Digging Out — The 21st Century Matriarch

Schools are closed again today although our immediate neighborhood is probably clear enough to support the children getting to school. The school system has to make the decision for the whole county and there probably are some areas that are still problematic. We did the heavy digging out on Sunday. The backyard didn’t matter – but it does show that we got a lot of snow. There is a bench and several pots under the snow on the deck….all covered over by snow!

But we got our drive way shoveled (or rather we shoveled about a third of it and a neighbor with a snow blower did the rest).

The temperature did not get above freezing but the sun caused some melting and icicles began to form.

We walked through the neighborhood noting the benches overlooking the water retention pond with snow covering their seats

The raggedy cattails around the frozen pond,

The fire hydrants that were visible (did someone do a little shoveling?),

And the sidewalks neatly cleared by one of the many snow blower guys in the neighborhood.

By Tuesday – there has been some additional freezing and thawing. There were some larger icicles but most had fallen by the end of the day…water could be heard trickling normally in the downspouts

And the heated bird bath managed to melt the crusty snow that had made a high rim around it for days.

We got out to pick up a pizza. Our neighborhood street was in pretty good shape but not everyone had cleared the area around their mailbox and we noticed a few mailboxes that had been knocked over. Fortunately, ours survived the snow plow and we got is cleared enough for mail delivery.

A two lane road near us was clear but the snow was still up to the lower rail of the split rail fence. We noticed that people in townhouses and apartment buildings were digging out and some of the sidewalks in the area had not been touched – hard to image the how the children could walk to their bus stop.

By Wednesday morning the melt was more noticeable. The temperature had stayed above freezing all night and the bench reappeared on the deck and the railing was totally clear.