Winter Has Arrived - A Tale of Shoveling and Snowblowers (and One Stupid Driver)

Winter is definitely here. We got about 5-7 inches of snow yesterday, depending on where in the Metro area you were. DH kept putting off and putting off shoveling, while I, at the shop, was shoveling every two hours or so. DH was funny, though. He finally shoveled enough to back the truck out and pull the snowblower out, then started to snow blow. His progress report was as follows: 

This was my snow wall by mid-afternoon - probably 
around 2:00 pm or so. Ir was already a good two feet 
high, and would gain another six inches before I closed 
for the night. Here's the left side ...

"After 4 shovel fulls I cursed the blower and finally managed to get it started. Made one pass and it died again, and wouldn't start. Then I really cursed it and got it going again and managed to finish. You can come home to me now Baby." 

And here's the right side. There's a totally open area between 
the two walls for customer access to the sidewalk. I learned 
to build my walls many years ago. When the plows go 
through, the wall protects my shoveled sidewalk and keeps 
my clean-up work minimal. All of the other businesses 
around me shovel to the street and end up with plow scree 
every time the plows pass. Stupid people! 

I had to laugh at that. I, in the meantime, was shoveling at the shop. I was out shoveling my walkway and building my walls all day, starting at around noon. By close to the end of the day, I had very respectable walls set up. I also took time towards the end of the day to brush off my car and Chickie's car so that we could get going quickly when we shut down for the night. 

Here you can see the stuck car. When she first got stuck, she 
was directly across from my shop. The cop, with the help 
of another guy, tried to push her backward to get her off the 
median rear-end first, but the base of the sign she snapped 
off was too high, and was hitting her undercarriage. So 
the cop told her to call a tow truck and he left, after 
spending more than 1/2 hour with her. Eventually she was 
gone. I spent quite a lot of time looking at this comedy 
of errors, but eventually had to return to my work, so missed 
her car finally getting freed from straddling the median. 

In mid-afternoon, when I took the photos in today's blog, we noticed a black sedan on the median of our main roadway that runs in front of the store. There was also a "break-off" traffic sign face down in the south-bound lane of traffic (the sedan was facing north). A police car drove up, and he spent at least 1/2 hour with the woman driver, first to pick up the sign and get it out of traffic, but then to see if there was any way to get her car off the median and back into traffic. Even with the help of another motorist, it didn' happen. Finally she went to the coffee shop - presumably to call a tow truck - and the cop left, after giving her a ticket because she had creamed the sign, after all. 

Eventually the car was no longer there, so I assume she was able to finally get off straddling the median without tearing the bottom of her sedan out. I expect it might be a knarly repair bill, however. I'm glad I bought my Mazda with the full knowledge that I have almost a foot of ground clearance in case I ever do something that stupid. On that note, I'm out of here. The pool is calling and the snow is no longer falling (although our temperatures should be falling for most of the day). Have an excellent Wednesday and final day of November. I'll be back tomorrow.