Weathering Another Winter (Or: Wishing for Sunshine and Finally Buying a Generator)

Last year, we had an awful winter in the D.C. area, with not only one massive "Snowmageddon" but a second "Snowpocalypse" dumping over two feet of snow apiece on us.  Somehow, we made it through both without losing power, though during the second storm, Beth and I seriously considered a generator as tens of thousands of people in the area suffered outages. Though this year we've managed to avoid snowfall totals like those, what we've ended up with has been bad enough: heavy, wet snow and ice which has struck hard at our new plants and those still recovering from last winter.

This most recent storm had been projected to be a heavy bout of rain up until about two or three days out, when the computer models all began to converge upon a significant snow event.  Even then, many remained doubtful we'd be hit hard (a sentiment which carried over into the actual storm even as it slammed areas to the immediate west).  Local schools made the right call and cancelled the day before, when we'd only had a dusting of precipitation.  Unfortunately, the Office of Personnel Management for the feds decided only to dismiss two hours early--putting tens of thousands of federal employees and contractors on the roads right as the storm arrived.

As I left the office, it was raining, but by the time I got out of the parking garage, the precipitation had changed over to sleet.  When I got to Fairfax Circle--about halfway home along my commute--we'd already gotten over an inch of snow.  The sheer energy of the storm created thunder and lightning--an eerie, almost frightening event known as "thundersnow" which though fairly rare I've now experienced three times in the past year.  Visibility fell to a couple dozen feet, and even jam-packed with an early rush hour's traffic, the roads quickly accumulated several inches of snow.  The last mile or so of my commute was a nightmare, thanks to the elements and drivers who had no business being on the roads: folks with no headlights on (!); people who drove in the middle of the road even with oncoming traffic; cars like the Mitsubishi Eclipse I saw spinning out trying to make it up a fairly gentle hill or even the SUVs whose owners seemed to think 4WD gave them license to drive like fools; and, worst of all, those bad drivers who made things worse by abandoning their cars in the middle of the highway.  During the hour and a half it took me to go seven miles--and in that I was lucky; some folks had 10-13 hour commutes in what has come to be known as "carmageddon"--we got over three inches of snow.  Finally home for the evening, I settled in with Beth and the Pupsters.

Our oriole feeder after a January ice storm

Sure, it's pretty for a few hours, but when the weather is bringing down trees all around the neighborhood, it's not fun anymore.  Nor is it fun to see the gardens over which you've toiled long spring and summer hours over  demolished by the elements: last year, we lost an American holly in the front yard when the snow snapped it in half (we've since resurrected the stump, which put out new growth over the year), and our inkberries and several other plants sustained heavy damage and many broken branches.  "Here we go again," I thought as snow came down at up to two inches an hour.

Even venturing out into the snow three times during the storm, Beth and I were hard-pressed to protect our plants.  We gently brushed and knocked the dense, thick snow from limbs and foliage and hoped for the best.  The new American holly out front, along with an English holly that made it through last winter intact, both had been weighed down so badly they risked snapping their trunks in half, and our scraggly, barely-recovered inkberries had been splayed to the ground.  Our red-twig dogwoods--species well-adapted to snow, being native well into Canada--for the first time had broken limbs, too.  Evergreens of any sort had been crushed by the snow.  Worst, every one of our river birches were bent completely to the ground, sustaining several snapped branches.

"Ms. Kooki, perhaps you're unaware it's snowing and that we want to play outside?"

Despite all the plant damage and several times when our power flickered off for a second or two, it seemed like we'd make it through the evening without losing our electricity.  The snow finally let up around 10:30pm, having dumped a layer of sleet topped by about eight inches of snow on us.  As I mentioned earlier, we'd considered a generator last winter but managed not to need one, and then missed out on the sales-tax holiday on them in May (for hurricane preparedness).  We were not to be so lucky this time around.

Shortly before midnight, the power went out and stayed out.  We discovered the next morning that a huge tree had come down near the entrance of our neighborhood, blocking the road and snapping several lines--not to mention a half dozen more minor breaks just in our immediate area.  Given the extent of the damage, we'd likely be without power for days--Dominion's Web site (which doesn't work with Chrome, making it impossible to report an outage from my phone) estimated they'd have it back up the next night, but I knew from experience they were being incredibly optimistic.  The house had held heat fairly well thanks to all the energy improvements we'd made--after a night of 20-degree temperatures, we were only down to 63 degrees inside from 69 the evening before--but it was only going to get colder.

So Beth and I headed to Costco before they opened on Thursday and lined up outside the entrance along with a dozen or so others--about half of us with flatbed carts and clearly intent upon the same thing: generators.  Within five minutes of the doors opening, Costco had sold out!  Several customers helped each other load the heavy boxes onto each others' carts, and after picking up a few other necessities, we headed home with our new generator and six gallons of gas to fuel it.

