(The Farm in Winter. The drift in front is across the driveway, waist-high and hard-pack icy from the County plows)

I was going to give you a really tasty recipe for Shrimp Helene this morning, but this president’s Day I slept through the night and right past the alarm. That is sort of remarkable, considering everything that is going on. Must have been all the shoveling at the farm yesterday. The cat is alive, that was good, and I took a picture with the new Droid phone that I hate. 5.1 megapixels, they said at the Verizon kiosk where I bought it.
 
High quality camera, crappy phone. I should learn my lessons. Telephones are not computers. They should enable you to talk, not compromise every step of the way. The new phone does all kinds of cool stuff, some of which I might use if I ever figure out how to work the persnickety keyboard.
 
I had to work to figure out how to send the image of the hard-packed waist-high mound of white across the driveway. I was breathing hard from the shoveling, and then using the Bluesmobile to batter down a little entryway where the car would not be parked on the one-and-a-half-lane country road that fronts the property.
 
The phone is not intuitive. I liked the old one better. What was I thinking? iPhone envy?
 
Working publicly to shovel out the ice-dam across the driveway attracted interest.
 
The cat was first; she must have a nest somewhere on the west side of the property. She was meowing with authority, so I knew I had to keep shoveling once I could get the car off the road.
 
An old man- he did not introduce himself except to say that he lived down by the two fire hydrants- stopped to bitch about retirement benefits from the manufacturing job he held for 44 years. He is 88, and lost power for four hours in the blizzard.
 
I needed the break while he was there, and a couple trucks weaved around me and him and the Bluesmobile on their way to the horse farm down the road.
 
People waved out here, and sometimes it actually means something.
 
One old car passed by and then stopped and backed up. I don’t like that, as an urban guy. The window wound down and the guy with a country face asked if I needed help, which I did, but the antennae came out on the back of my neck.
 
Wrong response? I don’t know. I preferred to do the job myself.
 
Don, the guy who built my house came by in a Lincoln. He must be doing pretty well. He thought I had died or something. He introduced his wife and I said I was working on it.
 
There was a point when the great ice dam was reduced to powder, and I backed he car up and drove it again and again into the snow. I got stuck several times, got out, chipped the compacted snow from under the tires and did it again. Once I got traction and was lurching back out onto the blacktop from the gravel when a pickup truck flew by, missing the stern of the police car by a foot or two.
 
Need to put one of those mirror things out by the mailbox so I can see who is trying to kill me, I guess.
 
I left the car mostly off the road and shoveled my way past the first of several trees that tilted wildly down over the driveway to the gate. The Cat showed up, complaining bitterly about my absence.
 
He is light enough to walk on top of the snow, which is a plus. I did not have the luxury. I shoveled out enough of the porch to get the new storm door open and check the power and heat.
 
No burst pipes, thank God. The television worked but I did not have the time or the inclination to check the internet connection.
 
I locked things up again and began to tunnel toward the garage. A medium pine tree had split down the middle from the weight of the snow and careened into the deck. It missed the house, and was not heavy enough to do structural damage to the railing- I think- and that was something for another day when Mother Nature makes the snow less deep.
 
I opened the garage door with the remote control I brought from the car so I did not have to shovel out the doors. I got a big bowl of dry food for the Cat, who seemed to be interested in staying in the garage. I tunneled up to where his food dish was last seen, dug it out and filled it up.
 
Then I shut the door and trudged back through the snow to the car. I had to get back to the capital. Monday is a public holiday and I have to work. I didn’t hit anyone on the way out that I know of.
 
Copyright 2010 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
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