Minnesota Prairie Roots

My husband shovels the end of the sidewalk by our house while our neighbor works toward him with the snowblower. What a great neighbor.

SO…HOW HAS YOUR MORNING BEEN?

If you live in Minnesota or one of our neighboring states, I bet you’re digging out from one of our worst snowstorms in two decades.

I’m still trying to determine exactly how much snow fell in Faribault since this all began Friday night. The National Weather Service in Chanhassen lists 12 inches on its website, but I don’t believe that. I’d say we’re pushing more like 1 ½ feet. In all fairness to the NWS, an online note states these may not be final totals. Ya, think?

Anyway, after a frozen recoil mechanism, insufficient gas and then a broken starter rope delayed snowblowing at our house by about 1 ½ hours, we finally have the driveway and sidewalk cleared. Our neighbor’s is done too.

I did my share of shoveling heavy chunks of snow from the end of the driveway so we could get the car out and drive to the gas station for more gas. Boy, that was fun. Kind of like chiseling rock with a pick ax.

Well, I took a break from the shoveling because, despite dressing in layers (including my husband’s long johns), certain parts of my anatomy were beginning to feel a bit frozen.

My husband just stepped inside a few minutes ago to warm up and inform me that a sheer pin broke on the snowblower. Thank goodness he has extras in his toolbox or he’d have to visit the hardware store for the second time today.

He told me when we were down there earlier that a new snowblower would fit under the Christmas tree.

But I was quick with a comeback. “We don’t even have a Christmas tree.”

“Then for sure it will fit,” he shot back.

Yup, we’re sure having a fun day here in Faribault.

Our neighbor Mark blew his sidewalk and two sweeps down ours because, he says, he couldn't turn around half-way anyway. Sometimes we clear his too, for the same reason.

It's going to take a lot of shoveling before anyone can reach our front door. I've never seen this much snow on our sidewalk and steps. The city snowplow threw the chunks of snow onto our yard as it cleared the street.

Snow piled high by city snowplows make intersections, like this one by my house, dangerous. Vehicles coming off the side street onto busy Willow Street need to nose into the traffic lane to see oncoming traffic.

A block away from my home, a resident clears snow from the sidewalk.

I’LL POST MORE SNOW PHOTOS from Faribault later. But right now I need to go back outside and help my husband shovel the snow away on the front sidewalk and steps.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling