Friday, December 19, 2008

I'm dreaming of a cheap snowplow service.

The winter weather machine that is lake-effect snow has roared in here like nobody's business. I shoveled a foot-and-a-half of snow from my driveway, there is more on the way today, and it is messy out there. The roads were a nightmare on Friday. The town didn't get to plowing our street until late in the night, as they had trouble keeping up with the main roads. It was coming down at several inches per hour, and for a time, visibility was close to zero outside my window.

I had to finally go out at about 3:30 or 4 in the pm to get started on shoveling out, (note the weapons of war to the left) and it was a pain in the ass. Fortunately, child labor is plentiful here, and for a reasonable fee we got some help plowing out. Also to the rescue was a neighbor with a plow blade on his truck. He runs a snow plow service part-time in the winter to pick up a few extra bucks. He's a paramedic in the northern suburb of Greece, (a town here, not the country) and is originally from Yonkers. We usually have a lot to talk about, and even know some of the same people from the EMS world back down in NYC.

Getting up this morning to find another 2 inches or so on the driveway, Mrs. N. and I figured it would be best to get it off before this second round comes in and blasts us again. Now, here is Mrs. N. doing her wifely duties - *SMACK* - OK, OK!!!! I mean we both were doing our duty....

Now, this will give you some inkling of how much snow we got:
As you can see, we earned a PhD in this storm, that is Piled High and Deep. Of course, Round 2 was on the way, and just as we were finishing, we could see it barreling in from the west. You can see the nice sunny weather from these two pictures, and then within a span of literally 2-3 minutes, it was "Auntie Em, Auntie Em" time here.




















The wind started whipping up, and the wall of snow that followed started to sting the front of my face, and it was then when we realized it was time to pack up, head inside and get something warm to drink.

We haven't had anymore snowfall, but still the wind has been brutal, and temps have been hovering in the teens. We may get some more tonight, but I am hoping for not.

It's gonna be a long winter.

P.S. The white stuff started coming down again. I suppose I know what I will be doing come tomorrow morning. In the meantime, this is what the radar looks like:


4 comments:

BenefitScroungingScum said...

Wow! I've never seen so much snow in my whole life! I hope you guys are doing ok, and thank you for the wonderful photos. Keep warm! BG x
PS, if I don't get back around, Happy Holidays!

Mr. Nighttime said...

BG - Thanks for the warm thoughts. This is normal for this part of NY State. Welcome to my world.

A said...

Kind of stunning images for someone like me, hailing from a small rainy kingdom by the sea: we had 40°-50°F gray skies here,
with snow like that reminding me of the skiing slopes of the Swiss Alps.

And obviously, always a pleasure watching Mrs. N. doing her wifely duties ;-)

Keep warm over there - best wishes for the holidays from a country that hardly knows what real snow looks like.

Mr. Nighttime said...

Peter - Are you guys in the gulf stream, or something to that effect?
Uh, I'll pass on relaying your message to Mrs. N. ;-)

Don't worry about keeping warm, you learn how to do that very well here, but thanks.