Hemmed in by Snow

I know people in Rochester or Buffalo or Minnesota will roll their eyes at this, but by Boston standards we've gotten a lot of snow this year, and not much time for melting off between storms. So the piles are getting higher, the streets are getting narrower, and it's getting harder and harder to find a place to put the stuff. I am so glad for the snowblower we got a couple of years ago (a rescue adoption—it's about 35 years old, and wasn't running when I took it off someone's hands). I spent about four hours outside with it yesterday, doing the usual stuff on the driveway and sidewalk, digging out a couple of fire hydrants that had been plowed in, and then carving a ravine alongside the house, where snow had been piled up from next door...

This bank had been solid against the foundation. It didn't seem a problem at first. And then it got higher, and higher. And I started to think about our basement flooding last spring, and how much water would be released when all that snow melted. So I fired up the snow blaster and started digging the New England Chunnel. I didn't actually expect to finish it yesterday, but I just kept going, thinking about it all turning to ice. Here are a few more shots around the house:

 

 

More snow predicted for next week.