Mother Nature's April Fools Day

Well, Mother Nature had her little April Fools joke here in Ouray, Colorado today. This morning showed the results of snowing about 3-4 inches last night. I got up to get the morning coffee and looked outside to see some blue sky to the north and figured the sun would make quick work of melting the new snow off the roads and sidewalks by noon. Figuring I would help things along, I went to the shop to pick up some recyclables to bring up to our curbside pickup at home since the Waste Management will not pick up recycled material, especially cardboard, at the office location. Go figure. While I was at the shop I figured I would go ahead and shovel the sidewalks and have them nice and clear for when we opened the stores at 11am and the sun would be shining.

After getting back home and putting the recyclable cardboard at our curb, I went back into the house to have a second cup of organic and locally roasted coffee. As I sipped the hot brew, out the window I noticed blizzard conditions. Where the hell did that come from? Tamara and I continued to get ready to go to work and the snow continued to fall from the sky in all different directions. We headed out at 11am, and after I brushed off the 4 inches of new snow that had accumulated on our truck during the hour I had been home, we headed out the driveway and turned left on Oak Street. Some guy was walking his schnauzer without a leash and the dog almost ran under the truck. I started down the Oak Street hill and noticed the trash truck heading up the hill. Since Oak Street is a 1 ½ lane street, I pulled into the nearest driveway and turned around to head the other way. Even in 4-wheel drive I was spinning the tires a bit and the trash truck was trying to keep its momentum going and not coming to a stop, thus causing my rearview mirror to be filled with the image of the grill of the Waste Management truck. I was able to get headed straight and took the long way around to the shops and used some side streets to navigate the partially plowed streets of Ouray.

We made it to the shops and opened the stores. Of course, the weather was not conducive to shopping, so for the most part, shoppers stayed off the streets. Oh, well, there are always more shirts to be folded and back rooms to organize. I hope Mother Nature enjoyed her little April Fools Day joke. We were not amused.

However, the forecast for tomorrow is for a full day of sunshine and warmer temperatures. We’ll see how that works out.

One last thing: If April showers bring May flowers, when did the pilgrims get here?

Towed to Denver

This being the last day of a short month, a short entry should be in order.

Tamara and I left Ouray on Tuesday, February 25, to attend the Denver Gift Show. Things were going well until we reached Fairplay, which is a small town 80 miles southwest of Denver. As we slowed down to the city limit speed, I felt a pop in the rear of the truck and a grinding noise. Thinking it was a blown tire, I pulled over to the side of the road to check it out. As I toured around the Expedition, all tires seemed fully inflated. A check under the check did not reveal where the noise had come from. I got back in the truck, started driving, and did not notice any more noise, and decided to continue driving toward Denver. About 3 miles on the other side of Fairplay, the noise came back with a vengeance and increased volume. Fairplay was not playing fair. Deciding that things were not going well, I turned around and headed back to Fairplay, where a small garage still had activity visible inside, even though the sign said CLOSED. The three workers agreed to look at the truck, and after one of them took off the lug nuts to the right rear wheel after burning his hands on the hot hub, he surmised it was a break failure and possibly even a broken right rear axle. Luckily, the garage was a AAA tow service with a flat bed truck, and we ended up being towed the rest of the way to Denver. That is a heck of a way to save gas.

The truck was towed to a Ford dealer in Denver, but by now it was nearly 7:30pm and the service department was closed, as were any nearby rental car agencies. We called a friend of ours in Denver who we had known in Southern California. He came to the Ford dealer to pick us up, took us to Denver International Airport to rent a car, and we headed back to our other friend’s condo who had been gracious enough to let us stay there, even though she was out of town on business. So our plan to arrive in Denver at around 6:00pm and have a leisurely evening was replaced by a hectic evening and arriving at 11:30pm and going straight to bed.

I’ll probably write more later, but for now as February nears its end, so ends this tale.

One last thing: Can money be held for ransom?

Shovelling Snow

Yesterday brought the sun back to the canyon in which Ouray is nestled. Of course, a sunny day after a snowy day means shoveling the snow that fell! I was out at it at 7:30am so I could be finished before going in to open up Mountain Fever at its scheduled opening time of 11am. Since we have 2 decks on the north side of the house, I usually start on the lower deck and push as much of the snow over the side as possible. Just like a golfer has a favorite club to be used in certain situations, I have a choice of 4 different shovel styles from which to choose. I prefer the wide shovel with a long handle that has an angle on it to where I can stand up straight and push most of the snow to the desired location. It’s kind of like a show shovel on a stick. So I push all the snow off the lower deck and then head up to the upper deck via our metal staircase we had installed that is anchored into a huge boulder sitting on the boundary of our property. On the upper deck I shove the snow towards the edge and then give it a final push through the guard rail, hopefully with enough force to that it shoots over the lower deck which juts out about 5 feet more than the upper deck. Once finished with the upper deck, I go back down to the lower deck and push off any snow that I was unable to shoot out to the back yard. Back yard – that’s a laugh. Our lot is one of the smallest in town and is taken up by the house, except for the 5 feet setback in all directions from the property line.

Once the lower deck is re-shoveled, I head back up to the upper deck and climb up to the north face of the roof that covers the one floor of the split level. I shovel the snow over to the south side where it will be scraped off later with a snow rake. We shovel the snow off the roof, especially the north side, to avoid ice dams. If that is not done, the damn ice can build up as a ridge on the roof and push ice back up under the shingle. Once under the shingles it can encounter the warmer temperatures emanating from the house. If the temperatures are warm enough to melt the ice, it then finds its way down the interior support beams and becomes a drip inside the house – usually through one of the can lights in the kitchen ceiling.

So, we shovel the back part of the roof so the sun can hit it and start melting the snow not picked up by the shoveling. This time of year the sun is getting high enough tat it melts off pretty quickly. I then go to the garage and get the snow rake. This is kind of like a big squeegee but made of metal. It has a 5-foot handle on it and I have three 5-foot extensions I can add to it as needed. I reach up and extend the rake as high as I can and drag the snow towards me. It falls off the roof and onto the driveway. This is continued for the length of the roof and extensions are added as I move down the driveway since the downgrade of the driveway moves me further from the apex of the roof. As soon as the snow is scraped and if the sun is out, the remaining snow immediately starts to melt with the help of the heat radiating from the shingles.

Then comes the fun part – shoveling the driveway. Some of the snow tossed from the north roof and scraped off the south roof piles up in the driveway, so not only do I get to shovel what nature deposited in the driveway, but whatever came from the roof!

This time it took about 2 1/5 hours to do all the shoveling by myself. Normally Tamara assists me and it goes quicker, but this time she opted to stay in the warm bed. It was a good workout after having the most of January off from any shoveling due to lack of snow. It appears February might make up for the deficit.