Snow Report

Once Again

We interrupt this blog to bring you the nearly weekly snow report from New Jersey.

It snowed.

And snowed some more.

And then snowed some more.

All told this time we only got about 8 inches. That's a far cry from the nearly two feet that hit us last time, but enough to need plowing, digging, and shoveling.  Fortunately, it was a light, fluffy snow here, so it was relatively easy to move.  I shoveled my path out to the barn, fed the Boys and then started up the tractor.

Off we went, across the lawn in one swoop to the driveway.  It took a bit of back and forth to clear the area in front of the garage, but once that was done, the driveways themselves were not too difficult. I had to plow diagonally to start off, but once I had the top portions of each cleared out that way, it was a straight plow down to and across the road.

Ah, but there lay the peril. Traffic.

My road is a busy commuter/truck route. For some reason, snow does not seem to deter many of the drivers out there. Worse, they do not seem to be too impressed by a tractor crossing the road with a pile of snow in front of it.  Some people slow down and others just keep coming.

I always get a good look in both directions before I pull out. This morning was no exception.

But to the west, there is a bit of a hill, and sometimes cars come ripping over it at speed.  Despite the slick conditions, that's exactly what happened.  I was already across the road, lifting the pile to dump it when along came a car.  At some point, he saw me, but when he started to brake, he started skidding all over the road.

I gunned little tractor's engine, put it in reverse and backed up fast.   Luckily all survived unscathed but here's the punch line.  As he drove past, the car's driver gave me a glare to kill as if I was all at fault.

Uhm, who was it driving too fast to stop on the icy roads?

Getting the ends of the driveways open is, as you can see, downright dangerous. That's one of the reasons I prefer plowing earlier than later. If I get out there before everyone else in the world is plowed out, I have less traffic to deal with.

Every now and then a driver does go by slowly. Some of them even pull over onto the other side of the road to give me some extra clearance if I am at the end of the driveway.  Those guys usually get a friendly wave of thanks from me.

The rest of them, including "Mr. Slip and Slide?"  You have a few safe driving lessons yet to learn. Maybe your skid in front of my driveway will save your life at the next stop sign--that is if you learned anything at all.