We had to shovel a path and dig out an area where we could run the generator, then assembly took some time out in the cold, snowy yard: I had to put together the generator's frame and wheels,  fill its oil reservoir and attach exhaust components, connect the battery, and drive and wire ground stake.  By the time I had everything set up, I had to go into the office, as the OPM had not closed the federal government despite the weather and widespread power outages, and the facility I work at was open.

Dominion's estimated time to get our power back up came and went as expected. I unfortunately let Beth talk me out of wiring up the furnace blower motor to the generator, instead using it to power just our fridge, a lamp, and an electric space heater we set up in the living room.  We spent the evening playing cards and listening to music on my iPod, then bundled up for a chilly night ahead: a day and a half into the blackout and temperatures inside had fallen to 54 degrees.  Multiple blankets, thermal underclothes, and even a true three dog night as all the Pupsters piled onto the futon with us... but it was not a comfortable night, as I had to get up several times to tend to the generator outside.

During the "break in" period for a new engine, you have to change the oil after about five hours of use--and check the oil level repeatedly.  And of course, you have to top off the gas so that it doesn't run dry.  Each of these operations requires disconnecting the appliances et al being powered, shutting off the generator, then powering it back up and reconnecting things afterwards.  I also was hesitant to run the generator basically non-stop for more than seven or eight hours, particularly given how it was brand new.

Friday morning meant another day at the office, a shower by flaslight first, and on the way out of the neighborhood I saw that Dominion had yet to even attempt to move the giant tree which the storm had brought down.  Worse, one of our neighbor's trees had dropped a limb onto our power lines, though it hadn't actually snapped them.

I left the office early, came home, and decided enough was enough with the upstairs temperatures down to 50 degrees and the basement pipes likely in danger of freezing up.  I finally had time to re-wire the furnace blower to run off of the generator.  Though I didn't feel like investing in a $280 transfer switch at Home Depot, I did completely disconnect the furnace from the power mains so I could just plug the furnace into the generator and not worry about overloading the generator or damaging the home's wiring.  Some people do that--plugging a generator into an outlet with a double-ended cord may be convenient, but that's a mistake and a fire hazard.

You know, gas heat works really well when you have electricity to blow the hot air around--within hours, the house was back to livable conditions.  (This of course ensured Dominion would have the power back on within another five hours or so, about two and a half days of blackout.)  After we got back from dinner with some friends, Dominion had finally come and cut away the branches on our lines, too.

I can only hope we're done with winter--Punxsutawney Phil be damned. But we're ready for the next bout of winter if it comes, shiny new generator and all.

Winter's Toll, Part 2: Assessing the Gardens

Yes, I've been a bit laggardly in fulfilling my promise to post photos of the damage "Snowpocalyse 2.0" did to our gardens.  Better late than never, though, don't they say?  At any rate, now that the majority of the snow has finally melted away--a month later!--we're getting a better idea as to how the poor plants fared.

First, the large American Holly we planted last fall in our front bed didn't make it.  I think it was already in pretty dire straits after enduring the December blizzard and an ice storm, the thaw from those (super-saturating the soil), and then a long cold snap which likely damaged the roots.  But Snowpocalypse 2.0 without a doubt drove the nail into the holly's coffin, snapping the main trunk completely in two.  (The photo above is from about 2 weeks after the blizzard--before that, the holly was just a lump in the snow.)

The inkberry hollies in the same bed came out reasonably well, all things considered.  I did have to trim away about a third of the branches from each due to breakage--there will be some bare spots for a couple of years, anyway--but they seem to have survived.  The "Shamrock" inkberry--with the most full foliage of the three inkberries--came out the worst.  And the little male pollinator holly seems fine as well, despite being crushed beneath the snow for nearly three weeks before we were able to carefully dig it free.

Our English Holly came out the best of all of them, actually.  In the photo above, the majority of its foliage is still buried (you're seeing about the top 8-10 inches); it's completely free of the snow now, though, and is in fine shape, with no broken limbs.  Every other holly had several branches snapped by the weight of all that snow.

We did leave them buried for as long as we dared; snow acts as an insulator to a degree, keeping the plant's roots from freezing, but as the snow melted away, it began to get very dense, icy, and heavy, threatening more damage to the plants, so we carefully dug things free.

The Arborvitae which came with Chateau Papillon (originally in a raised, cookie-cutter bed we've subsequently blended into a large natural area) looked pretty bad after the snow began to melt; like the American Holly, it was just a lump in the snow for over a week.  Since I took the photo above, it's actually mostly regained its posture, although it's still a bit fan-shaped where before it was fairly columnar in habit.

In the back yard, one of the Japanese Hollies is in poor shape, having been flattened out concentrically and sustaining several broken limbs, and several of the little evergreen shrubs might not have made it--the foliage is a bit brown for this time of year for a healthy dwarf Arborvitae and our native Juniper.  It's too early to tell about the flowering dogwoods, although I will say their cousins the red-twig dogwoods look to be fine (not surprising, given several species of red-twig are found in Siberian and Canadian tundra--ours are US natives, but the kinship is clear).

