But I at least got some rest, first.

I saw my daughter on the garage cam, trying to cut her way through a snow drift in front of one side of the garage that didn’t need to be cleared. It was so deep, she had to use a shovel to cut into it before little Spewie could do its job. When I cleared the area in front of the garage, I hadn’t made a wide enough turn radius, so when we headed into town and I tried backing the truck out of the garage and turning into the driveway, I couldn’t back up far enough to clear a corner of the drift I’d left behind.

So I quickly took some painkillers, bundled up and headed outside, grabbing the snow shovel along the way.

After talking to her for a bit to explain that only the one edge of the drift needed to be cleared, not the whole thing, I stayed out to help. The area in front of the garage was drifted over even deeper than when I cleared it yesterday, and it wasn’t light and fluffy, like in the yard! To top it off, my daughter could maneuver Spewie only in certain directions without the wind blowing the snow right back into her.

For the next while, we had a routine. I’d use the shovel to break up the snow along the edge she’d just cleared, then rested while she cleared the area I broke up. Once she did a pass, she’s drag the snow blower back towards the garage, then she could rest while I broke up the next area of snow.

We kept this up until we cleared a decent sized area, far enough to clear that section of drift that I’d hit, then my daughter started making the first cut through the snow to the gate. While she did that, I started working on the turning radius space that she couldn’t get into with Spewie. After a while, though, she stopped and asked if I could help her out. In order to not trip the power bar by overtaxing the snow blower, she was doing a lot of slow back and forthing, while dragging the extension cord behind her. She kept stepping on the cord as she backed up, so I helped by simply following along, holding the cord off the ground behind her, moving back and forth with her, while also pulling more slack from the garage along the way. My daughter had the cord slung over her shoulder, so this ensured she never had to have the cord pulling at her as she went along. We have 100′ extension cords, and we need to use both to reach the end of the driveway – roughly 150-160′, I’d say. Dragging that behind you can get pretty “heavy”.

As we got closer to the gate, I was trying to see if the road had been plowed, but was very perplexed by what I was seeing. Everything was so glaring white, I just couldn’t make things out until we get closer.

I was seeing a mountain of snow, blocking the end of our driveway.

It was easily the worst plow ridge we’ve had left across our driveway, in the 7 winters we’ve seen since moving out here! Not even when we were snowed in for a month, did the plow leave behind a ridge so high!

Once we reached the gate and my daughter stopped to unlock it, I went back to get the snow shovel, and a metal shovel to break up ridge. The snow shovel is plastic and already has a crack in it, so I didn’t want to use that to break up the plow ridge.

Then I clambered over the ridge to start working on it from the road side, first. I quickly realized that, even if Spewie were powerful enough to clear the ridge (which it isn’t, even if I broke it up, first), the snow was so full of gravel, we couldn’t have done it, anyhow. Spewie’s parts are plastic, so the gravel would have completely wrecked it.

Check this out.

It’s hard to see, with everything so white, but that plow ridge reached to over halfway up my thigh. I had to use both shovels to steady myself, just to climb over it.

You can get a better idea of how tall it was in this next photo.

I’d cleared about half of the ridge at this point.

The thing is, it isn’t enough to clear enough space to fit the truck through. There needs to be a turning radius, of course, but we also need enough space to get in and out of the truck to open and close the gate.

It’s a good thing I enjoy shoveling.

By the time I mostly cleared the ridge, my daughter was almost done the rest of the driveway. She even cleared a path to the trail cam for me, while I got the last bit done, and she could finish her pass and turn around.

While she did her last pass, I went back to working on the turning radius by the garage. I hope I got the range right. It was actually faster for me to use a shovel to clear the space than it took for my daughter to cut her way through the last section of driveway with Spewie, so I just kept on clearing until we finally caught up with each other.

Once everything was put away and my daughter brushed the snow and ice off of Spewie, we were more than happy to hobbler our way inside. I’m thankful for the longer daylight hours, because it was already starting to get dark by the time we were done!

My husband, sweetheart that he is, has offered to order take out pizza for tonight. Once I’m done writing this, I need to decide if I’m up for the drive. Not that I can eat pizza during Lent, but they might have something on their menu I can have, instead.

What do I feel more up to? Cooking, or driving?

I think driving might just win.

The Re-Farmer