And yet more shoveling

Okay, that was a LOT of snow that fell last night and today. I went out to shovel the path from the street to the back of the house. There were places where it was 2-1/2 feet deep. It was a LOT of work. Behind the back porch, the snow was even deeper, probably around 3 to 3-1/2 feet. I had to clear all that out to make sure there was an open pathway to the oil tanks in case the truck came by to fill them before the snow packed down or melted down.

With snow from the roof falling onto the back porch, there was a LOT of snow there, too. The weight of the snow coming down hsa broken some of the gutters above the porch. As long as only the gutters within reasonable height are broken, I can probably fix them myself. But there are gutters along the front and back of the addition, and they are WAY up high. I don't own any ladders that will go that high and even if I did, I don't think I would risk climbing up there. So if those break off, I'll have to call in the Gutter Guys or some other handyman type around here to fix it.

I'm not sure how to prevent the breaking in the future. I guess I can be more vigilant about knocking the snow off the edge of the roof. It's interesting to note that the front side doesn't have any gutters except for above the addition. Going into town I looked at the houses along the way and only about half of them have gutters. It probably has something to do with the possibility of snow.

A few days ago I noticed a large plastic drain pipe under the back porch. I wonder if it's supposed to be connected to the missing gutter behind the laundry room. There's a gutter section that's been sitting around, though I haven't found any down tube for it. Hmm...

Anyway, so we are experiencing a full-blown winter here. Last year, since we were in an apartment, all the plowing and shoveling and everything else was done by the manager. This year, well, no such convenience.

The clouds are thinning this afternoon and IF the forecast holds, tomorrow could be a fairly nice, though breezy and cold, day. And then there is another possibility for a big, winter storm over the weekend. It doesn't look like we will see significant warming until next Thursday. Maybe I am ready to see and feel the Outside (as in outside Alaska, specifically the Lower 48) world soon...