Dealing With Bleecker Snow

I know this is a weird topic in July, but it's something I've been thinking about a lot lately.  There's not much else to think about when you're trapped on a loveseat with your left foot propped up on a pillow and you have no TV or radio.  Thank Gawd for Al Gore's internets.

It snows pretty good in upstate New York, and the snows on the mountain can be significant.  A few years ago, when we were living off the mountain, Pam and I came up here to check on Judi and Earl's house.  We had to wade through snow up to our waists to get to the place.  Well, up to my waist.  Pam's was a bit higher.

We drove to their house for Christmas once.  There was over a foot of snow on the road and not a plow in sight.  Plowing the mountain is a low priority, I guess.

Now here's the kicker.  We always thought that we could go back to Drift Away for the winter and cruise around in Florida.   But now, we have a buyer for the boat.   He's trying to get financing at his credit union.  If it goes through, we have a problem.  Where do we live?

We thought we'd have the foundation in by now.  Well, we don't.  We don't even have a set of finalized plans for the house.  We had hoped to have the foundation done by August and we'd be working at making it temporarily liveable over the winter.

So what does this have to do with Bleecker snow?   Well, the rental cabin we're in would be very difficult to live in over the winter.  The only source of heat is a woodstove, and the well pump is in an unheated shed attached to the house.  We wouldn't be able to leave the house for more than a few hours at a time for fear of the wood fire going out and pipes freezing.  But perhaps the worst would be the driveway.  It's fairly long, and it's steep.  There's a parking area up by the road that we could use, but we'd have to shovel or snowblow a very long path to get to it.

And then there's the snowbanks.  A one foot snowfall can result in a four foot chunk of ice and slush snowbank.  If you've never tried to shovel through one, let me tell you, it ain't easy.

I have Bessie the Tractor which has a back blade and can deal with some of it, but not a serious heavy wet snow.

If we were at our property, I could simply borrow Earl's 4x4 with plow.  It's not registered, but our driveways are only a hundred feet apart.  I wouldn't drive it all the way to our rental place which is a mile away.  I could also use the backhoe's front bucket, which would make a quick job out of any snowbank of any height, but not if we're in the rental cabin.

So why are we running behind?  Part of the problem is finalizing the cabin design.   It's 95% done.

I like it.  It represents our cruise.  The back looks like a typical Cape Cod, while the front resembles the small two porch houses we liked down south.  There's only one small window on the Cape Cod side because that faces north.

Pam wants post and beam and John the Architect says the quickest and least expensive way to get that designed is to go to a post and beam builder to have them do it.  Once the frame is designed, John can finish the basement design and we're almost done.   We need a state certified engineer to design our septic system, who Pam has contacted, and then it's off to the Bleecker code enforcement officer.  He happens to live in the house by the end of our driveway, which is convenient.

In foot news, I went to see my PA yesterday.  She was concerned about the swelling and redness of my foot.  She ordered more xrays and different antibiotics, ordered me to stay off it, keep it elevated above my heart, and to soak it in epsom salts three times a day, and I have to see her again this morning.  Puncture wounds can be serious because they're prone to infection (sepsis).

But the good news is that nothing is broken.  It must have been just a really bad sprain because all the pain is gone.  Every cloud has a silver lining.