Amazingly, some of the spring bulbs which had begun to peek through in late January seem to still be alive despite being buried for a month (some STILL are under snow!).  We'll see how the blueberries, wildflowers, and a few deciduous shrubs turn out, and the Azaleas we relocated in the fall.

All said and done, the toll of winter on our gardens has been rather disheartening this year, but I think with a bit of TLC many of the plants are going to make it.

Winter's Toll, Part 1: Car Damage

As we continue to dig out from and clean up after the record-setting snowfall in northern Virginia, we're starting to uncover the damage done by the storm.  It's too early to say how our plants will come out; one of the blueberry bushes is still completely buried, as are several of our holly bushes, though at least two are toast, completely demolished by the weight of the snow.  More on that later, and with pictures (I promise!).

But first, I'm a bit annoyed at the amount of damage done to my car by this weather.  I'm not talking just about the corrosion from road salt; that's an issue, to be sure, but a minor one compared to a few other problems wrought by the snow.

First, I've got some sort of exhaust leak; my guess is incredibly bumpy roads--rutted sheets of solid ice, mostly--knocked something loose somewhere between the exhaust manifold and the catalytic converter.  (Because the upstream and downstream oxygen sensors read normally, I don't think the leak is after the converter.)  Also, those jarring, potholed, ice-sheet-rutted roads have done a number on my shocks and suspension, too; my car used to ride very smoothly, but now you feel every single bump in the road.  I'm not going to contemplate what's been done to my alignment; I'm afraid I'd go on an undeserved rant about VDOT and mail them a bill.

Next, because of some idiot the other day who refused to pull even remotely to the side of the road--and forced me to plow into a snowbank to avoid a head-on collision--there's a big panel that runs inside one wheel well which is completely wrecked.  Best I can figure, going up on that snow mound snapped the plastic panel along its front edge--luckily, the body panels around it seem fine.  But that plastic panel has been rubbing against something and getting hot enough to melt in places (that's how I discovered the damage to begin with: the day after said idiot ran me off the road, I smelled burning plastic after a drive).

At least the sound I thought was a possible wheel bearing issue has gone away in wake of the weather.  Some Forester experts suggested it was actually the backing plate for the disc brake causing the sound, due to uneven rust.  I guess all this bouncing around knocked the rust free.

Next up: a look at our poor plants.  We put backbreaking effort into our landscaping last year, and I'm afraid of what I'll see as the still-more-than-18-inches of snow melts away.

Rules for the Road: Stay Inside or DIE

You know how the anchors--particularly on local news--yammer on and on any time the weather turns bad about things like, "Stay home unless you absolutely have to be out," and, "It's very dangerous to be driving, so please stay off the roads unless it's a matter of life and death?"

Yes, I know such talk quickly grows tiresome; the local reporters here even realized it, several times prefacing the standard warning fare with, "I know people are tired of hearing this, but..."

However, after what I witnessed today, I don't think the message is strong enough.  No, I've got a new suggestion for the media yammerheads to share with the snowbound public who are considering exiting their homes and taking a leisurely stroll or drive: "Do not drive. Do not walk in the road. Stay inside or you will DIE."

I won't get into the whole story now, other than to say that what even in the snow should have been a 15 minute drive at most took well over an hour, and all of it due to idiots who really shouldn't be out, either on foot or atop a set of tires.  I will, however, offer the following suggested rules for those who would dare to venture out and challenge the roads:

1. If you are a pedestrian, walk on the left side of the road, and keep your eyes out and ears open for cars.  When you notice a car coming, get out of the middle of the road, particularly if it's a plow coming toward you.  If it comes to a fight over the road with a car, I guarantee you the pedestrian will lose.  And if I have to choose between wrecking my car and wrecking you, I know which I will choose (hint: it's not my car).
   
2. If you are a pedestrian, do not stop passing cars to chat.  Holding a conversation in the middle of the street might be considered "quaint" in the netherlands of Norman Rockwell postcards and Dueling Banjos, but when you see eight cars backed up in each direction because you seem unaware of this space-age gadget known as the telephone and its place in communications history, maybe you should get with the program.
   
3. If you're in a car driving down a street plowed only one lane wide, the considerate thing to do when you see oncoming traffic is to look for the widest spot and pull as far to the side as you can.  Not to barrel at full-speed forward and expect the other driver to put his or her car into reverse, or worse, expect the other driver to plow into a snowbank to avoid a head-on collision with you just so you can drive down the middle of the road, three feet away from the plowed shoulder.  I have as much the right to the road as you.
   
4. If you do not feel up to driving faster than your grandmother or feel that you have to ignore all concept of separate traffic lanes, perhaps that is a clue that you should stay home.  This rule applies double on roads which have been well-plowed and in which dry (or even wet) blacktop is showing through, and treble for those who are driving in the left lane.  Your snail's pace is more a danger to your life than the snow and ice on the roads.
   
