No company store...

But...

Let's see, square footage of driveway, 10 inches of snow, add on for extra wet and heavy snow...

Yup, I feel like I loaded sixteen tons, all right.

Thought my father in law and I were the only ones around here who would be shoveling--the mailman came by while I was laboring away, said I was the only one in the neighborhood--but on the way back from his place, we saw a few others. Possibly most folks around here figure like I eventually came to, that snow around here almost always melts after a day, so why bother? This time is different.

So. More pics:

























The view from my (back) porch this AM. Mrs. Drang does not seem enthused about cooking our Christmas Roast in the Green Egg, for some reason...

Note the snow drifted around the rock.

























You can see the trail blazed by the ever-intrepid Ratbane as he made his way to the treeline again. He was gone for quite a while, not sure if he has friends back there, or the latest issue of PlayKitten, or was just working his nerve up for coming back through belly-deep snow...

























This was interesting. I opened the front door to check for a paper--none today, although I found Saturday's Shopping News while shoveling--and there was a small "threshold" of snow built up.

I actually had to go around the house to shovel, I couldn't get the side gate open.

Meanwhile, the truck had a quarter-inch thick ice cap on it, not unlike Individually Quick Frozen at sea fish.

The current forecast is that we won't get anymore snow until Christmas Eve. And then rain. And then some more rain, and some more snow. "Simultaneously or consecutively," as Richard Dreyfus says in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. (Which I have tried to get Mrs. Drang to watch several times, and, despite claiming to be a great fan of Tom Stoppard, she falls asleep every time, about the time The Players show up.)

Fortunately, the great winds we were told to expect never showed up, or things would be far worse. No mass electrical outages, although there are some neighborhoods where, for example, the transfer station blew up in an ice storm. Not as many accidents as I would have expected, but there have been some.

Addenda to Winter Safety Posts:

• DO NOT put the chains on your car in traffic!
• DO NOT go sledding or tobogganing in the street!
• If you MUST walk in the street-i.e., the snowplows have thrown all the snow on the sidewalk, and you can't even get to it--wear highly visible clothes, and watch out for cars with minimized stopping ability!

EDIT to add: Post #300! Whoo-Hoo!