Day Two Hundred and Fifty Seven - Snow Blower

Dear all,

Well, our situation is getting worse, in fact this morning, I got stuck on the way to work after my car veered off into a snow bank. Fortunately, within 5 minutes I was surrounded by 4 trucks and a barrage of strapping young men coming at me with shovels and on swinging the first load of salt, one of them [actually] exclaimed, 'stand back little lady'. Yep, I has been transported into a film script from the 1950's. As Darren explained later, guys in Canada live for this stuff; the coveted prize of saving the day and rescue the 'damsel in distress'. And all before breakfast.

Anyway, due to the high drama, I was unable to take photos, but here is a taster and picture of me following one of the guys after the incident as he had offered to get me safely in to work. Canadians are truly wonderful folk.

Anyway, on arrival at work saw [possible] my hardest work day there to date, the main reason being that the inn now resembled a large marsh mallow.

This would have been more straight forward had Paul's tractor been working ( he had received a puncture the night before), the Kubota had been working ( it was buried in the garage and the blower-function was hidden 'somewhere') and the horses were standing by the fence expectantly waiting to be fed, whilst playing a chorus of jingle-bells with the icicles that had replaced their furry coats. It was a dreadful day!

I managed to get a 5 minute slot on the hand held snow blower which was however a highlight. Despite being a back up, it is a large machine that you push backwards and forwards to carve out trails through the snow. It also had heated handles which was one of my favorite features. I tell you, this is MUCH harder than it looks as I think is displayed in the video below.

We are hoping the snow will subside by the weekend.. but my goodness, we are getting hit hard: snow shoveling has most certainly replaced running in my fitness regime!