The team and I made it through another snowstorm and another polar vortex. We came out of last week relatively unscathed; we were lucky and only got about a foot of new snow. Drive ten miles north and they had double the snow we did. A little further north saw double that—around four feet. I managed to clear the entire driveway (twice) with just the snowblower and a shovel. The house stayed warm despite winds that sounded like a freight train.
Since climate change is all about extremes, we’re now midway through a week of above-freezing temperatures. Another reason I’m thankful we didn’t get too much snow. All that snow is going to melt and that water needs to go somewhere. My garage drained much better this warm-up. The driveway was an ice rink for a day or two, but it has melted down to dirt again.
This weather is wreaking havoc on our trails, as well as the trails up north in Winona. We put in so much hard work trail breaking over this past weekend and now the snow is nearly gone in spots, punchy and icy in others. We didn’t even get a single smooth run out of it.
The Tug Hill race is less than two weeks away. Evidently, a lot can change in that time period, but we still have three days of rain to get through. There’s snow in the forecast for next week, but I’m not sure it’ll be enough to fix the mess.
When I’m not mushing, days start to blend together. I’m going through the motions: chores, work, exercise, eat. When my head returns to my pillow each night, it feels like I had just been there minutes earlier, without any new memories. I think I need to do something about that.
