Coop's Corner: Wisconsin's Backyard

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Wisconsin's Backyard - Part 2

I'll make it easy and more direct this time.......here are the links to the photo albums highlighting the last half of the Trans Wisconsin Adventure Trail.

August 27, 2009

August 28, 2009

August 29, 2009

August 30, 2009

.....and to provide a bit of timely balance to those mostly warm and bright images above, I offer this morning's drift busting results, a rather mediocre result after two very tough passes with the plow truck, 4AM

I plowed yesterday just before dark, then was forced to go out after winds of 30-40 mph all night long again this morning. We got home from work this afternoon, stopped at the mailbox where we found mail inside the box and a UPS package on the snowbank behind the box (our UPS driver knows when to avoid our driveway and has permission to be 'creative').

Peg looked at me and said, "you better not". We spoke this morning and prepared for, my walking in and leaving her up on the road in the car and once I had the road cleared, she'd follow me back to the house. She had her knitting along, so would have been fine ......at least for awhile.

I said, "we're goin'"

It's amazing what a 30 mph downhill head start can accomplish. Sure, there were 10 seconds or so when I couldn't see but I know the driveway pretty well. When I put the car in Park up at the garage (made it this time...ha!), Peg wondered if we'd done a 360 on the way in. I told her that I was pretty sure that we had not.

"Well it felt like it".

Back out to plow again this evening, the wind is still blowing so I'm imagining another session tomorrow morning as well. Spring tomorrow.

8 comments:

Keith - Circle BlueMarch 20, 2013 at 5:53 AM
When I was a kid I always thought having a long driveway would be the best thing. Then I owned my first house out in the country and my short driveway was plenty long enough :^) Especially since I had no way to plow it. Of course, it being the country I had a neighbor who always came over and plowed me out when it got "bad"...no charge. He did it just because he could (and he liked plowing snow LOL)

I don't miss the nearly daily stretches of clearing the driveway, but I do miss the feeling of making it to the garage without getting stuck :^)
ReplyDelete
Replies
TrobairitzMarch 20, 2013 at 10:20 AM
Since it is Spring does that mean your snow is going to melt and no more plowing?

Good thing Peg didn't enjoy the ride to the garage or you'd have to charge admission and call it: "Mr. Cooper's Wild Ride?"

I remember visiting family in Edmonton (Northern Alberta) one year and our car not surviving the -38 weather. We limped it to Red Deer and took the Greyhound home to BC. The only car we had left to drive was hubby's '69 Barracuda. Now that is a hoot to drive when the snow is up to your bumper...... we were pretty much plowing snow with it's front end. Sigh - I miss that car.
ReplyDelete
Replies
RichardMMarch 20, 2013 at 12:54 PM
A nice 180 before the garage would've made it nice and easy to get out next time. Nice that you have the equipment to keep your driveway clear. I keep thinking of putting on a plow for supplementary income. (Not that I'm thinking of retirement...)
ReplyDelete
Replies
Dar March 20, 2013 at 2:11 PM
I still don't envy you and all the snow. I remember having to shovel by hand a very long double driveway when I was a kid and then the snowplow would go by and plug up the end of the driveway with chunks of frozen snow and it would take 2-3 more hours of shovelling to get that cleaned up. Those were the days I wished I had a brother - he could have done that stuff. Ugh. I detest winter. I think I am a creature of warm climates. Hope your winter is over soon!
ReplyDelete
Replies
Coop a.k.a. CoopdwayMarch 20, 2013 at 6:09 PM
Thanks Dar for the end of winter wish. We heard on the radio this morning that this was the coldest start of spring we'd had in 50 years....last year's weather at this time set all time records for warmth. I'd say we're averaging out nicely.

I still don't mind winter, even though it gets longer than it should be. Not all winter tasks are completed and spring too soon would only be frustrating :)
ReplyDelete
Replies

Add comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Others say....

"it was auspicious to approach any situation from a deferential, inquisitive place. Conceding that there is much to learn is the best blueprint for discovering something new." ----B. Fuller

The Man straightened stiffly above the block of salt fixed to the stake and looked at the young cattle ringed about him. The pasture was holding out well and the stock was looking good. This bunch would be ready to sell in another month, maybe sooner if the market was right.

