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14 February 2007 -- Happy Valentine's Day!!

Round one:  8:00-9:00am.  One hour is pretty average for cleaning out the entire driveway, dressing everything up, and angling back the
snowbanks a little bit so I have some room to throw later on.  If I'm in a rush (which I am not today), I can break out a car lane in about 15-20
minutes.  In the time it took me to shovel, approximately an inch of new snow had fallen ... and it is supposed to snow even heavier later in the
day.  
Round two:  10:30-11:00.  There was only about 1-1/2 to 2 inches of snow in the driveway,
which doesn't merit adding new pictures.  Normally I wouldn't have bothered to shovel so soon,
but ... 1) it's starting to snow harder; 2) the rural carrier (that's 'mailman' to all of you more urban
types) had come around, so I had to put on boots to go get the mail anyway; 3) the second trash
truck had come around, so I could bring in the barrel; and 4) a service tech made it here this
morning to do a minor bit of maintenance on my fake fireplace heating stove.  That last factor
means that a big, heavy van had packed snow onto my driveway.  If I get it off quickly, before it
freezes into two rock-hard tracks, it's easier to shovel the driveway from then on.  

At the rate it's snowing, there should be a second set of pictures in a few hours.
Round three:  2:00-3:00.  That's it for today.  I'm not worn out; it's just not worth heaving the snow around anymore.  My guess is that we're
getting 1-1/2 to 2 inches of snow an hour right now, it's really light stuff, the snowbanks are about shoulder-high, and the wind is starting to blow.  
All that jabber means that I have to fling the snow over the top of the banks, and the wind is blowing about a third of it back into the driveway.  It's
just going to drift overnight anyway.  I'll save my energy and tackle the rest in the morning.  I'm not exactly looking forward to it, though.  I suspect
there's going to be a heck of a lot of snow out there by then.  
Three shots very similar to the three above (beneath Round one).  They look almost identical, except the snowbanks are growing.  The
snowbanks in the picture on the left are not a trick of perspective or a zoom lens.  The snowbanks at the top of the driveway are the same height
as my poor frosty little VW Jetta.
I've stopped digging out the end of the
driveway.  Why create a big empty
spot for the plow to dump snow into if I
don't have to drive anywhere tonight?
I live on a rural mail delivery route.  I
have some digging to do.  The
mailman won't deliver if he can't reach
the mailbox from the car.
There was no snow on the roof to
speak of as of last night.  That's all
from today.
4:00pm:  Time to abandon all attempts to keep up with the snow.  At this point, the snow is falling so heavily, trying to keep the driveway clean is
an exercise in futility.  When it's all over, it will turn out that this storm set a record in Vermont for the most snow in a 24 hour period.  Oooophf.
15 February 2007 --

This was the day when the real fun took place.  For the most part, the pictures speak for themselves.  I began shoveling at 7:00am, and worked
hour-on/hour-off pretty much the rest of the day.  I didn't expect to get the car out of the driveway today, and by around 3:00pm, it looked like my
prediction was going to come true.  That was when one of my neighbors came by with a snowblower, and finished up the final 8 feet or so of the
driveway closest to the street.  God bless him.  

I've had snowbanks this high before, but never as the result of a single storm.  
7:30am -- My first view of the job that lies ahead.
Time for my first break.  Getting started was one of the toughest steps ... just digging down far enough to find some pavement and then working
out to the edge of the front walk and eventually the driveway.  
Several hours later, I'm finally beginning to feel like I'm making some progress.
Quittin' time, thanks to Rich and the snowblower.  There's still some work to be done at the head of the driveway, but that can wait a day or two.