Saturday, February 17, 2007

Ice Chips

I live in "the South". It's supposed to be mild here year round. We have seasons, but we aren't supposed to get this cold for this long. Technically it's supposed to be much more mild than New England, right??

Did I tell you how long my driveway is? It's about 2/10 of a mile long.
Do you know how much ice that is when the ice/snow cover is about 3 inches thick? That's a lotta ice.

Our driveway is curvy and goes down toward a creek that runs under the driveway. We have a bridge - not a real bridge, just dirt and gravel over these 2 large culvert pipe things. I'm not sure how the whole thing stays up, and I really don't much care. It works. I don't give it a second thought, I just drive over it.

Day 1 - After the snow and ice stopped falling from the sky, Mr. Bug went out and made 2 swipes with the snowblower for tire tracks and then the auger on the snowblower stopped turning. He parked it, covered it, and told it he'd see it in the spring. We had bare gravel most of the way down, but then the sun went down and the whole thing froze solid again.

Day 2 - We slid/drove down the driveway and went to a somewhat local home improvement super store to get some ice melt. Mr. Bug spread 50lbs of ice melt and 50lbs of sand. We chipped away at some of the ice. We thought we'd done enough...

Grambug and I went out that night for a meeting that involved champagne, chocolate, strawberries, and a few friends. When we returned, the sun had been down for quite a while and it was really cold. The ice chipping we had done was great for getting out of the driveway, but not in. We slid down towards the bridge. I said a quick prayer that we would go over it - not off of it. As we reached the other side and started up towards the house, Grambug said, "Well, that was creepy." (That was the understatement of the century!!)

Day 3 - Mr. purchased and dumped another 40lbs of salt - the big pellets this time. We waited about a half an hour or so. Then #1 and I went out to chip some ice, baby!!

That kid can sure swing an axe thing. (I don't know the technical term for that particular tool. The axe thing has a pointy part on one side and a flat part on the other. It weighs a good 20lbs.) He would hit the ice with the flat part and a chunk would let go. I'd toss it over the side. He moved right along. We got the end of the driveway clear as well as the bridge. I went behind him with the shovel and got rid of the small chunks and the snow. Mr. Bug joined us after we'd been at it for a little while. We were down to bare gravel at 4:30 yesterday afternoon. It only took us a couple hours...

The temperature is supposed to go up to above freezing today. The rest of it should start to melt.

I do live in the South, right??

3 comments:

Joan said...

Love your blog. I hate to tell you that I'm sitting here in shorts, it's sunny, in the 80's and I'm complaining it's too hot.

I grew up in the Northeast so I know what cold, snowy, icy winters are like but I guess memory blurs things because I have a romantic image of sitting in the house, sipping hot chocolate, staring out at the newly fallen snow. Your blog certainly puts things in a clearer light! ;~)

Susan said...

I'm not sure I'd know what to do in this situation...I might be "stuck" in my house...I know you have to get out and work on it...but WOW that's a lot of work to get in and out...

I always wondered why they called VA the south....

Stay warm.

:-) Susan

Unknown said...

Ladybug - that sounds like such hard work to clear your driveway. I do hope the weather gets back to normal for you.

Do you get these cold snaps often?