Arggggghhhhhhhhhhh!!!! More cold and snow!!!!!!!

The Arctic front is back!!  Right now it is 12 degrees and falling.  I am already frozen.  I never lost the last snow.  It melted a little here on my sloped driveway that I have to walk across to get to the car port and then quickly froze into a sheet of the slickest ice I have encountered since I left Kansas!  As I recall those days, when winter came it first rained.  Then that changed to freezing rain.  This left a sheet of ice on everything known as "black ice".  You have not lived until you have driven 200 or so miles on that. 

Black ice is just what the name implies.  Inevitably this phenomena would occur right before I wanted to make the trip from Garden City back to Hutchinson.  Course  who ever heard of postponing a trip?  Well, yeah, that and the fact that the ice would be there until Spring so why fight it?  Then it would snow and the temperatures would fall and 15 degrees below was a good day.  But you will recall that I left Kansas. 

Now I know you think Colorado is the land of beautiful snow falls and skiing and that sort of thing, but what you do not know is this......I live in a hole.  I am here in Pueblo where it never rains, temperatures are moderate and the sun shines every day.  Except of course, when it does not!  Give us an Albuquerque Low and we measure the snowfall in feet or the rain in gallons.  And then there is that little thing called an Arctic Front that comes creeping down from God only knows where and drops the bottom right out of the thermometers.

So back to the sloped drive and the sheet of ice.  I myself have found it easier to go out the back door, across the deck, down the side walk, out the gate, across the back lot, crawl over the front fence, stumble through the rose bushes and exit into the car port.  Most of the time I have the presence of mind to have my keys with me.  But occasionally I exit the front door.  Side walk is clear (Thanks to my back breaking work and Bret sleeping late cause he does not do a good job of shoveling.) so I can get up a little speed, lock my knees when I hit the ice patch, glide to the bottom and stop suddenly when I hit the dry gravel which marks the neighbors drive.  Then it is just a matter of turning right, walking spraddle legged and holding on to the trash can, water hydrant and springing forward to the first pole in the car port.  I could never do that sober!

Had a man stop buy last evening to pick up some thread.  Course he parked right in the middle of the ice patch I laughingly call "Widow Maker".  I was happy to see he had been around enough to have mastered the spraddle legged walk which I also laughingly call "Widow Maker".  When it came time for him to leave I told him I  would watch him to his car to make sure he did not fall.  He, of course, thought I would pick him up if he did.  I told him, "No, but I think I can slide you over to the car port and you can grab hold of something and pull yourself up."  Luckily he made it to his vehicle and all was well.

Now, where was I? Oh, yeah, I woke up this morning and what do I have?  Got another 6-7 inches of fresh snow out there.  I have no idea where I left that damn snow shovel.  I think it is with the sledge hammer I need to break the ice on the pond.  I expect they are in the tin shed which has yet another drift in front of it.  If life were fair, things would be different.  I know where I went wrong.  See, a couple weeks ago I went to have my tires rotated and the little guy at Peerless (whom I love) told me, " Gee, Lou, your tread is about gone.  Want to take care of that now?"  And I in my lackadaisical manner did my usual procrastination thing.  I love it when I do that! ( Sarcasm, just another service I offer.)

Ok, so I was wrong about it never snowing here.  If this were the first time I was wrong you might be able to cackle, but seems to me specialty.  That and dumplings that do not have a hard ball of dough in the middle.  So now you have a good day and think about poor old Lou out here in Colorado freezing to death and driving around on bald tires. ( I would insert a happy face here if I had any idea how to do that!)