Coop's Corner: Hibernation Update

Monday, February 25, 2019

Hibernation Update

We could still hibernate and frankly, right now I'm feeling like a lie down and possibly sleeping until the crocuses bloom....but I won't. There's more snow predicted this week. In fact, multiple snows.

Hanna's car was pulled out yesterday afternoon. Our driveway there on the corner is glare ice; it was no wonder she got stuck there at midnight after the concert. I pulled it out once with the plow truck and didn't get it far enough, then had to hook on again and pull it further up the slope until it was able to find traction on its own.

I worked from 3:30 yesterday until 6:30, blew out the worst drifts on half of the driveway and then went after it with the plow truck which I finally buried and had to use the 'blower to free it up.

It was all I could do to not be out there at 6:30 this morning but I told myself I'd wait until 8AM when the Wind Advisory with "dangerous windchills' were supposed to subside. The upside of plowing was that I was able, in spite of getting stuck, to clear a larger area quickly. The downside was that the piles I left had turned rock hard today, harder than even the drifted snow. The blower was adamant about "let someone else do those piles" today. I chewed through a couple of them anyway, even with the complaining from the Orange One.

So it's a bit after 2:30 and the job is done. Not in the Premium category or even Deluxe, I settled for Economy this time. Normally I give our parking area a thorough cleaning, enough for our very large garbage truck and the many FedEx and UPS trucks space to easily turn around.....they're going to have to use a bit more care, very possibly until June.

This was just past where I stopped with the plow truck yesterday.....

This the next drift, shoulder high and roughly 15 feet before I got to the next one.....

As I mentioned to friends, this isn't the romantic North woods fluffy snow. This snow is packed tight, tight to the point of fighting back. Those drift blades that I should have bought, contemplated buying but did not, have now been ordered. There was a lot of tunneling today.

It's a bit after 3:00 right now. I've had the van to our local convenience store for another 10 gallons of snowblower gas (I was essentially out), a coffee and a 12 pack of Extra Pale. The first one went down easily along with some of that elk jerky.

And this evening.....

12 comments:

RichardMFebruary 25, 2019 at 9:44 PM
It doesn’t look like you are doing a good job hibernating...

Time to head south?
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redlegsridesFebruary 26, 2019 at 7:59 AM
I echo RichardM's question. What came to mind as I read your post and saw the pictures was perhaps making room in the stable for a bulldozer....
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AnonymousFebruary 26, 2019 at 1:26 PM
An old friend and farmer in Fisher, MN once one told me, "Keep the wood piles high, the larder full, a tall stack of books, and hire someone to plow your driveway."

Good advice he never followed. I won't bother to tell you not to work too hard. Scott
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TrobairitzMarch 3, 2019 at 9:19 AM
Damn, don't hurt yourself doing all that snow removal. I hear you have even more cold temps headed your way.
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TroubadourMarch 3, 2019 at 1:10 PM
No, no, no, no, no, and no.
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ScottyMarch 5, 2019 at 7:52 PM
I bought a 700 hundred dollar Toro snowblower that worked for three driveway clearings. Then something broke. Then Sheri's knee broke. And it's been too damn cold to find out what's wrong with the Toro.These past few months have taken their toll on me Doug. My old man would probably tell me to suck it up.
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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)