5. On the other hand, just because you have a SUV does not entitle you to drive 55 mph.  Think of how silly you'll feel when you have to have that big four wheel drive minibus pulled out of a snow bank by a tow truck, as people cruise by at 35 in their little sedans and snicker.
   
6. Stop signs DO mean you.  There is no waiver in effect for traffic signals and signs simply because the roads are slick--better to stop slowly and short of the intersection than to T-bone someone who was obeying the rules.
   
7. Be patient and polite, even with all the idiots out and about (this is the hardest rule for me to personally follow, but I do my best).
   

Just doing my part for public safety!

Scenes from Snowpocalyse Now Redux

The December blizzard we experienced in the Washington, D.C., area should have been a once-in-a-generation event, yet here we are again in the same winter season with two feet or more of abominable whiteness on the ground.

Yes, it's only the first week of February, and we in northern Virginia are challenging a record more than a century old for total snow.  One part of me wants to see the rest of the winter break that record (set in 1898-99) and be a part of history.  The other part--probably the saner bit--thinks it's time for Old Man Winter to receive a visit from Dr. Kevorkian.

The doggies do love a good snowstorm, and Beth diligently dug them trenches all over the yard (doubling as access for us to refill the bird feeders and for me to knock snow off the tree limbs).  Even with those trenches, the pupsters managed to become little snowballs in short time, their long fur collecting bibs of ice and snow.

Unfortunately, Beth pulled a muscle in her shoulder doing all that shoveling, and I think we've a few plants which won't make it even despite all the work I put into dislodging the thick, heavy snow before it could do much damage.  Our beautiful American Holly in the front bed, for example, already was looking a bit peaked--likely due to root freeze after a lengthy cold snap struck ground soaked through with the melt of our last few snowstorms.  Now, it's broken in half by the weight of the snow.  I hesitate to guess what has happened to our other evergreen shrubs and young trees, all of which are currently visible as only slight mounds in the snow.  Somehow, our River Birch seems okay after a third time of having to be rescued from being bent in half by the weight of ice and snow.

Fortunately, we kept power through the storm and its aftermath.  Back in December, I thought to myself that things like a snow blower, tire chains, and a generator would be nice to have on hand, but the infrequency of storms necessitating their use really made them poor investments.  I'm sticking to that thought.  How many more snows can we get like this?

At least this time around, we got plows through our neighborhood, including down our cul-de-sac.  Thanks to the plows, I only had to shovel out the driveway, and of course the 5-foot-tall wall of plowed, packed snow at the end of it.  Needless to say, after that task, I wonder why I pay gym dues.

A beach home in the Bahamas is looking awfully good right now.

Eat It, Jack Frost: I'm Tired of Winter Already

Less than a month into the official season of winter, I am already, absolutely ready for summer.  Jack Frost, you can kiss my you-know-what: in fact, how about I give you a shotgun and you eat it, with a chaser of antifreeze?

I love a good snow as much as the next person, but after a day or so on the ground--particularly as the stuff melts and refreezes several times--I'm ready for it to be gone.  Not to mention how it accumulates the grime of the road; those six-foot-tall mounds plowed up at random through every parking lot certainly lack the charm of a freshly-made snowman.  My snow itch is scratched by that first real snowfall, and to me, cold weather is worthless bordering on irksome if it's not snowing.

Too, snow and winter weather stops being so pretty and nice when you're a homeowner and gardener, when you have to shovel the walk and the drive every few hours or drive out to help a diabetic kitty in the middle of a blizzard popularly dubbed the "snowpocalypse."  When you worry about ice dams on the roof, where all that snow is going to go when it melts (on top of a soaked swamp of a yard already), and that the power is going to go out because a tree weighed down by the snow and ice snaps and crashes down atop the lines.  Heck, we've still got inches of snow in the front yard and inches of ice in the road!

Speaking of gardening, our poor hollies in the front bed have taken quite a beating in this yet-young winter.  The weight of the snowfalls we've had so far has broken several limbs, and the male pollinator holly spent nearly a week buried completely beneath the snow.  Only a few days after the last branches finally peeked out from the snow, we got socked with an ice storm and freezing rain, though fortunately briefer and less intense than some such weather I've experienced before.  I know they're northern plants and thus are adapted by nature and evolution to survive weather like this, but still, it's no fun to see the hollies pummeled by storm after storm.  Fortunately, the other things we planted seem none the worse for wear, though I did have to rescue the river birch from the uber-wet early December snow.  The red-twig dogwoods are almost arctic, after all, and are so bright and red in the back yard I think I know what we'll be planting along the curb next year.

