“Remoted – Hybrid” – Day 694 (Saturday) – snow day

Snow dog.

The snow came overnight and it stayed. All day long the phone showed “snow for 120 minutes.” When Winston went out this morning there were a couple inches on the front steps which I removed while in my bathrobe and the snow was falling steadily. 

It blew and swirled and drifted all day. By suppertime, the back door had a drift against it that extended halfway up the lower panel, and it’s going to be somewhere between hard and impossible to exit the house from the kitchen. The front steps were constantly drifted, and were cleared several times during the day for Winston to go outside. By evening, the sides of the crude front yard snow path were nearly one Winston high.

Gaps under the porch doors allow snow to blow under them into the porch, with the door leading to the deck being the worst. The gaps are due to the slope of porch floor from its original design as an open porch, and the floor not being leveled, and the gap not being sealed when it was enclosed. Thanks to the DIY fixes of the previous owners, the house is loaded with quirks, some of which randomly let the outdoors in. 

Indoor porch snow!

Many of the snow day fantasies crafted on Friday played out in real life. The TV was tuned to a music station and a book was read while reclining on the couch. The usual pre-bedtime Finnish lesson was done in the morning. 

Over in the kitchen, mushroom vegetable soup was started for supper just before having Friday's leftover cheesesteak sub for lunch. A friend called late in the afternoon and we talked for nearly two hours which felt like a minute. On my end anyway.

After super, a Hot Fudge Pie was baked from a really easy Pampered Chef recipe posted in a Facebook group. After 35 minutes in the oven, the top and the edge are a bit crispy, and below that it's a bit gooey, and it’s great with a glass of chilled rose. Milk would probably also be good, but I don't drink milk, so I'm guessing. 

The thing that did not happen during the day was the major homeowner rearranging of the snow, which I am usually on top of. There was snow rearranging light, when several times the front stairs and a short path were cleared for Winston to potty, but the car was not cleaned off and shoveling the driveways on either side of the house was not done. This blatant neglect will probably carry a hefty price on Sunday.

Hot Fudge Pie.

As I wasn't shoveling, I remembered (and ignored) the words of X2, who was stationed in Alaska long before I ever met him. He said in Alaska, people went outside to start the cars and shovel every couple hours around the clock to keep on top of it. Otherwise, it would be a nightmare if left until the end of a storm.

Growing up in Fitchburg, we knew of the legend of  Hedley Bray. This was the mayor who famously said, in response to the lack of snowplowing in the city, “God put the snow there. God will take it away.” It's now my legitimate and earnest hope that this is a valid snow removal plan, because that is exactly the level of snow rearranging service The BungaLowell and I are going to need.