Slippery slopes and the morning paper

Last night’s snowfall was quite hard to deal with this morning.

We are in our 17th year of living on Fire Lane 17 and this was one of the very few days that I had a problem driving up to get my morning newspaper.

I guess just the right mix of icy surface covered with a modest snowfall created a very slippery combination. I had to give it a couple of gos to make it. Two hours later Susan zipped up with no difficulty in her trusty Ford.

Each accumulation of such slippery stuff has its own composition and resulting traction problems. Coming from getting the paper, I slid down most of the way and fetched up in the snow pile at the bottom. No problem. I just backed out of the snow pile. I would’ve probably left the vehicle at the upper level  if I did not have a modest snow pile to stop my trip down lower drive.

In the 17 years we’ve wage the battle, I’ve only bailed out into the snow pile about three or four times. I cannot just drive up the driveway if we have a substantial snowfall in excess of six inches. I wait until we’ve been plowed. Our snowplow man is very reliable and has never failed getting us out in good season. He also has some heavy-duty stuff which can dig us out or pull his out of the snow if we should make an attempt before we are cleared adequately. We have a large ditch on the south side of the long east-west portion and by good fortune. We have not landed in this obstacle.

I can remember when I discussed with my mother in the ‘60s about living down here, year round. She claimed that it was too long, too steep and was not practical. The road has been improved greatly since then and there are enough people living here to help support first-class winter road care.

I also think the newer vehicles withfour-wheel-drive and good tires make all the difference. 17 years of practice has helped also. Susan’s skills mastering the driveway have grown with practice and in some ways she is better at it and I am.

She has never gotten stuck, or needed help getting yanked off the bad spot.

I’ve needed a fetch two or three times, mostly by attempts some times that should’ve been delayed and hour or two and some plowing finished. I sort of feel challenge to get my paper. The trick in that operation is to guess if the paper has made it out from Syracuse. The daily delivery has been very reliable — almost 100 percent performance. The Sunday paper is a different type of animal.  Lately there have been no papers until noon. But that improved last Sunday.

The mailboxes are all grouped on a standard on the west side of the road. I built a new arrangement about 10 years ago and it will last until something big crashes into it. It seems to be close to a deer crossing and has had several dead deer end up under my mailboxes in the ditch. A call to 911 usually gets them removed on the day that I call, unless it is a weekend. The last time it was a Sunday and it was gone by Monday morning.

In the field east of the road has had as many as 15 to 20 deer grazing in fresh grass in the evenings. Lately, there seem to be smaller numbers. I don’t know what’s causing the ups and downs of the population. If those fields ever get developed, I’m sure the deer traffic will be cut back. They seem to be hard on young trees.  It is necessary to protect the bark in the winter   But we do enjoy watching the deer, despite the damage they cause.  It would be a shame to develop the area.