Up on the Housetop

 We ended up getting a couple of feet of snow.  It snowed heavily Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday but we missed out on most of it.  When I walked out to the compost pile on Sunday afternoon, the garden walkway was still bare as the snow was melting in almost as fast as it came down.  Then the wind shifted.  Monday morning we woke up to about 10" and by afternoon it was over my knees.  Its hard to tell exactly how much snow has fallen because it compacts as it falls.  There was a lot.  Some towns nearby got over four feet.  When we get a lot of snow, we start to worry about the one side of our house roof.  The way it is positioned, when the wind comes from the west, it picks the snow up off that side of the roof and drops it all on the east side and packs it into the valley.

Before you shovel the roof, you have to dig out the chairs and move them out of the way so if you fall off you don't land on them.  Plus, it was getting pretty deep right there so it won't hurt to move this snow out into the lawn too.  We position the loader as close as we can to the roof. Then up you go to survey the situation.  

Knee deep and packed hard. 

Time to call a friend.

So What's the Plan Here?
Don't Fall Off.

The idea is to shovel towards the tractor loader and haul the snow away where it can melt into the lawn.  Not all of the snow lands in the loader,.

Oh good.  I thought the fun was all over...

Maybe we should just use the tractor.

So we shoveled for a little over an hour and got the worst of it off.  The weather was already turning and getting gloomy and windy.  It really needed to be done today because it is snowing again already and they are forecasting between 10" and 15" overnight into Saturday.  Monday it is going to warm up and drizzle all day.  A rainy day on top of three or four feet of snow is a recipe for disaster.

We have officially had more snowy days already than we did all of last winter.