We Picked the Wrong Year

Looks like we picked the wrong winter to start plowing our own driveway. We've just had heavy snow warning after heavy snow warning. We've lost count of how much snow has fallen, but in one 8 day period we received 42". Klickitat County (and several other WA counties) has been declared a state of emergency as a result of all of the snow.

On the other hand, maybe we did pick the right year to start. The person who we hired to plow our driveway the past two years worked his pickup so hard pushing snow that he split the frame. He's a woodworker and furniture maker by trade, only doing plowing as a side thing, so he's decided it's not worth doing it anymore. As a result of a number of requests, our neighbor then reluctantly agreed to take over some of the plowing work. After billing a few thousand in plows, he blew the clutch on his tractor (as he told us, "there go the profits".) So now he's not doing it either. When we last heard, a few operators from Trout Lake Farm were planning to take over the work.

Our driveway may not be the prettiest, and it did require 4-wheel or all-wheel drive to get in and out, but we haven't broken anything and there was only a little over a week where we decided to just park at the end of the driveway rather than risk getting stuck. When you factor in all of the money we saved on plows, maybe we're not doing so badly after all!

- Mike (& Corinne)