Snowed in, bad…

     Since February 22nd, we have been getting pounded by multiple heavy snowstorms. Shoveling snow daily is the norm; at times, a minimum of 4 shoveling sessions a day! I’ve been working all the muscle groups harder and harder; I’ve lost yet another pant size, those size 34’s that used to be a just snug fit are now super loose. I seem to be maintaining a weight range of 167-175 these days. It’s a good workout, yes, but holy hell is this killing me… There have been multiple power outages, the longest being 2.5 days. My water lines have froze on and off, even though I leave a slight trickle every night; water just started flowing yesterday and I have a steady trickle going in the bathroom. Feels like wasting water, but if its the only way to keep water flowing… Toilets need to be flushed, dogs need their water, puppies need their water, and of course… I need my bean water, leaf water and water-water. It’s nice to be able to shower too, you know… especially after all that shoveling, like an energizer bunny.

     I think the roughest part of these past 2 weeks and so, was last week Friday, before Saturday’s whammy of a bammy bam storm. My buddy was able to do a Costco run for me and drive out here with provisions for me and the dogs. Before Friday, for a few days twice daily, I was hiking out further and further on the road with my snowshoes and the dogs trudging behind me. Harley wasn’t doing well in this deep snow (uncompacted fresh snow levels were just below or at road sign levels), even walking behind me with the compacted snow I was leaving behind. One of his nails on his front paw started to get bloody, so I decided to leave them behind on the hikes. I was able to make a path 1 mile down the road (it’s 2 miles to the end of the road), and it’d take me about 20-30 mins to just carve out about .25 miles in fresh powder snow, each step sinking about a foot and half to two feet… you know those stairs machine at gyms? Yeah, like that but at maximum setting with higher footsteps. That!

     So, back to Friday morning. I know it’s gonna take my buddy a hour and half, maybe longer to get here – including stopping by the post office to get my mail and packages. I finally got geared up, and at 10:40am left the house with a big waterproof backbag, it only took about 15-20 mins to hike that 1 mile of path. It took me about 50 minutes to finish the last mile. If you saw my path, you’d wonder why I didn’t take a straight route – I kept trying to stay by the tree lines, due to the branches dumping its snow reserves, the snow under branches would be more packed and compacted – thus less sinking for each step. Doing so did help improve my speed and pace; if I didn’t, it might have taken me twice as long to finish that final mile. I ended up being at the spot earlier than my buddy, and was watching this huge construction machine plowing the snow with plow blades standing maybe 8-10′ high – that kind of power is what is needed to plow this road, not any regular pickup truck with a snow blade as most are used to seeing…

     Finally, my buddy arrives, and good news – he brought an older sled for me to put the 35lb bag of dog food in. I loaded the bag up with all the meats, cheese, milk, etc and my packages – I would estimate the bag was initially about 40-50lbs. To my surprise, he had three beers that had been sitting in his garage fridge, he had stopped drinking for some time and gave me those – man, that was the best thing ever! It HAS been a while since I had beer! We chatted for a bit, caught up on news, his kid was playing in the snow… Finally, time for me to head back – the dogs will be waiting and it’s their lunchtime. My buddy took a video of me leaving, with the sled tied to the backbag, as ‘evidence you’re still alive’. Ha!

     As I started to take off, oof… what the hell did I just get myself into? This extra weight is making me still sink about half a foot or so, even tho I was doing my best to step where I already stepped! This was getting to be harder than I thought I could handle. No, can’t let myself think that – this is survival. One step at a time. I can do this, just don’t push yourself too hard, take it easy, drink water… (of course I filled up a hydration bladder) Twice on the return trip, I took the bag off and unloaded the milk alone initially, then the frozen beef and frozen chicken into the sled. That made life so much better, but not too much. It took me 2 hours 50 minutes to hike the 2 miles back home, and I still had to let the dogs out and gather more firewood to cut up and split…

     Friday was leg day; Saturday was upper body day. I shoveled 9 or 10 times, each time a minimum of 5-6″ of snow. Saturday, the snow just kept coming and started to creep up the windows in the living room. Every day since then, it’s been snowing a few inches a day, ’til Wednesday. It started to come down hard again, and I tried my best to keep up with the shoveling – the toll was hitting my body, and by Thursday morning I was unable to shovel all the path in one go (steps down, a path straight, two paths to the right – one to the wood shed/log splitter/axe and chopping block, another to the wood pile) – I had to rest and do sections at a time. I gave up on shoveling Thursday morning and decided to take a few hours off… ok, yeah I knew this was a mistake, I’d have to pay the piper but at the same time, needed the rest just as badly. Thursday late afternoon, I tried to shovel but only did a very small section – it started snowing wet snow/granules, which meant each shovelful was even heavier!

     I still need to head to the post office and the local store to load up on more provisions. I need fresh fruit and veggies. I currently only have pasta, beef, chicken, bread, milk and already running low on cheese. Got one can of lentil soup left, there’s a whole bunch of ramen but I have pre-hypertension and need to avoid high salt products. Got plenty of rice and oatmeal tho that will get boring super fast alone. I’m running low on dog food too (damn, being a mother – Marley eats almost 3 times more than she normally did! I can’t wait until the pups are fully weaned and she’s back to her normal diet) but I’ve got dog food waiting for me at the post office (Honest Kitchen. Honestly, check it out!) as well as puppy training pads…

Oh, yeah. I need to dig my car out again. I know if I was on a snowmobile, and saw my car buried I’d have thought it was a huge ass snow hill and tried to jump it… HA!

Time to catch up with work, school, life, 42. Oh yeah, and more shoveling.