This year, Kentucky managed to snow us in more than Alaska ever did in all our years there. On the sixteenth of last month, we got somewhere between twelve and fourteen inches, depending on where around the house we measured. I'm sure New England would have scoffed at our dismay.
Even for us, it was not a lot, compared to some snows we've been in. We got twenty-four inches on President's Day once in DC, and in spite of living in a pseudo-Southern city with limited snow equipment, were able to get out back to work on Thursday. But there we lived in a suburb of a large metropolitan area, with a short driveway debouching onto a public, eventually-plowed street.
Here, our house is perched on the steep side of a mountain above a tiny hamlet in the Cumberland Mountains of Eastern Kentucky, which we learned is a whole different animal. Our driveway is four-wheel-drive steep and sports two hairpin turns that almost require backing up to negotiate, besides being flanked by near-vertical drop-offs. It is also dauntingly long, so maintaining uphill momentum even with four-wheel-drive would be a trick even if we didn't have the hairpin curves. We clearly needed plowing.
We don't have a snowplow, and apparently we have that in common with most of the rest of this county. We called around, found one person with the equipment to do private plowing, and found he was both booked and unenthusiastic about our location.
So, no plowing. Then the weather warmed just enough to bless us with ice and freezing rain. Instead of melting the snow, the drops just arrowed down through it, compacting into several inches of slush sitting on top of up to an inch of ice, all sitting under a foot of snow. Stepping into the snow almost guaranteed landing on some body part one just wouldn't want to break. Especially marooned as we were.
Then we discovered Dean had no beer. Plenty of food, yes. And water, so long as the power lasted. And heat ditto. A friend tried to get up to us in a four-wheeler to relieve the beer crisis, but the four-wheeler wasn't up to the job. Another friend brought a plough/backhoe combination, but couldn't break the ice with the backhoe blade nor get traction with his small tractor and plow.
We always knew that, in a pinch, we could leave the car at home and posthole down the mountain (or maybe luge on a flattened cardboard box) and eventually reach a plowed road, but we weren't feeling that desperate, especially considering that we'd have to posthole back up a steep slope covered with a snow/slush/ice base that guaranteed the proverbial two-steps-forward, one-slide-back. And carrying whatever we had slogged out to get. It seemed to almost assure a broken leg. So we settled in to wait it out.
It took fourteen days.
But we kept power, so we never had to use our candles-in-a-coffee-jar back-up heat plan, nor the presumably better ad hoc camp stove made of a toilet paper roll jammed in an empty vegetable can filled with alcohol. For heat, mind you, not for cooking.
There was some concern here and there about our mental health. A friend emailed asking if we were getting along or beginning to strategize where to bury body parts, and we were able to reply that fortunately we were getting along.
Our trials were made lighter by another friend, who emailed us a poem about our plight:
Dean's Wish
SOS! I NEED SOME HELP! I'M SNOWED IN HERE IN BLACKEY!
THE FOOD IS LOW; MY BEER IS OUT; I THINK I'M GOING WACKEY!
GO GET A HELICOPTER OR A DRONE; I NEED SOME HELP RIGHT NOW!
OH WHAT I'D GIVE TO SEE A FRIEND COME BY WITH A PLOW.!
To which we responded:
SNOWBOUND
A friend has learned, and seems concerned, about our perilous snowbound condition.
But all we can say is we'll find a way to get through in the mountain tradition.
There's a polar breeze, snow's over our knees, what's not snow-covered is icy.
There's a socked in sky; even drones can't fly. The situation is decidedly dicey.
Our provisions are low; there's talk of more snow, and it looks like it probably will.
But a neighbor near here has pledged some beer, if we can slog to the foot of our hill.
That led to a call-and-response exchange of verses, but she is so much better than us that we finally conceded with:
It came like a missile, your latest epistle. We studied what it said.
So this is it; we're going to quit. No way can we get ahead.
Even for us, it was not a lot, compared to some snows we've been in. We got twenty-four inches on President's Day once in DC, and in spite of living in a pseudo-Southern city with limited snow equipment, were able to get out back to work on Thursday. But there we lived in a suburb of a large metropolitan area, with a short driveway debouching onto a public, eventually-plowed street.
Here, our house is perched on the steep side of a mountain above a tiny hamlet in the Cumberland Mountains of Eastern Kentucky, which we learned is a whole different animal. Our driveway is four-wheel-drive steep and sports two hairpin turns that almost require backing up to negotiate, besides being flanked by near-vertical drop-offs. It is also dauntingly long, so maintaining uphill momentum even with four-wheel-drive would be a trick even if we didn't have the hairpin curves. We clearly needed plowing.
We don't have a snowplow, and apparently we have that in common with most of the rest of this county. We called around, found one person with the equipment to do private plowing, and found he was both booked and unenthusiastic about our location.
So, no plowing. Then the weather warmed just enough to bless us with ice and freezing rain. Instead of melting the snow, the drops just arrowed down through it, compacting into several inches of slush sitting on top of up to an inch of ice, all sitting under a foot of snow. Stepping into the snow almost guaranteed landing on some body part one just wouldn't want to break. Especially marooned as we were.
Then we discovered Dean had no beer. Plenty of food, yes. And water, so long as the power lasted. And heat ditto. A friend tried to get up to us in a four-wheeler to relieve the beer crisis, but the four-wheeler wasn't up to the job. Another friend brought a plough/backhoe combination, but couldn't break the ice with the backhoe blade nor get traction with his small tractor and plow.
We always knew that, in a pinch, we could leave the car at home and posthole down the mountain (or maybe luge on a flattened cardboard box) and eventually reach a plowed road, but we weren't feeling that desperate, especially considering that we'd have to posthole back up a steep slope covered with a snow/slush/ice base that guaranteed the proverbial two-steps-forward, one-slide-back. And carrying whatever we had slogged out to get. It seemed to almost assure a broken leg. So we settled in to wait it out.
It took fourteen days.
But we kept power, so we never had to use our candles-in-a-coffee-jar back-up heat plan, nor the presumably better ad hoc camp stove made of a toilet paper roll jammed in an empty vegetable can filled with alcohol. For heat, mind you, not for cooking.
There was some concern here and there about our mental health. A friend emailed asking if we were getting along or beginning to strategize where to bury body parts, and we were able to reply that fortunately we were getting along.
Our trials were made lighter by another friend, who emailed us a poem about our plight:
Dean's Wish
SOS! I NEED SOME HELP! I'M SNOWED IN HERE IN BLACKEY!
THE FOOD IS LOW; MY BEER IS OUT; I THINK I'M GOING WACKEY!
GO GET A HELICOPTER OR A DRONE; I NEED SOME HELP RIGHT NOW!
OH WHAT I'D GIVE TO SEE A FRIEND COME BY WITH A PLOW.!
To which we responded:
SNOWBOUND
A friend has learned, and seems concerned, about our perilous snowbound condition.
But all we can say is we'll find a way to get through in the mountain tradition.
There's a polar breeze, snow's over our knees, what's not snow-covered is icy.
There's a socked in sky; even drones can't fly. The situation is decidedly dicey.
Our provisions are low; there's talk of more snow, and it looks like it probably will.
But a neighbor near here has pledged some beer, if we can slog to the foot of our hill.
That led to a call-and-response exchange of verses, but she is so much better than us that we finally conceded with:
It came like a missile, your latest epistle. We studied what it said.
So this is it; we're going to quit. No way can we get ahead.
RSS Feed
