I've been off work for a month and a half and I feel awesome about what I've managed to accomplish. I've been on a cleaning and purging binge, which, while still incomplete, has resulted in four carloads of donations to St. Vinny's, my old car finally getting donated, an almost humorous surge in our trash and recycling output, and five boxes of books waiting for me to drop them off at the library later today. Closet by closet, room by room, I'm managing to cull an amazing amount of things which are no longer useful to me. Of course, I'm about to embark on a trip halfway across the country to bring more stuff into the house... but these are meaningful, quality items, and Steve assures me they will either prove useful, or be given away. Steve's mom's estate has finally been settled. Later this week I'm flying to Atlanta, renting a truck, unloading a storage locker, and driving his heirlooms back to Wisconsin. I've managed to make arrangements to stay or visit with no fewer than eight people on my way back. (Including Jan & Robin.) It'll be a fun 4 or 5 day adventure... I'll be driving no around 3 hours at a stretch between visiting people. I'm still not sure on all the arrangements. Scheduling is a little tricky. My friends all have their own lives, and I'm counting on them not only being available, but being so in a sequentially convenient order. We'll see how it works out, but it should be an adventure! Oh, I got to see a local resident critter close up yesterday. Yes, they're supposed to be nocturnal, but they will move around in the day if they're cold, hungry, or if their house has been disturbed. Plus, I guess it's possum mating season, so he/she might have been looking for a date too. Regardless, rabies is exceedingly rare in possums because of their unusual body temperature, so I'm not worried and just enjoyed watching the little bugger. He almost came to our patio door before he noticed the dogs and I looking at him, then he toddled off to the neighbors. Isn't he cute?

Hi Bill, Thanks for your advice. Looking at yout post, you have a 50ft by maybe 30 feet, (10 feet per car) area to clear. So that is about 1,500 square feet. You are looking at about 20 - 30 mins. What is your typical snow depth there? If I have 400 feet by 10. I have maybe 4000 sq feet. So Am I therefore looking at over an hour at a minium. In which case maybe a snow blower is not a way to go. I guess my problem is I am just not sure how long it will take me. Anything under an hour would probablly be managable. Anything over is probablly not going to work. Is there a formula to work out given roughtly X square feet to clear and a snow depth of y inches how long it will take? The Honda claims 71 tons per hour. And I read somewhere that snow weighed like 1 lbs per sq foot inch. So If I get an average 4 inch snow fall, it would take me: 4000 * 4 * 1 / (2000 * 71) = 0.1127 of an hour or about 7 minites. Clearly this incorrect. So what is a better formula? Thanks for your kind help, Mike.

Gee, Kat, why didn't you just shovel it all onto your grass? LOL! Should I stop making "helpful" suggestions! Shoveling it ANYWHERE is hard enough! Sorry to hear yours all landed in the Wrong Place! MANY years ago (back in the early 70's!) I lived in a little house in far south Aurora, and we got a storm like this last one, but even more snow and even more wind, and the way it happened to blow between the neighbor houses it ALL seemed to wind up RIGHT in front of our garage! It went all the way up to the roof, and if the snow had been hard enough we could have walked up the Snow Mountain and walked straight onto the roof! When we first went out after the storm and saw it, it was hard to really believe there was THAT much snow there! So I do know where you're coming from! It was kinda like: Could we possibly dig a tunnel thru it to drive the car out of the garage--rather than having to shovel it ALL!!! As near as I can tell I wound up with about 15" total. When I finally got out to measure it today I was getting 14", but the sun had been shining on it for quite a while at that point, and there was no question that it was well into the process of "settling down!" But one thing I know for sure; there is a LOT of moisture in it, and it really is gonna do a great job of watering everything. When I looked out the front door last nite about 12:30, trying to figure out just how hard it was still snowing, I noticed some flashing lites at the end of the block, and then I heard, Beep, Beep, Beep! It took a minute to figure out what was going on in the middle of the nite, but there was a city plow out there plowing the residential streets. When I looked more closely--over the shoveled pile along my walk, I discovered they had already plowed the road in front of my house! I thought that was kinda nice of Thornton--even if I don't need to go anywhere! And with the sun today now the plowed part is bare and dry again. Lots of piles, still, along the edges where people have shoveled their walks and drives--and shoveled out their cars that were parked on the street! By the end of the week we're supposed to be well back up into the 40's and maybe even back up to the low 50's so I'm guessing that even most of the piles will be gone by next weekend if they're in the sun! That's the kind of snowstorms EVERYBODY should have! Shhhhh! Don't tell anybody else about out Miraculous Disappearing Snowstorms or everybody will be moving here! We need to keep this to ourselves! Do any of you remember the March Blizzard of 2003? Funny story! I was working in San Fran at the time, and commuting back and forth, and the Blizzard happened when I was on the west coast. Being in the Airline Business, needless to say I was hearing plenty of stories about how bad it was and about all the flites that were being cancelled. The total (official) snowfall was just short of three feet (in about 24 hours I think it was), and when I had days off and was able to come home again it was on the third day after the storm, and I REALLY wanted to come home so I just made up my mind that I'd shovel my car out of the parking lot--no matter how long it took, and find some way to get home! I got back to DIA and onto the parking lot bus, determined that I was just gonna change into my Survival Clothes that I had in the car and start shoveling, and then we got to the parking lot! Except for the humongous--and I DO mean humongous, piles of snow where it had been plowed, all the cars and roads in the parking lot were DRY! I almost fell over! When I got out onto the two-lane road I took home (for those of you who don't know, DIA is out on the plains, halfway to Kansas!) the road was completely dry--and there were huge 6-8' piles of snow ALL along the road--I couldn't see over the top ANYWHERE! It was like being in a maze where all you could do was to keep going the way you were going! I felt like I was in an hallucination of something! Got back more into the Metro area and, except for the piles along the streets, you could hardly tell there had been a blizzard. I've lived out here since '64, and I KNOW how fast it melts, but even I could hardly believe what I was seeing that time! This IS the place to live! Skybird

SE Wisc: Someone turned of the "snow switch" at 3 pm this afternoon. The forecasters are predicting 4 to 6 inches. I know it will be more than 4 inches becasue we have that much right now. Its messy to deal with, but we need the gound moisture. It'll be good for the winter wheat and hay grasses planted last fall. My backyard deer herd appeared early this evening to brouse. They usually come around at midnight or later. Today, they apeared at 5 pm - it was almost dark and snowing. There are 7 in this herd and all came out tonight. Often, only a few at a time apear in the open with the others staying under cover.