Exhausted and cold! The high winds we got today were from the north, and my bedroom is north facing. It’s usually one of the coldest rooms in the house, but now I feel freezing. Meanwhile the rest of the house is warm enough to not trigger the furnace to turn on. I’m actually having a hard time typing!
I’ll be warm soon enough. I plan to go to bed as soon as I’m done this, even though it has just turned 6pm.
But first, the cuteness.
The yard cats managed to somehow flatten the cat cave, in spite of the wire supports I put on the inside. That hasn’t stopped them from using it, though! The first picture was taken when I did the morning feeding. The next two, after I did the evening feeding.
A bit early, because I did not want to go outside again.
The cab was booked to arrive at our place at around 11. I planned to meet him at the gate, since I wasn’t expecting a car to make it down our driveway though, at the time, the truck would have made it.
Yeah, some foreshadowing there!
I headed out a bit early, knowing I could wait out of the wind in the garage. The main door was open, but it faces south, so there was no wind at all coming in.
Thankfully, my brother installed a wifi booster in the garage where the lawnmowers are stores, so I was able to get a call on my cell phone. It was the taxi driver. He apparently didn’t read my directions all the way through and was at the highway, asking which side I was on. I gave him the rest of the directions and he soon arrived.
The drive into town was downright scary!
Portions of the gravel road were completely hidden by blowing snow, with hidden drifts beginning to form. It was worse on the highway. Even in town, with building to cut the wind.
Just as scary was realizing this guy was not a particularly good driver, and wasn’t driving to the conditions. Not the worst driver I’ve been a passenger with, but with the roads the way they were, it wasn’t long before I was seriously concerned he’d slide off the road! Especially as he was speeding through our little hamlet, where things are always way more slippery. We were talking about the conditions and I told him I was in no hurry, and to feel free to take his time. Thankfully, he did slow down.
Once past our hamlet, visibility kept getting worse anywhere there was open fields. We could barely see the road, nor oncoming traffic until they were quite close. As we were getting close to town, in a wide open area near the airport, I could see a dump truck just into a cross road, it’s back end leaning precariously into the ditch! Then a huge gust came up and he literally had to stop. Zero visibility. The only thing we could see was the top of the truck because he pulled over right near where it was. Thankfully, it started to clear up relatively quickly. Once he was able to start moving again, we realized he had gone off to the side by a fair bit. Thankfully, we were right in the intersection, so he was more on the gravel road instead of more into a ditch!
When we got into town, I had him stop at a bank first, where I could take out some cash to pay him, rather than try to use debit on his phone. The car was a regular car, so he was tracking the mileage and fare on his phone. As we were talking, he told me he’s been in business for just over a year. He had quite a bit more driving in these conditions to pick up other fares, too!
After I got the cash – including a well deserved tip – he drove me to the garage.
The truck was parked outside by the building. It was blocked by a car, but it was running, so I knew it wouldn’t be there for long.
I went in to talk to the owner and the mechanic that has driven the truck with me. The owner just handed me the keys. No charge!
We talked for a while, and they have concluded that the issue was never with the transfer case. It is fine. They’ve concluded it had something to do with the ABS trying to kick in. I do remember seeing the ABS light flash briefly when I was driving it. I was told what to watch out for, but in the end, there is nothing wrong with the truck. There was nothing to fix.
!!!
The owner’s wife and toddler were there as well, when I mentioned I was blocked. It turned out to be their car. I was in no hurry, though, and used the command start to warm the truck up while waiting until his wife headed out.
The truck was running fine, but… ???
There was no clock display.
The dashboard displays were fine, but not clock. I tried turning on the radio. Nothing.
This was while I got the truck out and crossed the street to the grocery store. With the road conditions, I wanted to get the shopping done as quickly as possible. My plan to stay in town and time my return for when the post office reopened at 2pm went out the window. I wanted to get home before things were drifted over too badly!
Once the shopping was done, I messaged home saying I it would be a slow drive home, and asking for someone to open the gate. I didn’t want to have to stop and lose momentum.
It was, indeed, a slow drive home, but visibility was not as bad as earlier. I did have to stop at the same intersection as on the way out, though. This time, because my side of the highway was blocked by the massive tow truck that just got the dump truck out of the ditch! So only one lane was open and I had to wait for oncoming traffic to get by. I didn’t have to wait long.
Then, I got to our own driveway…
… and got stuck.
