Snow in Paradise... The storm on Christmas day left us with 6 to 8 inches of snow, with a layer of ice underlying it because of the initially warmer temperatures. The first consequence of this was that I needed to plow our driveway – all 18,000 square feet of it! I purchased a nice snowplow for my little Kubota, and this was the first time I really needed it. The snowplow has a hydraulic “flipper” to change it's angle, and it's mounted to the loader (in front), so it's really easy to use. The tractor's four-wheel drive makes it behave solidly even on the ice. I've never used a snowplow like this before, so I had some learning to do. One thing I learned: the curves and variable width of our driveway don't make plowing it easy :) About a week ago I installed snow stakes along the sides of my driveway, knowing that the snow was coming. It's a darned good thing I did, because without them I wouldn't know where the edge of the driveway was!
The dogs had a ball in the snow, except that toward evening when it was a bit warmer, they started to have trouble with ice accumulating between their toes. I actually had to carry poor Mo'i in from one walk, as the ice was making it painful for him to walk. I've ordered a set of dog boots for him, as this will be a recurring need.
We made a drive into town this morning, and the roads were quite slippery. However, people were driving slowly, and appropriately so. They've obviously seen this action before :) Later I drove to the post office to pick up our mail (we don't have rural delivery here). The post office is on a side street up a gentle hill, and it's street was very slick. I watched a car turn about 45° as it came down toward me. The driver was totally calm and unflapped; she just turned into the skid and recovered when she got traction again. If that had happened in California, the driver would have completely freaked out :)
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