Late January 2020: Snow for Sunday

We had a good snowfall on Thanksgiving Sunday. Jane drove Betty back to Cudahy on some sloppy roads. We had more snow the weekend of the Martin Luther King holiday; we came back to ATW from LAX on a red eye to MSP that brought us back to blue skies and windswept drifts on our driveway. And now the third major snow event of the season appears to be upon us.

Compared to some of the major snowfalls/blizzards we experienced in Baltimore, from twelve to more than twenty inches of snow in a single event, Appleton has been short of significant snow, even though we had our first snowfall in late October, less than four weeks after we moved in.

The regular, light snows, some frigid (subfreezing) weather, and occasional sloppy road conditions has not curbed the construction in our Kimberly Heights neighborhood. A neighbor claimed that the first homes here appeared two years ago. Now we have about 62 lots filled either with construction, for sale signs, or families. And outside out back window we see the development of another forty lots in the former soybean field.

Moving to Appleton I fully expected regular, even occasionally heavy snows. My plan was to plan or to work around these events. Unable to secure a snow clearing service, I planned to shovel my way through the first season. After last month's blowing snowfall and a kind neighbor who cleared part of our drive in secret, I made the rounds of the hardware stores, researching snowblowers, but the mild subsequent weather fooled me into thinking that I could survive the last six weeks of winter without a blower. It almost worked -- until today.

Facing this event -- up to ten inches of wet, heavy snow -- I put out a call on the Kimberly Heights Facebook page and within thirty minutes five neighbors had offered to help. By this morning I had three more offers, so many that I am both blessed and challenged to manage such generosity.

I woke early this morning to quiet skies. By eight o'clock the snow started to fall. The snow should continue throughout the day. My plan is to do an early attempt to clear off three or four inches and see how much more snow accumulates by dark. Then the serious business of clearing a path for tomorrow starts. Dena has work at eight in the morning and we have a carpenter coming over between 8 and 8:30. Then two more service people -- a duct cleaner and a concrete floor cleaner -- in the afternoon. The forecast for tomorrow is for sunny skies.

Let's see how this works out 24 hours from now. For now, I can sit tight, enjoy the warm, safe home, dip into the provisions we stored up last night, watch a little tv (Manchester City match postponed due to strong winds and heavy rain), and probably pull up my Managing Sustainable Development manuscript from my last sabbatical.