finger:



Or maybe they're peniscicles. Who knows?

And Also...

Yay! Another blizzard!

Last night we got about six inches. That's on top of the ten left over from the storm two weeks ago.

There's two large glaciers at the end of the driveway.

So, to my mother, who is visiting her brother and sister in Hawaii right now - you got out of Dodge just in time!!

Where's My Shovel?

Yep. Haven't posted in two weeks. Work put me on call - which is so appropriate when you're still new and haven't got a grip on things yet.

My sleep schedule's been reversed because the on call phone only goes off at 2am.

As Murphy's Law would have it, noctural server/application issues always require a minimum of four hours to fix. Before you know it, it's 6am and time to get the kiddo off to school, and you haven't slept yet.

At least the company's reasonable about it. If you worked all night, you're allowed to catch a few zzzz's before heading into the office, or logging in from home.

However, last week was truly the most ludicrous experience to date.

I spent most of my time dealing with the usual problem: getting a straight answer, in English, from several coworkers.

Let me put it this way: if I asked them to give me step by step instructions for shoveling a driveway, they would respond with: "Use a shovel".

While this is technically correct, as well as blaringly obvious, it tells us nothing about where you get the shovel, how you use it, and where you throw the snow.

Speaking of which, we are currently experiencing a blizzard here in the Northeast.

Thankfully, I DO know how to use a shovel.

Snow, Fall

Well, I was going to write something about teenagers, angst, and how everything in life seems just so difficult when you're 14, but then I decided against it. It'll just make my daughter crankier.

So we didn't get the insane six inches of snow on Sunday. It's bad enough that four inches of snow fell last Thursday. The leaves haven't yet turned color, much less fallen off the trees, so when that heavy, wet snow fell last week, the branches collapsed under all that weight. We lost a lot of tree branches, and have some serious cleanup and pruning ahead of us this weekend.

Of course, today it's 65 degrees outside. The sun is shining, and it almost looks like Spring instead of Fall.

Schizophrenic Pennsylvania.

The Snow Is Falling!!! The Snow Is Falling !!!

Crap.

It's snowing. Again.

They're calling for an inch throughout today, then possibly another FOUR INCHES overnight. According to the local newspaper, the last time it snowed this much was in 1836.

It's October. In Pennsylvania. It's not like this is the Canadian Northern Territory.

Ummmm.....What?

You see that date up there? The one at the top of this post? I'm pretty sure it says OCTOBER 15TH.

Oc-to-ber.

So tell me, why is it SNOWING?

Here's my backyard. Yes, those are trees that still have leaves on them!!




We are still mowing grass on weekends, and the leaves have not fully changed for Autumn yet, much less fallen off the tree.

It was seventy degrees last Friday. Where's my global warming?