Days of Tundra....

Hello from the sunny but frozen north. After a night of 30+ mph wind gusts, we awoke to some pretty significant drifting, which has only gotten worse through the day. Opa got up and dug out the truck for me, and I mushed off through the snow. It took me about 40 minutes to go 7 miles to work. I think I had a grand total of 4 customers. One lady walked a couple of blocks to mail a package, and some guy drove in from up north on 721 to buy a book of stamps. I didn't know whether to congratulate them on their courage or smack 'em for being silly.

Our postal higher-ups insisted that things would be business-as-usual, and that we had to attempt rural delivery. Our Saturday sub couldn't get in, so I had to call the regular carrier. She came in and sorted mail until I could close up for the morning, and then I went out with her and we delivered what we could in town - she drove and I stuffed the boxes. We couldn't even get close to most of the boxes. We took a gander down one country road and quickly decided that there was no way we were going to do country delivery. We had a couple of calls telling us that the snow plows had eliminated quite a few boxes - they had scored almost a 100% kill rate out on Grubbs-Rex ( Where Elmer Longenecker lives, just south of Jim and Kathy's place) So on the bright side, it will help things on Monday. All those folks will have to come in and get their mail.

Any way, I left for home around 1:30. Things went pretty well until I got about half way here, and I came upon a lady whose car was stuck in a drift. I let her use my cell phone to call her family for help, and then I tried to help her get out. Soon another man came along with a truck a little bigger than a pick-up. He had a tow rope and was able to get her out so she could turn around. He told me I'd better turn around two, because he could see a 4 foot drift across the road a little farther on. So I went back to the road just south of there, and fortunately a township plow had just gone through. I was able to go around the blockages and eventually get back to 721 north of where I had been. When I got to Cirlce Hill it was evident that someone had used their tractor to plow out there, or it would have been completely shut up. After I made the turn at Brumbaugh's and headed north again, I could see the good Samaritan up ahead, clearing the roadway in front of Wick's at the corner of Yount Rd. He let me around him and as I got close to the house I could see that the final obstacle was going to be getting into our driveway. I stopped and called Opa to see how he wanted me to try it.

He said to gun it and see how the 4wheel drive handled it. It didn't. He had to come out and lower the snow level under the truck a little before we could get it in. But it was accomplished without too much effort and I was finally in my own cozy little abode by 2:30.

We were sorely disappointed to miss Bubby's birthday party, but with all the wind we're still having, we thought it best to stay home. Micah is out shoveling through the drift across the

driveway right now, so he can get his car out if necessary. That boy is seriously bored.