The Shoveler

Yes, there was a LOT of snow that needed shoveling when we arrived at our cabin in Garfield, Colorado, a few weeks ago.

We couldn't even get in the front door! This is the scene that greeted us. Fortunately we hadn't dallied too long on the way and it wasn't dark yet; that would have complicated things...

The Shoveler contemplates his first challenge

Another lucky break was the snow shovel being accessible; if it had been inside the garage, we'd have had a lot of hand-shoveling to do!

Here's what the front porch looked like the next morning, showing our little canyon-like path that allowed the door to open:

I did help a little with the shovel-work, but it was 99.99% Henry's brawn that accomplished all this and the following excavations.

This is the view from the front door of the gigantic drift the next morning (I thought it was cool that this snap also captured a shovel in action!)...

In this picture, Henry was working on one of his priorities: to clear enough of the stairs to the cellar, where the furnace is located. We thought we might have to get in there to do some furnace work (more about this later). Plus by clearing this area somewhat, there was more space available for the piling of future snowfall by Tony, our wonderful plower.

Here's The Shoveler, in the midst of work on the cellar stairs...

...and here's the finished product...

Pretty good work for an old guy, eh?!

Now, about that furnace, which was actually a very serious problem. When entering the house (after 20 minutes or so of shoveling) we smelled what we thought at first was a dead animal—we've had experience with this smell before! 

But further investigation showed that it was a propane leak. Yikes! Henry discovered the location, in the garage, pretty easily with some soapy water and a paint brush, but how to repair it, when the tanks—and the shutoff valve—were under 4+ feet of snow...that was another issue!

The tanks for our place and the Schoolhouse are somewhere in that mass of white stuff between the two buildings. After considerable exploration, conferring with the propane delivery guys, and several hours of just plain manual labor, the valves were exposed.

Even if we hadn't had the leak, those tanks would still need to be cleared so that the propane guy could refill them at the end of the month. It's doubly—if not triply!—important. If the tanks run dry and the furnace shuts off, we could just pile on more blankets, but the pipes would freeze that is a major disaster!

There was so much snow on the deck we were even a little concerned about all that weight. So The Shoveler also spent a good deal of time sending scores (hundreds?) of shovel-fuls of snow down the hill over which our deck is cantilevered.

[Yes, it would be nice to have a snow blower, although it wouldn't have done much good at this point considering the depths we were confronted with!]

The photo at the top of the post shows what part of the deck looked like pre-shoveling. That railing is about 3' high for reference.

And, after a rudimentary path was available, I walked out and took this shot of a really formidable drift, looking back at the cabin:

Here's a shot of the Shoveler in action on the deck, almost down to bare wood:

You might have noticed a mother-of-all-icicle-clusters on the back wall in the photo above. I was really concerned about it falling and either breaking our patio door or at least gouging out a wall. So fortunately Henry had time before we left to do some serious shovel-and-pick work over there...

notice where he's standing in relation to the top of the railing!

And he got it down! Over the railing it went. But I snapped a picture first...

Now, at least until another cluster forms, that wall and doorway are safe.

Next up: I'll show you the beauty that those icicles offered us, in spite of their menace.