Ah, wait--I'm not supposed to be happy; this is an angry, annoyed, and grumbly post.  Back on track, then.  I got so tired of the weathermen and anchors on virtually every channel in the days leading up to 12/21 talking about "and it isn't even officially winter yet!" that I wanted to shove a fistful of yellow snow down their throats.  Not that the coming of winter much changed the glee with which they have reported on blizzards and cold snaps that reach all the way to Miami, I suppose.

Over New Year's, we went to visit my family in West Virginia, where several years ago Beth and I spent a white Christmas.  This time 'round, we managed to avoid the worst of the weather on the drive in on the 31st, but after that, the cold set in, and though we'd come prepared for some hiking--one of my favorite pastimes in my hometown--the weather just made that too much of a challenge.  Between the dry, frigid snow which packed after a single footstep into ice (making that walk up the first real hill of the mountainside a near-impossibility, much less the 600-foot gain in altitude to hike from my parents' home to the top of the mountain), the bitter winds, and the sub-freezing temperatures, we got in maybe a 15 minute hike before the doggies started limping on paws which were collecting snowballs between the toes.

The drive back to Virginia and Chateau Papillon was white-knuckled all the way to the Virginia border.  I'd planned to have Beth do some of the driving so I could catch up on lost sleep, but no dice with those conditions.  The WV Department of Transportation had done their jobs, yes, turning the roads completely white with not snow and ice but road salt, but still, any stretch of Interstate 64 which didn't sit soundly in the sun stood two inches deep in slush and ice.  That the temperatures on Sandstone Mountain leaving Raleigh County and all the way through Greenbriar County hovered around 10 degrees Fahrenheit didn't help; road salt simply isn't effective much below 20.  And let's not start on the 50 mile-per-hour wind gusts which buffeted the car the whole way home.

Back in Northern Virginia, the weather is characterized best as cold, cold, and more cold.  Worst, being around a family of school teachers and a young nephew and niece have left me with the same, albeit the sort which makes my throat scratchy and my nose sniffly.

Jack Frost, suck it.  I'm ready for a trip to the Bahamas about now.

Nightmares of a White Christmas (Or: John's Mad Winter Driving Skills Save Some Kitties)

As I mentioned in my previous post, our area got hammered by snow yesterday: over a 24 hour period, Mother Nature and Jack Frost dumped on us to the tune of 21 inches. Normally, that would have been a great time to hunker down and just enjoy some hot chili, a cup of 'nog, and perhaps a Hot Buttered Rum or two. Unfortunately, Beth had a petsitting appointment, and her client was a diabetic cat who needed insulin injections. Thus began a day of adventuring and nightmares of a White (pre-)Christmas.

So I got up at the unholy hour of 5:00am and helped Beth shovel out her car for her morning visit, when we had "only" about eight inches of snow on the ground. Her Mini seemed to drive okay on our cul-de-sac, so expecting the main roads to have been plowed, Beth headed out to the kitty's house without further incident.

This "winter wonderland" quickly turned into a nightmare for anyone traveling in the Washington, D.C., area as another 8-10 inches of snow fell between Beth's morning and evening visits. In my sleep-deprived state in the pre-dawn gloom (with thoughts of the warm, toasty bed awaiting me), I didn't think to tell Beth not to park behind me when she came back...

That led to much shoveling, and not just of the driveway itself this time, as we had to shovel out a space for her to back her car into so that I could pull out around her and switch the order of our cars. Beth thought I was getting a bit of an early start when I went out at 3:00 pm to start digging us out (for the third time that day, I might add--I can't imagine how awful the shoveling would have been had we not invested time and effort earlier in the day each time our tracks and trenches filled in).

Oh, those oh-so-clever Germans; Beth's Mini (a brand owned by BMW) wouldn't engage power to the wheels at all, since their "we know BETTER than YOU!" computers (intoned in a decent Sgt. Schultz impression--and probably should have echoed the Hogan's Heroes patsy's infamous words disclaiming all knowledge as well, if you ask me...) decided the tires wouldn't have traction. I took over behind the wheel and imposed my will on the Mini and got it to at last back out of our driveway, then got my car out of the way and hers back into the drive before it could ice up and the temporarily-cowed German Engineering would reassert its authority.

It's now almost dark, by the way, and closing in on 5:00pm. It took an hour and a half to dig out the cars (and this was after I'd cleared the driveway twice already in the day) and transpose their positions. I turned on my fog lights just to be able to see the snow drifts, because from watching a hapless Ford Explorer try to make it out of the cul-de-sac once already only to fail and fetch up on the curb about 50 feet away, I knew we had to stick to Beth's set of tracks from her morning excursion if we were to have any hope.

Let me pause for a moment to say that I know how to drive in icy, wintry conditions. That puts me in the distinct minority, I'll have you know. From growing up in mountainous southern West Virginia to going to college in the Appalachian plateau in Blacksburg, I had plenty of practice. Winter driving is something that I enjoy, so long as all the idiots who don't know how to drive stay out of my way and off the roads. I drove my '93 Chevy Cavalier home through a blizzard on more than one occasion, so my Subaru Forester XT and its all-wheel drive (and more ground clearance than a Ford Explorer, or so the commercials say in a bit of real truth in advertising) would be a pleasure in comparison.

