Over the New Year's weekend I mentioned to a friend who knows this area that I hadn't seen many moose in the past couple of years. That was when someone should have said, "Knock on wood." Three days in a row, now, I have had to chase moose off the road, two in darkness and one of those a little close for comfort. We had a bit of a confrontation until my car horn got too irritating for him. So it goes.
And if more moose weren't enough, we are now getting pounded by a wind storm. When I came around the curve before the bridge over the river last night, bammo a whiteout of snow blowing up from below and before I could even hit the brakes I slammed into a snowdrift big enough to almost stop the Jeep. Then I had to stop anyway because for a moment I couldn't even see the guard rail next to me.
Intermittent power outages since early this morning, to add to the fun. Already have more snow than I have seen in a whole winter since I moved to this area with more forecast over the week. And, of course, the snowblower is back at the shop while we all try to figure out why it is throwing the transmission drive belt. Temperature rose from a couple of degrees below zero when i left for work yesterday to 34 today. That means all the hard packed snow in the driveway softened up and trying to get out today I almost got stuck with the Jeep in four wheel drive with the trailer toting the snowblower attached. That is not an inviting prospect. When you get a four-wheel drive vehicle stuck it is stuck, there is no easy way out. AAA might get a call before this is done.
Soooo, been up since 7 struggling with this including having to go out in the wind to split some kindling for a fire just in case. Could I get away with telling you the wind blew some of the smaller sticks away? I didn't think so. Would have been fun to report, but it didn't happen. One of those days when it's too windy to haul rock. Still, through all of this, the birds are crowding the feeders. Along the drive this morning there was an eagle trying to buck the wind and he was pretty much standing still in the air, barely holding his own. And the drive to work, beginning with another precarious trip down the driveway still in front of me while I try to catch a quick nap.
The road into town is supposed to be clear and very driveable. Knock on wood.
A BIT OF AN UPDATE: So I wrote "knock on wood" but I didn't knock. As a result, I was able to blast out of the driveway and make it to the corner, but about 200 yards down the road I got the Jeep stuck, in four-wheel drive, in a snowdrift in the middle of the road. There's a broad flat expanse of a gravel yard that the wind was howling across only to build the drift up in the roadway. One car was already stuck and I tried to go around it, unfortunately into a deeper part of the drift. Still, I was about to make it when I saw another truck, a white one with no lights on (so easy to spot in blinding blowing snow) and I stopped, that was it, all four wheels spinning. There were a couple of people around to help the first car so I joined in, then we got mine out and off I went again heading for work.
On the way I learned later a gust of 104 mph hit across the mountains above where I was driving at the time. Again blowing drifting snow brought traffic to a complete halt in a whiteout, only this time on a six-lane 65 mph highway. Scary what was coming up behind me. But, we all got through it. Gusts so hard they moved the Jeep sideways, with that big sail area. So now, all I have to do is get home tonight. Winds are supposed to die down a couple of hours before I leave so I should be all right. Knock on wood. Now if I could just find some wood in this sanitary bland office.
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