From the lily pad...

October 12th, Are you kidding me?!!

This picture gives you an idea of the amount of snow we got last weekend. Keep in mind some of it melted the day before. The picture is a little grainy because it is still snowing when I took it. I heard the total was over 30 inches.

We woke up on Saturday morning thinking the 12 inches we were buried in was crazy. I could tell by looking at it that it was a wet heavy snow. We were getting ready to have a leisurely breakfast, because really, where were we going to go? The door bell rings and the neighbor boy asks if we want him to shovel for us. Sure! How much he asks. 10 bucks. He ponders the offer and asks, "for how much of the driveway?" He is instructed to just start shoveling and we will re-evaluate when we see how far he gets. After a moderate sized square of snow on the upper part of the driveway is removed, he disappears. After our breakfast we head out to tackle the job ourselves. We just get started and here comes the neighbor boy with his mom driving a four-wheeler with a plow. Smart kid. They get us cleared out in no time. Still costs us 10 bucks, but it was worth it.

Sunday morning felt like groundhog's day. We wake up to another 12 inches at least. I shovel a path to the garage. The neighbor yells to me from her balcony that she will be over later to clear us out again. I say thanks and head into the house. By the time I get home from the meeting the driveway is clear. There is no exchange of money, but I have offered to let their dogs out while they are gone to work over the next couple days. Even Steven.

Due to the weight of the wet snow on the trees that still had their leaves, several trees lost branches. The trees in our yard are no exception. One branch is particularly large and another isn't completely broken off the tree. This presents a problem. What are we going to do with these branches. I am told you can haul them to the dump for free if you have a WY license plate. OK, you have seen the picture of White Lightning. If he wasn't buried in snow you would also see that he still has a TN license plate. Since we can't do anything until the snow melts some more, we head off to Gillette and Cody over the next couple days. When we get back home the branches are gone. I call the neighbor to see if they are responsible. Sure enough, they took care of them for us. I thank them profusely and hang up the phone. I realize I will be letting their dogs out for the whole winter at this rate. It is too bad...for them because I got the better end of this deal.