Home again home again

Until we got to Woodinville the drive was effortless. Then suddenly we turned from the main road onto our neighborhood street and it became something out of Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. There are still at least 2 feet of compacted and lumpy snow on the road, pierced by a set of ruts from somebody's truck. Somebody's truck that has tires that are a little further apart from the ones on the Yeti. We got good traction in one rut and then leaped and popped out of the other, lurching and praying we wouldn't meet anyone coming the other way. After a few white-knuckled moments we made it to the top of our driveway. There was no way we were going down it. The snow was deeper than the tires could possibly handle. So I pulled the snow shovel out of the back and we traded back and forth, shoveling a parking space at the top of the drive. Then we discovered exactly how exhausting it is to carry luggage and groceries down a hill and into the house through 3 feet of unbroken snow after shovelling for 45 minutes. It is quite tiring.

I got a second wind as soon as I looked at the front porch and realized it was sagging alarmingly. While Charlie cleared off the back deck I got up on the roof and threw wet soggy heavy snow off a shovel-full at a time. All of the gutters are full and frozen, but at least now the melt is sloughing off the side of the roof and not pushing into the house crease and seeping into the porch roof. This was definitely a disaster narrowly averted.


It will take till next spring to find out the true damage to our land. Looks like almost all of the enormous wild rhododendrons (we're talking 20 feet wide and at least 15 feet tall) and azaleas have been smashed to the ground. One huge camellia bush was snapped clean off of the trunk and is a goner. The two beautiful gnarly willows in the front are all but crushed as well. I can only hope that once the snow melts the branches will un-bend and get some life in them.

But the house is standing, the chickens are alive, and we managed to go grocery shopping on the way home and can be house bound for a few days. Nothing makes you feel better after a few hours of wet snow shovelling like a big bowl of carbonara and a bottle of Alexandria Nicole 2006 Quarry Butte. Delicious!

After some ibuprofin and a good night's sleep I will be able to wax rhapsodic about our Texas Christmas adventures.