Pre-driving prep, beyond shoveling, included me packing a set of dry clothes and socks (shoveling in knee-deep snow will tend to soak you a bit), loading some food in a box of Town House crackers (we hadn't time to pause for dinner), and loading the bags of concrete mix which had sat sheltered on our stoop since Halloween--the latter for the added weight of a couple hundred pounds and some thus-improved traction--and our snow shovel. One thing we missed, though: the jumper cables I'd pulled out of storage. More on that in a bit.

Getting out of the cul-de-sac was definitely an adventure. I got stuck at least three times--largely due to the Explorer having messed up the ruts I'd planned to drive through and then fetching up to create a narrow funnel I had to navigate through without sliding into it or the car directly across from it, and we had to get out and shovel free the wheels (followed by much "rocking" on my part: shifting to drive, moving up a bit, then shifting to reverse, and moving back a bit, until we worked free). On one occasion, our neighbors gave us a good push as well to surmount one of the humps of snow the hapless Explorer had made across Beth's morning tracks. Byrd Drive wasn't that much better, but Beth's morning ruts had been widened by at least a few more cars, and from there, it was simply a matter of slow-but-steady in 2nd gear to clear the neighborhood and get to the main roads. As we neared the neighborhood entrance, things improved as more cars had been out and about.

We decided to take the same roundabout course I'd suggested to Beth that morning: 29 (Lee Highway) to 123 (Chain Bridge Road) to 7 (Lessburg Pike) and into her client's neighborhood out near Wolf Trap via the back way--but thus taking major roads the whole way and staying off such perils as Hunter Mill Road. The ramp from Main St. in Fairfax over to Lee Highway had not been plowed, and we got stuck there, too, as we had to yield to a passing plow and thus lose all momentum to push through. A truck had come up right on my tail, making rocking free a bit of a chore, but we did manage to make it onto the relatively-plowed Lee without having to get out and dig.

What I found amazing at 5:30pm was how many other cars were out and about--many driven by total idiots who figured putting on their hazards and going 3 mph would suffice to get them through the mess. What was more amazing, though, were the pedestrians.

Yes, pedestrians. Walking in the middle of a main highway.

And not out because their cars were stranded and stuck, no. Not out because of a life-or-death emergency. Some were out clearly just to see the sights...

... and others were out for a BEER RUN. Indeed, one group walking three astride in the smack-dab center of Chain Bridge Road (123) were carrying a case of Budweiser, mission accomplished from a trip to the convenience store at the foot of the hill.

Three astride pedestrians who refused to get out of my way as I had to drive up a hill in the snow. I was about to lay into them with the horn when I was finally able to get around on one side without losing traction and without plowing down these moronic dopes out for no better reason than to get sloshed. I wish I had time to grab my camera and document this moment for posterity--but I was more concerned with focusing on my driving and not plowing down these goobers.

The pedestrians continued the whole way up 123 as it became Maple Avenue in Vienna; I had to slow and squint and swerve as many folks apparently thought it a good idea to be out after dark in a dark blue coat and black snow pants and walk in the middle of a main road. As I finally got to the ramp onto Route 7 out near Tyson's Corner, I breathed a sigh of relief: surely there would be less pedestrians to encounter on that highway.

And, indeed, I was right: getting to the kitties' house took us a good 45 more minutes of me driving 25-30 mph tops (some morons in pickup trucks whizzed by me at 45 or more--fishtail central, eh?; some morons lazed along at 5 mph and refused to pull toward the side to let us pass). But no more pedestrians. Just windows that at full blast from the heat managed to fog up, wipers whose blades picked started to ice and lose their effectiveness...

Arriving at the kitties' house found the neighborhood road plowed, but only narrowly, and with the driveway 30" deep in snow--it came up over my knees when I got out, and almost to Beth's waist as she furrowed up the front walk--so I stayed in the car in case I needed to move out of someone's way. Mission accomplished, we set out back out of the neighborhood and for home, with my executive decision to head farther west on Rt. 7 to pick up the Fairfax County Parkway and then US 50 for the trip home instead of chancing another bevy of drunk and wanna-be-drunk pedestrians in Vienna.

As I pulled up to the intersection with the Leesburg Pike, my antilock brake light came on. Knowing I needed my brakes to function and hoping it was merely a fault brought on by snow buildup around the tires (the sculpted "mud flap" area behind the tires which looks so nice serves quite poorly in trapping snow thrown up by the wheels), I made a terrible mistake: I turned off the ignition to see if restarting would reset the brakes.

