Just another day in Paradise!

I feel like I just took a beat down. Yesterday was spent "digging out" We've gotten an outrageous amount of snow... it it were Michigan it would be called "don't send the snow plows out for the next two days because it's snowing so hard we can't keep up" snow. It has been nonstop for the past two days... more than an inch per hour. Yesterday when we met in the morning, Scott sat down and was like "I don't even know what to do today.... I guess just everyone take someone and grab a shovel." A few minutes later he was like "well... come see me when you run out of snow." Obviously... no one did. The snow around the circle ponds out front is chest deep when you walk around in it... which I had to do to clear the snow off of the predator nets on the ponds. Really, it was just kinda funny to me the whole time so it wasn't that bad. Except I had snow going UP my bibs (my overalls... foul weather gear)... mostly snow going DOWN my bibs... my pants were wet... Then after break or something, my bibs would be frozen solid so it was hard to get into them. (Or out of them too!)

There had been talk last week sometime about how in previous years, they've had to shovel the roof because it's flat and it could collapse over the incubation room if it gets too weighed down... which would be REAL bad since most of the babies are still in there. Well... it has come to that point. Yesterday a few of us were on this patio type roof area below the actual roof shoveling. It was about waist high. Then they used the loader Case tractor to lift 3 snowblowers up there and then managed to get them up on the high roof. As I was clearing off ponds yesterday, they were up there snowblowing and I was laughing cause it looked funny. All you could see were 3 jets of snow shooting up off the roof.

WELL... I'm not laughing anymore! Because I spent 5-1/2 hours up there snowblowing today! On the weekends, Scott might work? but Adam and Dan work (they have days off during the week.) Well Scott asked for volunteers to work... I heard him at Dean's room asking and though "ohh here he comes..." and he did... And since I'm the new one... and it was the boss, I didn't say no. Snowblowing the roof... the rediculousness! Actually, the "rediculousness" is the amount of snow that was actually UP there! Scott went up yesterday with this stick to measure it when we were shoveling the lower roof... he came back and said he ran out of measuring marks on his stick so he made this mark with a knife or something. Josh looked at the stick and held it up to himself and it was about 5 foot 10 inches high... Scott said it was over his head.

Anyhow, back to snowblowing. Adam, Dean and I climbed up onto the roof. That lower roof that we shoveled yesterday... the snow was knee high again. That was accumulation from noon yesterday to 8-ish this morning. 20 hours... about 18-20 inches roughly... yeah that's about an inch per hour. (Thankfully today, though it was still snowing all day, it was very light) So yesterday they snowblowed the edges of the roof, so we had to tackle the middle and then do the edges again since 1) it snowed again and 2) we blew the snow back onto that area. It was very hard to do. Though they snowblowed, there's still ALOT of snow up there... they couldn't get it all the way to the actual roof. So it was very bumpy... snowblowers were breaking (Dean's broke a few hours in)... people were getting pissed off.

Anyhow, finally that was "done." I think Adam was just getting pissed off so he called it DONE. We got the snowblowers down... then went to snowblow the dock, which was alot easier! Funny part was on the way to the dock, I had to push my snowblower (and it moves like 2 MPH!) and Scott was plowing with the tractor so he told me to get over to the side. So I did as much as I could... then my dumb thing ran out of gas and so I had to stand there looking dumb when he was waving at me to move. HA... sorry. So we finished the docks then we had to shovel off a few other roofs... those weren't bad. The snow drifts were so high (the drifts plus shoveling the snow down) that Adam and Dean just jumped off the roof. The first time Adam went, he went feet first and sunk down to his shoulders! I refused to go. The second roof we did was really slippery once we got down to the roof and it was slanted so that was interesting.

So now the day is done... Scott's STILL out there plowing at 6pm... I have a headache... and my back aches... and I've had my FILL of snow for my lifetime! *shakes my head* Just another day in Paradise!

SHOUT OUT OF THE DAY - To my dad... just because. THANKS for the big long email! Love you!

ANTI-SHOUT OUT OF THE DAY - To Mother Nature... Even though the world is experiencing global warming, thanks for showing us here at Hidden Falls that you are still in control and global warming hasn't gotten bad enough to NOT dump 3 feet or more of snow on us! Watch your back M.N.... there is talk here of spraying the ozone with hairspray and lighting all the diesel fuel on fire in spite of you! heh jk (though that HAS been proposed!)