Digging Ditches . . . . Again

 The result of the ice we got last week is that outside grade level was about four inches above the garage slab . We then got a warm front from down south with a mess of rain and my garage flooded . 

I had about an inch of slush throughout the whole thing . Took us most of last week to clean out the depressing mess . 

Tonight they promise more rain. . .  SO . . . 

 I spent three hours yesterday smashing the ice and frozen ground outside with an axe to create some ditches to give the water a place to go . 

Painful . . .

Exhausting . . .

And the result is an ugly mess

Three more hours of toil and pain today to divert more flow around the back of the garage .

Water seems to be flowing briskly

https://youtu.be/g882KcasNbs 

Have I mentioned how much I disdain winter ?

Sometimes You Need To Call In The Big Guns

 On Friday we got a day long load of Globular-Warmining . 

 

God awful wretched stuff. Came down like sugar but set like concrete . 

  

Now I know many that don't have to shovel the crap will say that looks beautiful . . . . 

. . . yea about as appealing as sticking your hand in a running blender .

Normally the town public works department runs these rigs around here . Sometimes a smaller F-450 with a dump body . 

On this occasion it required something a bit more serious .

  Sunday morning we screwed our courage together and were hacking away at the berm left by the plow truck in front of the driveway . Could not touch it with a shovel and required an ice chisel to break it up. Then  my neighbor Jeff came by with his plow truck and he knocked the berm down in about three passes saving us about four hours of back breaking labor. We managed to scrape off a light layer of snow from the top of the driveway with the shovels but the hard stuff was impossible to remove by manual means. Jeff then brought over his backhoe and in five minutes he did a quick job of it .

It is sure nice to know folks with the right tools for the job .