Snow Day!

There are many things I miss about being a teacher, and snow days are certainly one of those things!  My teacher friends have had numerous snow days this winter, while only one of my classes has been cancelled one time, meaning I've gone to campus in the cold, wind, and snow when I really would have preferred to stay home.

Today, though, is a different story because campus is closed (no class tonight - yay!) and C had the day off as well, so we are enjoying a snow day!

We live at the top of a hill with only four other houses and very lovely neighbors.  It is extremely quiet and we love it because we are surrounded by woods and there is no traffic whatsoever.  One thing that is not so great when there is a big snowfall is that it is a private road, which means it never gets plowed.  Every now and then, a plow will make its way up our hill, clearly unaware that they are under no obligation to do so, but we typically find ourselves stuck in our house until the snow melts enough to navigate the hill.  During “Snowmageddon” a few years ago, we had no choice…we lost power, so we packed up our five dogs and went to my mom’s house.  Those sixteen miles took us a nerve-wracking ninety minutes.

So when we saw all of the snow that had fallen overnight, we figured we weren’t going anywhere any time soon.  C and I headed outside to start the arduous task of shoveling our driveway.  We’d been out there about fifteen minutes when a pick-up truck with a plow on it came up our hill.  The driver stopped and got out to chat with us.  “Chat” is not really an appropriate word, since he was standing at the end of our driveway and we were right near our garage; “shout” really describes it more accurately.  He asked about our street and who was responsible for plowing it, and after telling him that no one plowed it, I asked how much he would charge us to clear our cul-de-sac and hill.  I almost did not care what the answer was – I would have paid him ten times what he asked for – but his price was extremely reasonable.  I got the money from inside, and ran down the driveway to hand it over.  Again, to say I “ran” doesn’t really capture the high-stepping and arm-flailing I was doing to get through the deep snow, but you get the idea.  I gave him more than we had agreed upon and asked if he would do a pass of our driveway.  He not only agreed, he offered to do everyone’s driveway.

His act of kindness not only means that C will be able to get down the hill to get to work if the federal government is open tomorrow, but our total time spent shoveling was reduced from easily four-plus hours to about an hour.  I am not sure why he happened to come up our road to check on us (although it turns out he lives nearby) or why we were so lucky to have been outside at that moment when he did appear.  But we are so very grateful and it is a reminder that there are so many wonderful, good people out in the world.

Here's a photo of a boat trailer that my brother parked in front of our house.  I'm not sure the trailer will be getting moved anytime soon, but it gives you a sense of the amount of snow cleared from the road.

Lastly, our dogs do NOT like the snow.  I like to think it’s because they are so low to the ground, but other Dachshunds like the snow, so apparently it's just them.  Whatever the reason, they want nothing to do with the white stuff.  So who did we play with while we were outside shoveling?  Our neighbor's dog, Mason.  Where were our dogs?  Inside, burrowed under fuzzy blankets, sleeping the day away.  Once we finished shoveling, we took Maddy out, hoping she'd play in a mostly clear driveway, but we were wrong...she could not high-tail it back to the house fast enough.  Oh well!  We tried!

Happy Tails to you!