Training Log Archive: CleverSky

Snow dealings, round 18: tidying up Mom's yard. I took her snowblower and cleaned up around where she parks her car, trying to make enough room so that the plow guy can turn left at the top and still have some space to leave the snow. Doesn't look like we're going to get any after all, so I left the car there instead of bringing it to my house, though we did put a sheet of rubber on the windshield in case there's a lot of ice. There was a bit of shoveling involved, but not too much.

Shorter Mystery Blazes loop. Finally got out for some exercise. I pondered whether to take the giant snowshoes, but opted for the medium ones, and after not very long I was regretting that choice and thought about going back to change. I was surprised at how little of this was tracked in. The main trail had seen no snowmobile traffic since the midweek storms, and the first half of MB had nothing since the last time I was there. The Lane trail did have what was apparently an out-and-back on XC skis from Holman St. The power line trail was packed by snowmobiles, and I was so beat from the MB (sinking in 8"-12" with each step) that I was planning to cut it short and just turn right at the power line trail, but I decided to check out the entrance to the north half of MB, and saw that somebody had gone through with (pretty small) snowshoes, and that a deer had postholed along those tracks as well. This packed it down just enough that the going was easier and faster for me, so I forged ahead. Nevertheless, I was pretty gratified when I got to the Hickory Hills trails and had snowmobile tracks again, but they lasted only to the esker, and then I was breaking trail again. I had crossed Mulpus Brook by just walking across the stream, and the ice and snow held. I was still surprised, however to see a set of snowshoe tracks running right down the brook a little way south of the Xmas bridge. This was all a trudge, but a pretty vigorous one, I was working hard and sweating out there. This was early afternoon, temps right around freezing, with sleet showers. The GPS works a lot better in the air than on the ground, and it looks like there's some spurious jaggedness to my route that is probably giving me credit for more distance than I actually traveled.

Snow dealings, round 17: liberating Mom's car. Stopped by her place and shoveled out around it enough to back it out of the spot where she had stashed it, and I'll get it over to my house tonight in advance of the storm. I'll also need to do some work with the snowblower tonight to create some maneuvering room for the plow guy. While I was there, I shoveled some snow off of her roof above the most outrageous piece of ice, tossed on a few handfuls of table salt, and told her to stay clear of that spot for a few hours. I have my fingers crossed that it won't do any damage to the propane tank when it lets loose. Meanwhile, Nancy reports some water drippage, so I'm snagging an extension ladder from work so that I can get up to her eaves at some point and investigate. Fingers are crossed that the heater tapes will help, though the ice and snow unfortunately have a head start.

Snow dealings, round 15: more work at my place, roughly an hour, maybe? I shoveled out the path to the oil filler, and tidied up the main walk from the overnight flurries. Then I pulled out the snowblower and did a quick pass on the driveway to get some bare pavement showing in the hopes that if there's some sunshine it will melt clean. Next was what to do about Mom's car if we get another storm. I decided to snowblow out a parking space so that I can bring her car over here to keep it out of the way of the plow, but not have it be blocking my way when I clear my driveway. This was a multistage operation, since the snow is much deeper than the mouth of the snowblower, and almost up to the level of the top of the discharge chute. I had to slowly chew one path in the length of the car, then I would repeatedly back up, knock down a foot of snow from the side of the path using a shovel, then go forward a couple of times to get the rubble out of there. I think I now have a big enough slot for her car, though I may need to do a little more work to enlarge it. I officially gave up on my mailbox yesterday, went to the post office and filled out a "hold mail" form, and in the space for the date when the hold should end, I just wrote "when the snow melts". Just as well, since this morning I found my mailbox lying on top of a giant snowbank, and I have no idea where down underneath there the post might be. I really wanted to get out and do some snowshoeing yesterday, but there was too much work to do. I may try to get out tonight. The elephant in the room is what's going to happen to all this water if it warms up suddenly. We could be looking at some pretty impressive flooding. Snow depth here is 24"-29", depending on where you measure it.

Snow dealings, round 16: tidying up at Nancy's house. Not sure of the time, might have been a bit longer, maybe 30 min. Most of this was taking the plow snow that Nancy had scooted over to one corner and launching it up over the pile, which at this point can be done only by one particular twisting technique, using core muscles rather than arms. Probably good cross-training for paddling. I also made an attempt to chop down the banks at bit at the road in order to allow for a little visibility up and down the road when pulling out.

Not enough mental oomph remaining to get out into the woods in snowshoes in the dark at 15F.

Snow dealings, round 12: my house. The garage door wouldn't open due to the show packed against it, so I had to shovel around from the front door to free it up, which took about 10 minutes (leaving the oil filler and woodshed for later), then there was about 25 minutes of snowblowing the driveway. No engine troubles to speak of. This was the easy part.

