carbonel

I had said I would feed the

minnehahas' cats yesterday and today while they were away. Yesterday was no problem. Today was.

arkuat managed to get a shovel-wide path from the garage to the street, but he bogged down after that. I have a 50-foot driveway, so clearing it is a production under normal conditions, which these definitely weren't. At some point in the early evening, my occasional yard guy stopped by with a friend and offered to shovel the driveway for $75. I blanched and he dropped it to $60, which I accepted. They finished around 8:30, and I headed out to feed cats shortly thereafter.

I got stuck briefly getting out of the driveway because the street hadn't been plowed recently, then got to the house with only a modicum of slipping and sliding. Once I got there, I realized there was no place to park -- only the street had been plowed, and the parking area was covered with 18 inches of snow. I thought about trying the alley, but it hadn't been plowed so I decided to go around the block (or equivalent thereof).

I got stuck just around the corner on the street back to Diamond Lake Road, but managed to get myself out after a few minutes by rocking forward and back. Then I got stuck again a few hundred feet later because there were clear tire tread paths, but the snow between them was higher than my car. I kept rocking back and forth without much progress, and eventually flagged down a guy in an SUV coming off the highway. He obviously had 4-wheel drive, because he went right over the snow lines and pushed me clear.

After that, I gave up on the idea of parking on the street. I drove to the Holiday Stationstore nearby and parked my car. Went in and asked about leaving it there while I hiked down to the house, and they said fine as long as it wasn't more than 20 minutes or so. Someone had cleared the sidewalk all the way down to the house, so that was easy, then I waded through the uncleared snow from the main sidewalk to the front steps. The first look was really intimidating, because the snow over the door was higher than my waist, but I realized that was because it was covering steps. It was still blocking the screen door from opening, though. I managed to push away sufficient snow to open the door just enough to slip through, and fed the cats. Getting home was a doddle after that, and I walked in slightly over an hour after I'd left.