Here's where things took a turn for the worse: my battery is nearly 6 years old, and I'd been intending to replace it at Costco or Sam's Club several times already leading into winter--but had not had time to stop at either. Running the front & rear wipers, the wiper deicers, the rear window defogger, the fog lights, the head lamps, and the mirror defoggers had taxed the battery's reserves, and my car engine turned over once and started clicking.

Dead battery! I turned everything off (should have to begin with, in retrospect) and gave it a minute, then tried again. The engine turned over twice but didn't start. Great.

Several people stopped to ask if we needed help; one clearly Muslim family in a SUV (I only mention this due to all the negative press Muslims get) offered me a hat and gloves (my hat was in the car; I'd gotten out for just a moment without it, and I'd taken off my gloves to be able to use my cell phone)--what great holiday spirit! Unfortunately, no one had jumper cables with them, and as I said earlier, though I prepared by packing a change of clothes, shovels, and extra weight in the car, I had left the jumpers at home.

Worse, our curbside assistance with our insurance and with Subaru both said it would be 2-3 hours before they could get anyone out to give us a jump. Beth walked back to the kitties' house to look for jumper cables there while I stayed with the car and used Google to track down and call several tow companies, and had to argue with several receptionists that no, all I needed was a jump, and my alternator was fine, my charging system A-OK, that it was just an old battery and my stupidity of running all the electrical systems, until I at last found one who said they'd be able to make it in 45 minutes, for the low, low price of $65.

This is when I discovered I had left my wallet at home.

Beth had fortunately left her purse in the car, so I read off the credit card # to the company and settled in to wait.

About 30 minutes later, a young man in a compact car stopped to ask if everything was OK; I explained (as I had already about 6 or 7 times to others) that I had a dead battery and needed a jump--and this time, unlike the rest, the kid said, "Sure thing!" He pulled up beside me and in short order, the Exerda was up and running again.

MAJOR thanks to this unknown Virginia Tech senior (I noticed his commuter pass; he noticed my plates, and we chatted shop a bit about school) who had jumpers with him and stopped to help a stranded driver. If you're out there: THANK YOU! (As an interesting aside, this senior with a minor in chemistry had the same thing to say about "German Engineering" as I did, mentioning out of the blue that such cars simply wouldn't drive in this weather due to the electronics deciding they know better...).

A quick call to cancel the tow truck and a drive back to the kitties' house (about a quarter of a mile or so) to pick up Beth, and we were on our way again, delayed only an hour and a half or so in total.

This is when things got more interesting.

Tabitha, my GPS, wanted to route us on several back roads which I'd traveled before and knew would absolutely not work--so I drove past them on Route 7 and kept heading northwest, out of my way a bit but with the goal of a main road. We turned down one which was slated to take us onto the Reston Parkway and thus down to Route 50 about two miles from home... and came upon two cars parked side-by-side in the middle of the road, blocking it, and a third parked behind them with his hazards on.

Now, why would you park next to another car on a plowed street, blocking the whole road, when there was enough room to park on one side and only one side and still let people by? We got out to check on the cars and see what the deal was; that's how we found out the one gent had been waiting 30 minutes. He claimed we should go over the median--even said, "I'm a teacher; follow me and see how it's done..." and then proceeded to sit in place, confusing us as to whether we should try going around him, too, or whether he did intend to lead & "teach."

(My mad winter driving skills need no tutelage, let me just pause to say.)

In the meantime, a pickup came up behind, passed us, laid into his horn at the parked cars (one of which had people in it--and was running idly there, oblivious to the traffic building behind him). This truck cut between the parked cars, somehow, and then made tracks cutting over the median to head back the other way. Before we could follow, another pickup pulled up, this one blocking the path we'd been about to take. Cursing the idiocy afoot, we got ready to hit the horn, when finally the new arrival moved on, and we were able to slowly mount the tracks the first truck had made.

We decided to go back to Route 7 and head a bit farther west yet, to get to the Fairfax County Parkway (as I'd originally thought to do, Tabitha be damned). That turned out to be a good decision, as there were few cars to be encountered, no pedestrians, and no one stopped in the middle of the road--though several had fetched up in the median earlier in the day from what we could tell!

As we came back around to our neighborhood--50 is a straight shot onto Main Street at the 50 & 29 intersection, saving us having to cross any berms of snow piled across intersections due to plowing--we found the adventure still not yet complete.

Byrd was blocked by a tow truck working to free a stuck car. Fine, we'll just back up to go down Del Rio and come up San Carlos, then, to get to our cul-de-sac that way. Problem was, someone had parked their car in the dead center of Del Rio, right between two other parked cars on the sides of the street, put on their hazards, and disappeared. Totally blocking the street: all they had to do was pull up 15 feet, and we (and other traffic) could have gone around.

We started to take another side road, but the ruts of earlier traffic didn't look passable, and I sure as heck wasn't going to contribute my car to the street-blocking idiots who'd abandoned theirs, stuck. Fortunately, by the time I backed up Del Rio, the tow truck had gotten free, though all the pedestrians who'd been out to help now walked in the same tracks we needed to be driving in. Argh!

