Training Log Archive: CleverSky

Mt. Watatic, with my friend (from first grade) Patti, who I bumped into at the class reunion a couple of months ago. Up the short way, back down via the longer northern loop. This was mostly already tracked in, except for a little detour through the woods when we were looking for the Wapack coming off the summit. We got out there while it was still almost sunny, and mostly beat the crowds.

Snow dealings, round 4c: shoveled a path from my driveway around to my front door, and another out to the shed, so I could get kindling for Mom. Brought it to her house and filled her woodbox and stuff. I didn't actually time this, it's just a guess, but it felt like it took longer than I had been expecting.

Snow dealings, round 4d: tidying up at Nancy's. I had discussed trying to borrow Dan's truck to move my snowblower, but didn't bother, I just shoveled. A good portion of this was chopping down the snowbank on the left side of the driveway to provide visibility up the street for little gray cars that drive without headlights and provide a hazard to anyone trying to pull out onto the road. The rest was shoveling the upper part of the driveway. We should now be all set for the next storm...

Snow dealings, round 4a: my house. Exceeding predictions, I got 4" of wet sticky snow overnight, the kind of stuff that clings to the branches and creates a beautiful, depressing winter wonderland. I waited until it had tapered off before getting started, easy enough to clear the driveway, and I went after the mailbox as well. The mailbox itself was easy enough to find, but it was a couple of meters from the decapitated post, and searching for that took some digging. Snowblowed access to it, and screwed it back in place, and was mildly surprised to find that it had mail in it.

My delayed commute meant that I missed a hastily called meeting at work, where it was announced that my boss had a heart attack and died while shoveling snow last night. (He had been working here for only a few months.)

Snow dealings, round 4b: widening Nancy's driveway. It's difficult to pull out even in the summer, and now with towering snowbanks and idiots in gray cars driving without their headlights on, it's awful. It's getting challenging to toss the snow up over the piles, but I did what I could. Apparently we're expecting something like another 16" between Sunday and Tuesday...

C • Another 16" 2

Snow dealings, round 3b: odds and ends at Nancy's. Stephen had shoveled enough to get a car in, but visibility when pulling out onto the road was awful, so I mostly worked at knocking down the snowbanks on the corners, as well as widening the lower part somewhat. Still a long way to go in order to be able to get a car all the way up. Some of this was clearing the spaces across the road so I could park over there to make life easier.

Hard to believe that this little guy is now old enough to vote:

Snow dealings, round 3c: odds and ends at Mom's. Got her car shoveled out, dug out the wagon, brought in about 30 pieces of firewood, and shoverled her mailbox out better. Mom seems to get pretty anxious at the prospect of a day going by without the mail able to get delivered. My own mailbox will have to wait a little longer. Just over 0 degrees F as I was finishing this up under a full moon.

Snow dealings, round 3a: my driveway. I think there's about 11" by the Gagarin method, and the accumulation is getting to be substantial. At least a half-hour with the snowblower, I think, chopping stuff up into bite-sized chunks with a shovel in the middle. I'll probably need to at least do a scraping pass with a shovel later, because it hasn't quite stopped snowing. The mailbox will get dealt with after they finish plowing, and I'll have shoveling to do elsewhere...

Grumble, grumble, grumble... NEOC sent out an announcement for a short-notice ski-O at Aims's house on Sunday. I clicked on the announcement and had the page up on my computer, looked at it yesterday, and made a tentative decision to go. This morning I went through the garage, found some suitable ski equipment, and drove down to Aims's house. Nobody there. Pulled out my phone and went to the web page, and now it says "Date change to Saturday". There was no email notification of this change as far as I know, and therefore no reason for someone to check the page again and see that the date had changed. Fail.

C • Date change 3

Beacon St. and the powerline out to Depot and back with a loop-de-loop througt Eadt Boston Camps on the way back. There were slot car tracks up to Nutting Road, then unbroken after that. The side loop was on well-packed snowshoe tracks, and considerably faster. This was done with antique waxless skis that are probably older than half the people who read this log, and that have really awful glide (I could do something about that, I suppose, but it's hardly worth it).