Cotton and Straw

Today is our second wedding anniversary and our first in our own house. Buying the house has made it seem like our first anniversary all over again. Each year since our wedding, our Thanksgiving comes a little early.

Snow on the Pumpkin

So on October 29, this happened:

 

Yes, that's right. And this:

 

(Like our red door? The paint color is literally called Front Door Red. Love.)

Anyway, this is out of the norm for our part of the world. There have been winters in recent memory in our part of Pennsy where it didn't snow at all until well into January. As for snowing before Halloween, it is simply unheard of. And appropriate havoc has been wreaked. Extremely wet and heavy snow mixed with still be-leaved trees = broken limbs and power outages aplenty. It's kind of heartbreaking for a tree fan like myself to see all the mangling.

We were pretty lucky – our trees were unscathed and we only lost power for about 12 hours, most of which we could sleep through. Plus, we had a fire going, so that was helpful But this happened on Saturday, and as I write this, it is late on Tuesday, and there are still many powerless people, some of whom are being told not to expect anything until Thursday or Friday.

But the unexpected snowfall gave us a chance to try out a new acquisition:

We bought this little beauty just last weekend. Mostly because when I get something in my craw, I sometimes can't let it go. So E went along with it, agreeing with me that it might be best to be prepared, even though he was still on the fence about snowblower vs. shovel.

While we were wheeling this out of the big box home store, one of the employees remarked to E that some people must know something because they had sold a lot more snowblowers by that time this year than they had by that time the year before. We assumed that since we bought it, it wouldn't snow at all. Um-hmmm.

Anyway, after learning the ways of the new machine, E  isa convert. It's really not meant to handle such heavy snow, but it did so regardless. It cleared our driveway and extensive pavement handily, and E had chosen his side of the fence. Wonderful.

We did have some casualties. We lost about four big branches off the butterfly bush out front, though it will survive. And as I was backing out of the driveway in the middle of the storm, I saw this:

Well, not precisely this, since, in this photo, it's been moved from the scene of the incident and the mailbox itself has been removed. Essentially, our mailbox and post were laying in the middle of a snowpile in the street. It had been leaning for a while, and we knew we'd have to replace it, but just hadn't gotten around to it. The snowplow and it's heavy spray, plus a bit of rotting at the base, forced our hand. 

On a mission (my craw was acting up again), I went to the local hardware store in mid-storm to get provisions to fix this. E took the rest in hand on Halloween:

 

I originally wanted a black post, but all the store had was cedar in the style I wanted to buy. So cedar it was. So far, I actually like it better. I'm thinking about painting it, but who paints cedar? We'll see. But for now, I'm happy to have a solid, functional post that's actually better than what we had. Thanks, aggressive plow...?

As of today, most of the snow, except the largest piles in major parking lots, has melted. I'm hoping we can hold off on future snowfalls until it's actually winter.

Postscript: We did learn at least one fun fact during the snowstorm from our neighbors: nothing warms you up after snowclearing like a cup of tea in one hand and a cordial of amaretto or cognac in the other. Thanks to you both!