The Ice Cometh. The Plowman Cometh Not

New Paltz got a bit more than the 8-16 inches of snow in the forecast. When I went out to do a bit of shoveling last night, the snow was up to my knees. I figured that the plow guy would come either late last night or early this morning. The last time it snowed, he came both during and after the blizzard. Today I found out why.

But to backtrack, I should mention that I made a slight miscalculation that led to me shoveling for 150 minutes instead of 15. With the car at the bottom of our driveway, I decided to see if I could take it one more time to the end of our private road. This unpaved road is just over four tenths of a mile long. I'd just come back from town, so I'd driven the road successfully, but when I went to move the car this last time, enough snow had fallen that the task had become impossible. I should have just taken the snow off the driveway so that I could park the car near the house, out of the way of the plow, but I reckoned that it would be a good idea to leave the car at the bottom of the road instead.

I drove away from the house, but after a short way, the car was stuck fast. I shoveled a bit and got back in, but I only made it as far as the area I'd cleared, plus a few feet. This process was repeated for the next two hours, after which I'd only taken the car halfway towards the main road. Shirra had shown up on the scene to help, so I cleared while she drove, and we managed to park the car to the side of the road. On the way back home, we had to contend with snow that had drifted as high as our thighs in places, making it an exceedingly difficult walk. We figured that we'd see the plowman this morning, but I left him a few messages just in case. He never showed, and he never called.

We would be trapped without someone's help. We tried to phone another plower we know, but he was swamped with calls. My only choice was to try to flag down a passing plower this morning off of Route 32. I stood there for nearly 20 minutes before getting someone to slow down, a lovely fellow named Joe. Initially he didn't think he would have time for the job, but he made time for me, and then he almost quit when he saw what lay ahead for him.

It's hard to plow snow that's over a foot high. Joe had to back up and smash into the snow for quite some time at first. Later, where the snow wasn't so deep thanks to my shoveling and driving, he made swift work of the plowing. In all, he was at it for nearly an hour, including the time it took him to put chains on the wheels, but when it was finished, we were in the clear! Well, except for our neighbor's driveway. Joe was in a rush to get back to his regular customers, so I told him that I'd take car of her place myself. It took me about an hour. I also had some more shoveling to do at our house just to extricate Shirra's car and to clear a bit more of our drive. In all, I guess I was busy for five hours. Luckily I'd located one of those weight-lifter belts this morning so that my back wouldn't be completely destroyed. I don't think I'd even be able to walk if it weren't for that.