A weekend calm, and a storm?
The saying, of course, isĀ āthe calm before the stormā. But it was pretty stormy this week, so Iām going withĀ āthe calm and the stormā. Ha!
We have been doing better these days about buying in bulk at Costco and stocking the pantry & fridge/freezer. We can always throw together some kind of meal (whether or not thatās the meal we wantĀ is the question ha!). So Saturday, we opted to not do any grocery shopping, and instead just do some fun errands. First up, the used bookstore! We got a pretty good haul! And all for $14! One of those was free, thanks to the punch card!
It was snowing pretty much all Saturday, and we were getting a decent accumulation. But it wasnāt till we woke up Sunday and saw how much new snow there was that we were really surprised! I measured 17ā³ outside our front door, on a surface that had been cleared prior to the snow.
Our snowpack reached 40ā³, which is almost a record (top 3 April snow pack depths). We did break some weather records though. For snowfall amount both on Saturday and Sunday. And for consecutive days without breaking +40F (about +4C). We are up to 178 days now! And weāre in a cold snap (got down to -18F/-28C last night), so we wonāt really stand a chance to break the record until at least early next week. So Sunday was a lazy day! We took the dogs outside, and just walked them through the fresh snow to tire them out. We didnāt even attempt to drive anywhere. Some roads are still not plowed as of this morning, the road crews are really struggling to keep up with the massive dump of snow we got! We read, played with dogs, I baked some muffins with last yearās frozen blueberries. We made a pasta dish as meal prep for the week. We cleared a good amount of snow. And we just relaxed. Sunday was a lovely, relaxing day, overall!
This pic is me sitting on the bedroom floor, looking out our sliding glass door. It really shows how deep the snow is from ground level:
And standing up taking the pic for a different perspective:
Muffins turned out really good! It was my first time making muffins from scratch!
I suppose this brings us to the calm before the storm part. The literal storm happened this weekend. But our life is about to get pretty crazy I suppose. I still donāt really believe it, and I donāt think Iām really excited about it yet. Weāve had such bad luck with building contractors that I still wonder if itāll happen.
With that said, weāve been in communication with the new builders we hired, and they plan to start framing Friday!! Like, as in, a few days from now! I really have no reason to doubt them. Theyāve responded to all our inquiries, asked us questions in return. Weāve met them in person. Someone answers the phone every time we call. Itās a very different scenario than the last set that we had to chase down for answers. So I really have no doubt theyāll be there Friday to start framing. But I just... I canāt get excited until I actually see them there. Or maybe until I know weāre ready for them.
āReadyā means snow is cleared. It means we have a cleared driveway (which we did before this latest 20ā³+ in the hills). And a cleared turnaround area for them to back up to the pad. And the concrete is cleared. We started on the turnaround area, but didnāt finish before the snow. The pad we havenāt started yet, and want to wait until the last minute, since the snow is insulating, and itās still pretty cold out.
That brings us to this:
Thatās the turn off to the road before our road. So this road & our road do have road service. But they obviously have not been plowed yet! Holden had a snow day yesterday (adult snow day! whaaaat! lucky!), so he drove up to check the state of things. Not super great, ha! We obviously canāt get in there, not even with the truck, until itās plowed. Look how high that is! I contacted our subdivision chairperson, and the plow contractor apparently tried to come out Sunday, and got stuck. He said heād be there asap as of Monday morning. Weāre hoping he plowed it last night. Weāll take a ride to check this evening.
Once itās plowed, we are going to hire someone to clear the snow for us. We just cannot move that much snow in such a short amount of time with the equipment we have. Luckily, we have a friend with a loader who lives not too far away!! Weāre hoping he can come clear us tomorrow (Wednesday). Then we can snowblow the pad off Wed/Thurs, and weāll be ready for the start Friday.
All depends on road service plowing at this point. So hereās hoping it all works out! If not, Iām sure we can be ready by Monday. But weāll just have to see how it goes. Wish us luck!
