When life gives you snow...

Make snowcaves!

Here we commence to record some of the great exercise that I got today.

Yesterday evening, I heard there was a threat of snow of epic proportions.  Therefore, I thought it prudent to take a before and after picture.  This is before, just in case there wasn't really going to be any snow.  (Trust me, it happens every once in a while.  We get all panicky, then get a drizzle of rain instead of snow!)

Here is a side-by-side of an "after" shot, looking across our front lawn.  On the left, we have "after the first 20 inches, and after I woke up this morning," then on the right is "after the neighbors and I had a fantastic time playing around outside all day."  I do kind of wish I had the Blake and Ian here to do some of the playing, but today they are in Maine helping Grammy take care of their 3 feet of snow.  Looks like they have more than we do.

Here is a side-by side, again, "after I woke up" and "after we did our business on the snow."  See that slot down the middle of the pile?  Yeah.  I shoveled the sidewalk.  Blazed a trail right through to the street.  We shall hereby call it Jackson Pass, for all who heretofore follow the path that leads to the front porch.

Here's what we had to contend with as far as car-digging out.  We stacked cars in the left driveway of the duplex, and hired a neighbor with a plow to do a jobbie on the right driveway.  It really saved quite a bit of time in the end to do it that way.

When I woke up, the total was basically 20 inches, and by the time the snow stopped, we were around 23 inches, most places.

On the other hand, there were places where there was much more snow, depending on how it drifted.    Piles against cars, windy sides of the house, and interesting corners in fences or houses were prone to more than the 23 inch standard.

And THIS is the  Pièce de résistance.  (No, I don't know French, I just know that Larry said it on Perfect Strangers once when he brought out his [burnt] roast duck that he made for Jennifer.  From the context clues, I think that's what we have here.)  After burrowing a chasm from the front porch through  the pile to the street, I thought, "Self, this is a GREAT snow pile to put some snow caves in.  Look how tall, how packed, and how broad the pile is!?"  The snow plows do a good job of piling up the snow for us and making sure it is packed firm.  I first worked on the one on the top left of the image.  A large one-room snow cave.  Big enough for a family of four.  Though Graham doesn't take up much space, so I bet we could fit him too.  I can sit up comfortably, and it's about 8 feet deep, with a slight curve to the right.  While I was resting from the exercise, the neighbor began working on the other side.  He worked hard to get the entrance, then I brought out the big guns (an ice chopper) to blast out the last 3 feet to make it a two-room cave.  It's got about 6-7 feet in the entrance, then another 3-4 feet for each room. Overall, the snow caves are awesome and deep.  We even "roof tested" them and reinforced until we had about 20 inches of the white suff on top.  I can't wait for Ian and Blake to come home from Maine so we can play in  them!