The end of the driveway and at the gate was still clear. The walls of snow were high enough to prevent drifting. The rest of the driveway had more snow on it than when I left.
Which would have been okay, if I’d managed to stay on the hard packed tire tracks. Unfortunately, I slid off, and once I was off, that was it.
Yes, I even switched to 4 wheel drive, but I just wasn’t moving.
*sigh*
With the way the truck was now diagonal across the driveway, I could only reach the driver’s side doors. I let my family know and started pulling bags on the passenger side out from the driver’s side and taking them to the house. My younger daughter booted up and came out to help as soon as she could. The green you see on the hood of the truck in the first picture is one of the grocery bags.
Then I left my daughter to put everything way and start cooking the individual flat bread pizzas I picked up, because I knew none of us would be up to cooking from scratch today. She got quite a bit done while I was gone, and was still doing the last load of my laundry for me.
Once everything was in, I got on the lovely bib overalls she got for me, because they cut the wind like nothing else, and headed back out. I was able to shovel around the truck, then had to get the ice scraper to break up the packed snow and ice that had “fenced in” the tires. I was protected from the wind enough that I actually started to overheat a bit!
That done, it was time to break out little Spewie.
There was enough drifted snow that I started out by clearing in front of the garage, so I wouldn’t get stuck again trying to pull in, then cleared the driveway up to the truck.
That took quite a long time.
Before I stopped, though, I did clear the foot path to the gate wide enough for my husband’s walker, then cleared a path to the electricity meter. That was so drifted over, you’d never know a path had already been dug out there. Several times.
I had thought to do a bit more clearing once the truck was in the garage, so I made sure the extension cord was out of the way before getting back to the truck. A bit more clearing with the ice scraper, and I gave it a go.
Thankfully, I was able to get out with little trouble and parked in the garage.
In the second picture of the slide show above, you can see the tracks where the tires had sunk on the sides of the packed tire tracks. Had I not cleared it with little Spewie, I probably would have gotten stuck again.
The last picture is where I got stuck, and the rest of the driveway that needs to be cleared.
Not today.
I realized I was done at that point. With the ice and snow I’d gotten loose with the ice scraper, it needed to be shoveled clear, first, so they wouldn’t break the blade on Spewie, and I just didn’t have the energy left to do the rest of the job.
It needs to be done, though. We’ve got someone coming out with a kibble donation tomorrow. If they can’t get through the driveway, we’ll have to haul it through the snow, and that area is now so uneven, it would be dangerous. I also want to clear the turn around area in the yard, so we can drive up to the house to unload our stock up shopping.
Plus, I still don’t have the clock display working. I texted the garage but haven’t heard back. I might need to go back for them to take a look and see what happened. Might just be a fuse.
In the end, I put Spewie away in the storage side of the garage. Normally, I’d properly put away the extension cords, too (I had to use two 100′ cords to reach the truck), but this time I just pulled them in off to the side, so they are easily accessible tomorrow.
How much I can get done tomorrow, though, is questionable. I did make sure to plug in the truck. As I write this, we are at -22C/-8F, with a wind chill of -38C/-36F. We’re supposed to drop to -31C/-24F during the night, but at least the wind is going to die down. Still, tomorrow’s high of the day is supposed to be -21C/-6F Sunday’s high is supposed to be -16C/3F, so I might leave doing the inner yard for then.
By the time I got in, it was coming up on 3pm, so I ended up doing the outside cats’ evening feeding. I had no idea I had been out that long! It wasn’t even quite noon when I got home.
The next while was spent updating the family and finally sitting down to eat. When I was still thinking of heading home late enough to go to the post office when it reopened at 2, I expected to have lunch in town. That didn’t happen. All I’d eaten all day was a hunk of cheese for breakfast, and half a can of Monster during the drive home. My poor little pizza was pretty dehydrated by the time I got to it. 😄
I also found a text from my sister, letting me know she’d tried to call our mother, but would be trying again later. My mother was busy – playing bingo and having birthday cake!
That is such good news. My mother had been going stir crazy with boredom while in the hospital. She wasn’t at the first TCU for long, but if they had any activities, we never heard of them. I think most of the people there had more severe cognitive issues and dementia. That where my mother is now already has her doing activities is fantastic news.
I really should call her myself, but I’m just too tired.
I already took my anti-inflammatories with my supper/lunch/breakfast. Now is the time to take some pain killers and crawl into bed!
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 