The Difference a Day Makes
Posted on January 31, 2021 Posted by John Scalzi 22 Comments
Two pictures, from just about the same viewpoint on my porch, 24 hours apart. Can you spot the differences? What you don’t see in this photo is that my driveway is already ploughed; sometime in the night whilst I slept my neighbor hooked his snowplow to the front of his pickup and scraped the snow from him driveway, and then mine. Because he thinks it’s fun, that’s why. I like having a neighbor like that.
— JS
I clear the driveways and street in our neighborhood with my tractor.
That white paint sure disappeared fast. It was likely defective. I recommend you ask for a refund.
It took a while, but I finally spotted the difference. The bottom picture is zoomed out more.
You mean “his” driveway, yes?
Unless, of course, you finally did it — you went ahead and DID it.
You turned yourself into Cookie Monster!!!
GOSH DARN YOU ALL TO HECCCCCKKKK!
I can totally dig your neighbors mindset. One its like getting to play with toys, which is great in and of itself. Secondly, if you’re going through the trouble of hooking it up, might as well get the most work out of it before taking it off again!
Good on your neighbor.
A few years ago while out at our mother in law’s house in Northern Ohio, my brother in law and I were shoveling out the driveway.
Along comes some fella on a larger lawn tractor with a plow on it.
We offered to pay but he insisted on not charging us to do the driveway.
He said that it gets him out of the house and away from his wife’s “honey- do” list.
It took him all of five minutes to do the driveway, and thence he went put putting off into the afternoon…
Such neighbors are awesome, and I hope well-remembered at Christmas.
I have never seen ‘ploughed’ used outside of learning about the pilgrims… until now
That neighbor ought to get a nice schadenfreude pie once in a while.
My friend George is one of “those” neighbors. When he gets Big Orange out, he does the whole block.
This is the benefit of living in an apartment building, though. The last time I shoveled was…never.
We also awoke to a fresh dump of the white stuff, though in our case it was on top of the foot or so that was already on the lawn, so not as much of a contrast. Our new neighbors just moved in from a southern state and haven’t gotten all stocked up on the machinery needed for a Midwestern winter, so Spouse ran our snow-blower over their driveway after doing ours, because that’s what neighbors do in our neighborhood.
We moved into this house a couple of decades ago, on the snowiest day of the winter (of course). The old gentleman who lived across the street saw us struggling through snow drifts lugging our furniture from the U-Haul into the house. He promptly got out his mini-plow, chugged across the street, and quickly and efficiently cleared our driveway for us. Wouldn’t take a penny in payment, either, though he enjoyed the baked goods we dropped off at his doorstep every few weeks thereafter. He died a few years later, sadly, but we pay his graciousness forward whenever we can.
Didn’t snow here, but your neighbor made my day! :)
It’s all done with special effects and photoshop. It didn’t really snow, that’s what Fake News wants you to believe.
I have this on authority from a squirrel that sometimes visits our back yard, so it’s verified.
Always a good policy to be on good terms with the neighbors. Snowplow service is a nice bonus. :)
Does the grass die off every year from being under the snow without sun?
I never really thought about it until I saw that deep green lawn
Back when I lived in a place with driveways, one of the people plowing the road saw me out wrestling with my shovel and very kindly used his snowplow to remove all the plow pack from the base of my driveway so I didn’t have to break through it. I was most grateful.
William: Does the grass die off every year from being under the snow without sun?
No. Actually, snow is good for grass. It protects grass from deep cold; the grass will go dormant under the snow, and then the snow will slowly melt and water it awake in the spring. Lots of snow and a long slow thaw in the spring = a healthy green lawn.
No snow at sea level here in Seattle all winter.
Even though we usually keep it on mountaintops where it belongs, it’s rare to have no snow at all at lower elevations. Temperatures have never gone below freezing either, a disturbing (to me) sign of climate change.
The year before I retired, I had PROJECTS in mind, and bought a mid-sized orange tractor, with loader bucket out front and back-hoe out back, along with a brush-hog and scraper blade.
We scrape our farm roads which adds up to less than a mile, and if the county road crew is busy enough they haven’t gotten to the
local county roads, we do that too. Out past the neighbors to the east, which brings us up to something over a mile and a half.
The projects wound up creating a tiny house at nearly 6,000 feet in Arizona with a 50 mile view, repairing out water plant as needed here in SW W Va, and helping neighbors build a big straw bale house for a friend who’s log cabin residence burned down after a chimney fire (no people harmed in that but for the emotions!), etc, etc.
Most of the folks I helped out subsequently bought their own tractors so they could do more of the same work I enjoyed doing.
Now that there is a nationwide stay home order, we are currently just letting the snow melt mostly. I miss doing the ploughing out, though. We mostly use the loader bucket on the roads, as it’s a real pain to swap out the backhoe for the scraper blade / brush-hog.
We’ve had more snow this winter than in many recent winters, which is a good surprise, may cut back on the ticks next spring! So far the newest winter storm look like it will mostly miss our place down south of you all up in Ohio, which is a good thing.
After all of those glowing camera reviews I’m disappointed to see that the white balance is so far off.
I love living in the country, where neighbors still look out for one another.
Love it. From ‘hmm it might be cold’ to ‘hey winter!’