So We've Kind Of Had A Little Bit of Snow......

If you don't live in the Boston area nor have a lot of facebook friends, there's a small chance you've not been inundated with pictures of folk's snowy yards. However, it has come to my attention that media coverage of our historical snowfall of late has hit not only national but world wide news (since my Australian friend emailed me about it last night). Yeah, it's definitely been a lot of snow. You've surely seen what the media has shown which is likely in some sensationalized version of the truth. The local truth is we've been seriously dumped on with snow. It's been a pretty big inconvenience. You've either spent hours upon back breaking hours shoveling it or paying out the wazoo for someone to do so.....or both. Even if you have a plowing contract (which we do), there's still been removal to do around mailboxes, off decks (at this point the weight of it is a concern) and off roofs. And that's just the basics.

The snowbanks are so high that a driving is now called car roulette. Since you can't see over the banks out the ends of your driveway and at intersections, you sometimes have to close your eyes, cross your fingers, hope someone's not coming, and step on the gas. Boston has had to step over their rule of not dumping snow in the harbor because there's just no where else to put it. Never have I been happier to not live in the city. Even with our large amount of space in the burbs, we are packed full....I can't imagine how it must be at our old house where a double wide driveway was flocked on both sides by houses...where would one move all that snow?? 

So, for those of you down south that might have had a sprinkling of a few flakes the last couple of days, I thought I'd let you know what a ridiculous amount of snow looks like. I only wish I had non snow pictures to put right next to these so you'd get a better idea of how much the white stuff has taken over. 

In Front of My Garage
Note, this is usually a large, sprawling area with plenty of room
to back out, turn around and head nose first out the driveway.
As you can see above, the snow has encroached so much that
almost have of the 2 end bays are covered. Now, it's about a
10 point turn to get the car turned face first into the street.

The View Looking Out From the Garage

My Front Walkway
Now Known as "The Snow Tunnel"

Snow Tunnel to My Side Door

This is How High the Snow at the Side of the Tunnel Is
My arm reaching out parallel to the ground grazes the top.
Granted I'm not the tallest person in the world, but that's high.

My deck which Mike and I had completely cleared 3 plus feet
of snow off of before last weekend's storm.

Those 2 little peaks on the other side of the railing are where we dumped
most of the snow from the previous clearing.

Anyone want to swing?
Anyone seen the swings?
At least you don't need the ladder to get into the clubhouse anymore.

Cade sweetly volunteered to be my snow model.
So you can see from a smaller guy's perspective how much snow there is.
I mean, from his perspective, ALL you see is snow!
Oh, and this is the snowbank you have to climb to get into my backyard,
which, by the way, can only be traversed with snow shoes.

Cade in the Snow Tunnel

Cade Yelling Snow Tunnel

I couldn't convince him to do so, but I'm sure he could
have reached the end of that ice icicle if he had reached up.
We've been clearing the icicles constantly and breaking up ice where possible.
Ice Damns keep the water from meltage flowing off the roof and makes it flow up under
your roof shingles. That's been the major issue for lots of folks.
We haven't found any leaks yet but we're far from being out of the woods on that front.

This is at the end of my driveway. What I have to try and
look over\around when exiting my driveway out onto our
sometimes busy street.

My Poor Mailbox
After it survived the first few storms and got dug out, it finally
succumbed to the power of the plows. I think getting a new mailbox
is going to be a spring ritual for us each year (this one was new last year).

Definitely a ridiculous amount, but it's still pretty.

We have yet another nor 'easter in the forecast for the weekend. At this point, they think it's going to be primarily rain but that will cause a whole other slew of problems. The last few weeks have been relentless. We would love to see a day with no snow and temps above freezing...that hasn't happened in a while!