A stir among the cattle down near the river brought him round to face the swinging bridge he'd built years before. Someone was coming toward him from the bridge. Someone in breeches, but it didn't look like a man, somehow. What was a woman doing in his pasture this time of night?

He bent over the salt again; maybe if he paid her no heed she'd go on past and let him mind his own business. He heard her footsteps come nearer and stop. "Good evening," she said.

Her voice was smooth with book learning but friendlier than most, and somehow almost shy. When he made no answer she went on, "I've been sitting on your swinging bridge....I thought I'd like to say thank-you...." Her voice stumbled a little, then she tried once more.

"You are Mr. ____". His name sounded strange in her voice, but she went on to tell her own.

"That's what they've called me the last sixty-eight years," he said, looking past her face to the hills fast darkening under a single star. "I reckon the woods are free for those that like to walk there."

The unfamiliar voice laughed a little. "That's what Emerson said: the grove belongs to the man who walks in it with an open heart....On that basis I guess I've owned part of your woods for a good many years.....". She made a final effort. "I've always wanted to thank you....."

Something deeply hidden stirred in him. "There's a stump up there, in the notch of the woods", he said slowly, "that before the timber grew so tall you could stand on it and see all over this country."

He kept still a minute, remembering, then, "I used to stand up there an' look at things, an' wonder how they come to be like they was, an' how the hills was created, an' all the things in Nature.... I told my wife I guessed all the religion I ever had I got standin' on that old stump, a-wonderin'..." He turned his face away from her.

She helped him out. "I know about that, a little. This afternoon I saw......." Her account of a thing she had really taken time to look at eased him, and he answered with telling of the badger den at the foot of the swinging bridge.

When she had gone, he turned to watch her. After a moment she stood clear and unmoving against the sky. You could hear the sounds of the river where she stood. She was one that could stand still long enough, he thought, really to hear what a body was saying, or a river.

Then she walked down the farther side of the slope and was gone. ------Margaret Snyder from A Chosen Valley

Fall was the end of harvest, end of the growing season, a burst of color and sun-warmth before killing frost turned the land gray and cold. Fall was a moody time, full of both life and death, a time when we were reminded of the power outside of us, reminded that the seasons happen to us. We do not invite the change to come.-------Ben Logan, from The Land Remembers

When you get those rare moments of clarity, those flashes when the universe makes sense, you try desperately to hold onto them. They are the lifeboats for the darker times, when the vastness of it all, the incomprehensible nature of life is completely elusive. So the question becomes or should have been all along, what would you do if you knew you only had one day, or one week, or one month to live. What lifeboat would you grab onto? What secret would you tell? What band would you see? What person would you declare your love to? What wish would you fulfill? What exotic locale would you fly to for coffee? What book would you write? ------- Ben Tyler

We were also cautioned about journeying far from home. As an example of the dangers, the town had a badly crippled lady named Lucy, who as a girl had traveled to New York City. As she traveled along a sidewalk, sightseeing, she was struck by the outstretched hand of a suicide who had leapt from high above. Her spine had been shattered and for the rest of her life, she was to walk bent forward at the waist, tapping the sidewalk with two black canes. Whenever the subject of travel to a big city was raised, someone would say, "Just remember what happened to Miss Tripp." ---- Ted Kooser, from Local Wonders

"Steamboats are like wedding cakes without the complications...." ----Mark Twain

"It's not about having lots of money, it's about having lots of options......." -----Chris Rock

As the very proud father of three former ponytail wearers, hopefully I can get away with this....."For the past few years it's been fashionable for young women to wear ball caps and to snap the strap on the back under their ponytails. I like the looks of that, their shiny ponytails jauntily swinging, but it's hard not to think of the rear ends of horses. There's a piece of harness called the crupper that goes just under a horse's tail to keep its nose down. If the horse lifts its head to look for a way out of whatever predicament it's in, the crupper tightens and hurts the horse. But it's foolish for parents to think that a ball cap might keep a young woman from running away. Anybody can see they're made for running." ------Ted Kooser, Local Wonders

"I tell the guy's girlfriend that the only difference between the book's main character Phaedrus and myself is that I am neither brilliant, tortured or insane, she looks at my bike and there is an uncomfortable silence." --------ahendepe (a.k.a. Vermin)