Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  Well, the snow finally stopped sometime last night.  This morning, after the sun came up and was shining nicely, I went out to plow the driveway again.  I quickly ran into a problem, though – in my hurry to get into the (nice, warm) house last night, I forgot to turn off the hazard lights on my tractor.  I don't normally use those lights, but last night when I drove down the highway I had them on.  They were still flashing this morning, but the bulbs just barely lit up.  The tractor engine wouldn't turn over.

So ... I had to go fish the jumper cables out of the garage, run Debbie's truck over to the barn (over the unplowed inch to two inches of fresh snow), and park it nose-to-nose with the tractor.  Then I had to figure out how to open the tractor's “hood” so I could get to the battery.  Luckily that turned out to be easy.  I hooked up the cables and started up the tractor, then put the truck back, the cables away, and finally I could go plow.

I got surprised right away by a layer of ice that developed somehow, right against the pavement.  In a couple of places it was almost an inch thick, but most places it was only about a quarter of that.  I plowed the entire driveway but still couldn't actually see the pavement!  Fortunately the sunshine took care of that problem in just a few hours.

Then I shoveled off the walkway again, and salted it to get rid of the ice (it was there, too; not just on the pavement).  I've got four foot high piles of snow now on both sides of that walkway...