At last, we reached our cul-de-sac at the back of the neighborhood, and started into it. My car slid a little, so I had to let up on the gas to avoid driving right into the cars parked at the mouth of the street. That meant digging and more rocking, as of course I was then stuck.

Finally, then, at 9:30pm and a good 5.5 hours after we'd left, we were home, safe and sound.

I'm just glad I (1) have a car which can drive in this weather; (2) have mad winter driving skills honed by much practice; (3) was able to drive Beth to her appointment--there's no way she'd have been able to do it on her own, even in my car.

It was an exhilarating, frustrating, fun, worrisome trip out and back, and quite the adventure when all was said and done.

Winter Wonderland: The D.C. Area's Record-Setting Snow

I'm pretty used to calls for incredible snow and winter weather going off like a wet firecracker--a fairly common occurrence for the Washington, D.C., area--so when forecasters initially projected the potential for record-setting snow this weekend, I took their claims with more than the FDA's daily recommended dose of salt.

I took the afternoon of the 18th off from work so that I could get some handmade presents finished up in time to deliver to family in Lynchburg. Imagine my shock that apparently everyone else in the Washington area had also taken off early: in stopping at Safeway for some groceries for our planned Yuletide feast, I had to search the parking lot for a cart (even the cart returns were empty), and lines for checkout stretched almost to the back of the store. Seeing as how I wanted milk to make some homemade Nolly 'Nog, I was happy to discover the frantic pre-blizzard shoppers had not cleaned out all the proverbial bread and milk yet.

So fast forward to 11:00pm on the 18th; the snow had started around nine, and after two hours, didn't look like all that much. The long-exposure photo (above) taken from my home office window shows the back yard shortly before I went to bed.

I got up with Beth at 5:00am on the 19th; she had a diabetic cat petsitting client who needed an insulin shot, and I went outside to help dig out her car. At that point, we had about 6-7 inches of snow on the ground, but Beth tried her car and found it drivable, so once we got the drive and walk shoveled clear, I bid her a safe trip and went back to bed for a couple more hours (cell phone at the bedside in case I would be needed to rescue her).

Another long-exposure photo (above) taken in the pre-dawn cold and gloom shows my car still covered in snow, with Beth on her way to her kitty client--whose owners were due to fly back to National later in the day.

A week or so ago we got the first snow of the season, an incredibly wet and heavy batch which wreaked a merry path of havoc over the plants we'd interred in our yard with such care over the spring and into the fall. That snow bent one trunk of our river birch all the way to the ground (the tree had yet to shed all of its leaves, leaving that trunk vulnerable to collecting snow and ice); I think it pulled through once I rescued it. Our front yard hollies likewise had been weighed down and then frozen to the ground by the treacherous, wet slush.

You can imagine my dismay then when I spoke to my sister Erika (in Lynchburg, VA) before our snow even started and took her report of "huge, wet snowflakes." After digging Beth's car out on Saturday morning, then, I spent a while rescuing the hollies from the weight of so much snow. A few branches and stems had been broken, but I am hopeful the plants pulled through on the whole--though several are still completely buried beneath the snowfall, like the little male pollinator holly.

The doggies absolutely loved the snow, as they always do. Even th0ugh it was deeper than the Papillons are tall, they bounded out the side door into the yard, and Didi made a beeline (or a bunny-hop line?) straight for where her ball lay buried beneath several inches of snow. Beth followed behind with the snow shovel, clearing a deeper trench for the boys to follow. I don't know how Didi knew so accurately where in all that mess of white her ball was, but it was hilarious watching her furiously excavate around it. (Yes, she can actually carry that big yellow ball around, too.) Above, you can see her proudly demanding her Daddi throw her ball.

The back yard birds weren't as thrilled by the weather, though they did put in such appearances in abundance that we had to refill the feeders twice during the day. We had avian visitors from the normal flocks of juncos and sparrows of various ilk to Pileated Woodpeckers, crows, and jays.

For Beth's evening petsitting visit, I knew she wouldn't even make it out of the neighborhood in her car. Problem was, she'd parked behind me when she got home in the morning. So that meant shoveling enough space to back her car out of the way--as well as clearing a path for mine, too; the snow was so deep it left even SUVs designed for offroading struggling to make it up our cul-de-sac. The snow had continued all day, leaving an additional 8 inches or so of snow atop Beth's car, and we had to go out for the third time that day to clear the walk (no mail ever came though--I don't blame the mail for not running, though don't they say something about "Neither rain nor snow..." and all that?) and the driveway.

The trip out to petsit for the diabetic kitty client was an adventure in and of itself, which I'll post about shortly in another entry.

We ended the day around 9:30pm with flurries still falling and the yard clocking in at 21 inches of snow in the flat areas, and drifts well over 30 inches deep in several places.