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Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Mission Impossible

The mission, should we decide to accept it, was to get the low-rider, Mini Cooper with summer tires down the mile long driveway to the house at 1898 Herrington Manor Road.  The challenge was that the driveway was blanketed with over three feet of snow and had hundreds of broken branches and downed trees which were left over from Hurricane Sandy.  Our flight into Newark was cancelled due to the storm (of course) and the only destination within several hundred miles of Pittsburgh in the next 5 days was Cincinnati via Chicago.  We had rented the little Mini because we thought it would get good mileage for the long trek over to Deep Creek.  Sometimes we're not so bright.


We couldn't even park at the end of the driveway because the snowplows had pushed a 4 foot mound across the entrance.  So we had to park at a neighbors and trudge over a mile through the snow to get to the house to get the equipment to clear the driveway.  It was thirteen brutal hours with the chainsaw and tractor, over the next three days just to get the driveway passable for the ATV.


Then it was another 4 days of chainsawing and 50 degree weather before we attempted the decent to the house with the Mini.




Success!  Why we felt the need to do this, I'm not sure...but it was the hardest I've ever worked in my life to get the driveway open, so it felt good to have a specific goal.


The heavy snow was particularly hard on the local wildlife and they all seemed to appreciate the corn that we threw out.


We both had a soft spot for this little fawn.  She was very brave in coming close to the house looking for food.  We hope the rest of the winter isn't too tough for her.  BTW, you can see that our apple orchard was devastated by the heavy, wet snow.


There was a bit of time for fun.  I know, this doesn't look like much of a hill, but with the icy crust on the snow in the morning, it made for one hell of a ride.


And when the sun finally came out, there was a wee bit of time to put up our feet and enjoy the brilliance.   Just don't ever introduce me to anyone named Sandy...I'm pretty sure that I won't like her.