Yesterday, one of my daughters worked on shoveling paths in the yard, to the burn barrel and the electricity meter, while the other broke out little Spewie and started on the driveway.

The problem is that, with the winds we’ve been having, what had earlier been light and fluffy snow is now hard packed. Since the wind was also coming from the north, it was blowing the snow off the garage roof and forming a drift, right in front of the garage doors.

That little snow blower worked mightily!

My daughter focused on clearing the turning radius in front of the garage. She worked for a couple of hours, came in to warm up, then headed back out again, taking advantage of the fact that Spewie has a headlight.

This is what she was working on.

This is not drifted snow.

You can see my boot prints to the gate cam. All of that needs to be cleared.

For perspective…

I added the little red lines to show where the top of the snow it. It’s about 3/4s up to my knees.

Also, I need new boots. These are supposed to be good to -40C/-40F. They are not! Plus, they’re starting crack in places. Having finally run out of Toe Warmers, it means my days of clearing snow are ended until I either replace the boots or get more Toe Warmers. Just the time it takes to do my morning rounds leaves me with freezing toes – and that’s with extra liners in my boots!

Ah, well. We’ll see what I can find when I’m in the city in a few days.

The snow may no longer be fluffy, but some things still are!

Here is a fluffy Brussel.

What a gorgeous cat! I so want to snuggle her, but she won’t let me come close. 😥 (I’m just assuming it’s female, because it’s a calico.)

We have SO many long haired yard cats now!

I think I counted 27 cats this morning. Or it might have been 24. Every time I counted, I got a different number! I did see both remaining bitties in the cat house this time, so that’s good. Unfortunately, we’re now out of the big cans of cat food the cat lady donated for the outside cats, so they’re not getting their treats anymore.

One of cats that got counted was this beat up boy.

What a face!

Shop Towel actually came around to eat while I was still putting out the food and water, and after they were all done eating, he stayed sheltered under the water house. If it were summer, I’d discourage him from hanging around, but not in the winter!

The water shelter is a lot higher than the kibble house and cat house. I’m trying to think of what I could put around the bottom to help keep out the wind and snow. Carpet cut into strips, like what is in front of the cat house entry, would probably work. There are rolls of scrap carpet in the barn. I have no idea how old they are, but some might still be useable.

Over the next couple of days, our focus is going to be slowly clearing away the driveway. I want to dig out the gas powered snow blower and try starting it again. We were never able to bring it in to get checked – dragging it in and out of the back of the van is a real pain. It had started when I tested it, two winters ago, then suddenly wouldn’t when I actually needed to use it. Who knows? It might suddenly start working again. It’s not like anything has changed. It would make things SO much easier if we could get that big beast going!

On the plus side, we’re not expected to get any significant amounts of snow for the next while, so at least the job shouldn’t get any bigger.

The Re-Farmer