Lessons in Life

I'm a firm believer that experience is one of the best teachers.  However, I would listen if someone else had the experience and could "teach" me that without going through the experience...  The lesson I learned this weekend was that 11 inches of snow with an inch of ice/snow on top acts much different than 12 inches of fresh powder.

 
How do I know this?  Since the temperatures warmed up last week for a couple of days and we received rain, the "temporary" driveway got a bit dodgey.  And since the three foot drifts were now melted down to around a foot, I thought the mighty beast of a truck could make a path through so I could actually use the gravel driveway.  Things didn't work as planned.  The hard top crust of snow and ice killed the momentum.  Luckily this ludicrous attempt was made on a sunny, Sunday morning, so I had many hours of daylight to dig.  And dig I did!

The man with the tractor and blade is in some sunny locale, so all I had was me and a shovel.  I did realize early on that as long as I broke the crust where the wheels would travel, I could make some headway.  Two hours and about 100 feet later, the truck is free and I can actually accomplish something productive today.  Chalk that experience up to a lesson learned!

On the agenda today is planting spinach, lettuce and carrots in the greenhouse, and begin pruning grapes.  It was 17 degrees F outside but 100 degrees in the greenhouse.  This makes winter more bearable!  The planting went alright except for the 3 cats trying to fight with my garden tools and digging up my rows.  The grape pruning was a different story.

The grape cordon is 36" from the ground.  Right now, the snow is about 32" deep which means I was kneeling in the snow to prune my grapevines.  I was fortunate that the snow was crusty and therefore I didn't sink with each step but could walk on top of the snowpack.  Fortunate?  I was only out for about an hour before my knees were frozen and I decided to call it a day.  There was progress, but with temperatures dropping again the rest of the week to below normal, not sure how much time I will spend out there.  I'm wishing for 20 degrees and above with sun.  Is that too much to ask for the end of February?