Snow Day

"Neither rain, nor sleet, nor gloom of night" keeps the postman from his appointed rounds . . . but apparently snow does!

As you know, much of the country has been getting slammed with unusual amounts of snow the last couple of weeks. Everyone but us, that is. We've been enviously discussing New York's deluge. Why can't it happen here - where it's SUPPOSED to?!

Well, last week, Minnesota finally got hit. Everywhere in Minnesota except here.

Schools across the state were canceled. Vehicles and small buildings were covered by massive drifts. Tom's 86-year old dad was snowbound at home until the plows came by.

And still, we dealt with frozen water systems caused by the lack of insulating snow cover. We heard from friends who were surrounded by a blizzard only 140 miles south of us. And, still we waited.

F-I-N-A-L-L-Y, last Friday, we got hit. It snowed about 15 inches in that one day . . . which brings me to the Postman's Motto:

For the first time that I can remember, postal service was canceled due to the snowfall. UPS delivery was canceled, too. As was school.

I spent my entire day plowing, it seemed (out and back three times to keep the 4-mile winter driveway open due to the snowfall and drifting winds). I headed out bright and early to plow Tom out to the main road in the morning . . . only to find that it had yet to be plowed! Fortunately, there wasn't enough snow to prevent him from driving down it, but he said that it was close: at one or two points where the wind had made big drifts across the road, the snow buried the hood when he smashed through it. Fortunately, it was light and fluffy.

At my mid-afternoon pass, I discovered that - still - the main road wasn't plowed, and now there was WAY too much snow for Tom to drive the Subaru Outback through. So, I headed home to call him to tell him that I would have to come down to pick him up at the post office where we'd just leave his car until the road was plowed.

With that plan in place, I headed out for the 3rd pass at keeping our road open around 4:00 and to pick Tom up. But, the county plow had just been through, and the road was clear as could be! So, back home I plowed to leave a message at the post office that Tom could head on up to Swamp River Ridge!