The amount of snow we got the night of the great blizzard of ‘11 was a little bit more than I expected. Actually, I think the total wee got was something like 18". The big problem as far as I could see was all the drifting that occurred. I planned on getting up early to clear the snow so I could go to work, and there was a 3.5 foot drift in front of the garage door and then about 5 feet from the garage, the pavement was clear. Then as you made your way down the driveway there were two large, 5 foot drifts.
I planned on just firing up the snowthrower and tearing into them (the drifts) but I couldn’t keep the motor going. I had just mixed up a fresh can of gas/oil, so I figured I had mixed in too much oil, since the exhaust was spitting out a nice bluish haze. I let it run, and then tried filling the tank with straight gasoline to dilute it further, but I couldn’t keep the engine running once I engaged the thrower. So I started shoveling.
The drifts were much more solid that I expected. It took me almost 90 minutes to work my way a little more than halfway down the driveway. By this time it was getting light out. I had kept trying the snowthrower, from time to time, but it just wouldn’t keep running. After there was enough light to see, I finally saw why. I had the choke wide open. I wanted to just kick myself for being so stupid.
I finished up with the snowthrower and by 7:30 I was done, but the roads weren’t plowed yet and seeing the size of the drifts on street I figured I had better wait. The plow came through about an hour later and I went back out and cleared the snow from my approach and then headed out to work. Turns out only 3 or 4 people made it in besides me. It was actually a pretty nice day. Things were slow, no one to bother me while I did my work. I sort of wish all days could have been like that. Well, all except the snow part.
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