Snow dealings, round 13: Nancy's house. Nancy had shoveled the fluffier stuff yesterday, plus at least enough to get out this morning, but when I arrived there was waist-deep plow snow clear across the driveway. I had to park at the repair shop up the street and jog down to her place with my shovel. I didn't quite have it ready for her to pull in when she returned from work, so I told her to park in the driveway across the street temporarily. I was largely done when the guy across the street showed up and he and his wife start wondering out loud whose car it was (duh, maybe the guy standing across the street with a shovel?). So Nancy moved her car, and the guy asked if I could give him a hand getting his snowblower out of the bed of the truck and said he'd blow some snow for me. Unfortunately he had lost a cotter pin and one of his wheels wasn't turning, and I could have been more effective than him if I had been operating the machine, but I can't be too critical, becuse it sure did help (he has watched Nancy and me shoveling before but has never offered to assist, or to let us use the snowblower). The issue is that the snowbanks are so high that I can barely get the snow over the top even if I limit myself to small shovelsful.

Snow dealings, round 14: Mom's house. Stopped by at around 9 PM to see how she was doing, and to clear the path to the woodpile, and things were not good. There was a 4+ foot tall wall of compacted snow something like 10 feet thick between the driveway and the back yard. The plow guy did a great job, but he's running out of room to put the snow. Mom said she could manage to shovel a path, obviously not having thought this through. When I showed her how solid the snow was, she reconsidered. Not to mention the fact that she probably couldn't reach high enough to take a scoop off the top of the pile, and since I can barely launch the snow over the top of the pile... Not quite so bad once I got through to the normal snow. The ice on her roof is insane, with icicles coming out of the soffit vents again, meaning she has ice in the eaves. What a nightmare. Still have to get back to snowblow the area where she parks the car and turns it around, though there may no longer be room to turn it around (the snowbank is close to blocking the door to the house). And she's low on wood, so may be getting another delivery that I'll have to stack. If we do get more snow, I'm going to evacuate her car (probably to my house) so the plow guy will have a chance, though I guess he's saying that next time he'll have to back in and plow downhill toward the road. The crazy neighbor with the front-end loader can reportedly no longer show up and restructure the pile because his wife thinks that my mother is trying to steal him from her. Or so says Mom...

Some guy recently said, "It's just winter". At times I think of this, and I want to strangle him. I'm reeeeeeeally looking forward to some nice hang gliding weather...

C • I think you know where to f... 2

Snow dealings, round 11: snowblowed my driveway of the 8" of so of fluffy stuff that fell today, then reshoveled the walk, the path to the oil filler, and the path to the shed. 47 minutes, of which maybe 10 minutes or so was actually shoveling.

A rare case of J-J seeing a medical professional: I had a wisdom tooth extracted this morning. It was as unremarkable an event as could be imagined, took only about 10 minutes in the chair, I think. The tooth was straight and all, but it developed a cavity that my dentist deemed too difficult to fill and not worth it, so he told me (over a year ago) to get it yanked. As a result, I also have a prescription, which is rare for me. Percoset, and I can't imagine getting it filled. I went to the supermarket and picked up a bottle each of acetaminophen and naproxen, and it remains to be seen whether I'll even wind up taking either of those.

Snow dealings, round 10: shoveled out my front walk, the path to the oil filler pipe, and a path to the shed so that I can get kindling for Mom, plus I improved access to the mailbox a bit. In terms of practicality, this is likely mostly wasted effort, because the storms coming in the next couple of days will probably fill in these trenches before anybody gets a chance to use them. Although I will bring kindling over to Mom later today.

So far, no pain from the jaw. I think the novocaine has just about worn off (it's been roughly three hours).

Didn't realize what "Bye-Bye-O" was (or even that it was in New England) until after the event was over. Would have been nice to have gone, although I had a schedule conflict anyway and wouldn't have been able to.

Had a weird dream Sunday night, in which I walked into a self-serve gas station to tell the attendant/cashier that I would like to give him a message to be passed on to the higher-ups, that I was leaving without making a purchase, because after 10 minutes of going through menus on the pump, I had yet to get to a point where it would dispense gas. It had asked for my phone number, SSN, etc., and at one point presented a menu that showed an assortment of items for purchase (things like a drink, maybe oil change or car wash), many of which were checked by default and I had to individually unselect them. I had gotten so frustrated that I decided to smash my forehead into the display and break it, but couldn't follow through and kept "pulling my punches". Strange that I'm unable to do that while dreaming.

Never got around to doing any exercise.