Winter Arrives On the Mountain

It started snowing Monday and was so beautiful. But the dirt road to the bus stop was really messy and my Adventure Man said he had a hard time in my big car. He was going out of town for a few days and was kind of freaking out. He stocked me up on wood for the fire, but then told me not to use it unless the power went out. As if! He shoveled all the walks only to have snow slide off the roof and cover them all up again. Poor guy! Plus it was still snowing. I was going to drive him to the airport in Big Town, but he decided to just take his pickup. As it turns out, gas would have cost more than the long term parking does. 


When I went to pick up the girls after school I got out of my car to find the bus was stuck! They had plowed the main road and graded our dirt road, but no one had plowed the bus pull off! She had gone off the road maybe two feet and had gotten stuck. 


My girls got in my car with the little ones and I flagged down the first car to pass. Luckily we have lots of traffic (laughing), well for us, because it's hunting season. The hunter had a tow rope that he thought would do the trick! I have a tow rope... but it's really little... I bought an emergency car kit from Eddie Bauer once (hey! It's "City Girl gone Ranch Mama" give me a break!) and the tow rope that is came with would pull a Prius!  Well the first pickup worked on pulling and the bus just spun and spun. We shoveled and dug but nothing. The next pickup came by and I asked if they wanted to push. That was a jackpot pickup because 4 big men got out and pushed and she was out. They said now you can say a bunch of hunters from New York helped!  Well, I said it! I told the bus driver my kids would stay home the next day. 


At first I was wondering if that was such a smart idea. It was pounding when I said it, but shortly after dark it stopped snowing altogether! Then, right when I would have been off to the bus stop it was a total white wash outside. I felt it was the right move to make. The county seemed to be taking it's time in prep for winter.


The next day was a school day. I told the kids not to give me any of that because they WERE going to school. I loaded them all up and we headed out. That was when I realized that the snow had drifted. But that was not when I realized I couldn't drive through it! I got stuck just outside of our gate. That was lucky because I only had to walk back to the house a few yards and Bunny was in the car seat, and Bear in PJ's without shoes on. Here is my parking job at 7:15 yesterday morning!

 It took our maintenance manager (my personal hero), all morning to clear the roads and get my car out so I could try and get down the road to school. I was feeling really down on myself for how quickly I managed to get stuck, but after I spoke to our neighbor I learned that there was a 4 foot drift down the road and there was no way we would have made it out to the school bus stop. We were snowed in! (This is when I thank the Lord for my food storage, no matter how humble it may be!)


 We had lunch and I was hopping that the county had cleared the road by now, so we could at least make it to Faith In God Girls. But then an employee called and said she made a 2nd attempt to come in and this time was following the snow plow! "Yay!" I thought, then she said that the plow couldn't even get through it!!!! So she wasn't coming in and hopefully the county can get the right kind of plow up here. She had called to make sure I was Okay. We were all fine, we have rations if things got bad but for now we are still using up leftovers. (yuck.)


I finally got another call at quarter to seven that night to let me know that the county finally made it through! They had to use a back-how and a dump truck to get rid of it all. We made it to the bus stop this morning. Adventure Man gets home this afternoon and has already made it back to the Montana mud. It is snowing again and raining in Little Town so we are sure to have more road conditions to tell about! Who knows what will happen tomorrow. 

Staying warm on the mountain. Oh, did I mention that we got 3 feet in one storm while Little Town only got inches!