So, we had a wee bit of weather the other day.

I spent the morning on work stuff, and went out to start clearing off the driveway around 2.  When I went out, we’d already gotten about 20 inches:

20 Inches at 2

The snow shoes I was wearing helped a lot in pushing through the snow. I went out back, where I could see that the back door was completely drifted in.

The back door is completely blocked by a drift.

From there, I headed out to the garage to get at the snowblower.

View from the Garage

The good news was that since the snow was light and fluffy, it was easily moved. The bad news was that since there was so much of it, our little single stage Toro snowblower needed help – I had to bore out a path with the snowblower, then break down the sides of the path with a shovel, spreading the snow out into a depth it could handle. It was slow work, but eventually I got the back door freed.

Back door area after being cleared. Note the depth of the side walls in the foreground

I was slowly pegging away at the driveway when our neighbor Jack came by with his big snowblower and cleared the end of the driveway.

Driveway Clear

Front walk, done

Good thing too, because the bolts holding the right side of the snowblower handle had come loose. I ended up pulling a pair off the lawnmower for now.

Neighbors clearing snow. Thanks Jack!

By around 4:30, I had the rest of the driveway done, and both cars cleaned off. Because we have a section of driveway that runs between the house on one side and hedges on the other, my usual snow strategy is to park the cars in that section, clear off the parts that are easier, then drive the cars with the snow to the cleared section, where they can be cleaned off. That way, there’s less snow to remove from the restricted section, and it’s easy enough to get rid of the snow coming off the cars in the open area.

The next morning, I ended up spending a couple of hours clearing off the flat porch roof, because a major leak that had developed (this, on a brand new roof, grumble). Between the snow that I’d pushed off the roof, and the couple of inches that had fallen overnight, the driveway needed a quick touchup. I was done and back in the house by ten.