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Snowbounding: The SequelMarch 03, 2006 In a word: yee-ikes! The negligible accumulation forecast for yesterday's snowstorm turned out to be about six inches. Keep in mind --
About 4:15 yesterday afternoon I opened my front door on the way out of my apartment and gaped at about five inches of negligible accumulation. And counting . . . Bundled Rhodry Pupsicle into the truck and set off. Sure it's nice knowing where the edge of the road is, but I figured no one else did either so no one had an unfair advantage. Made it down the road and the driveway to Malabar Farm (astonishing), brought in horses, fed, hayed, and watered, closed up barn, and made it out to the main road (minor miracle). The main roads were barely plowed, but who's gonna critique the plow job when you can't even see the road? Reached the turnoff for the Shabazians' (big sigh of relief) and headed down the paved part of the road. It wasn't plowed, but a few vehicles had already been down it, plus it's mostly under the trees so the accumulation was -- well, not exactly negligible, but still manageable. I looked at Rhodry. Rhodry looked back with complete confidence in my, and Uhura's, ability to get us back to the farm. Dog is indeed my co-pilot. We made it (major miracle -- I've gotten stuck on that stretch before, and in less, uh, negligible conditions). Two buddies, a mother-and-daughter combo, were scheduled to feed Friday morning at Malabar, but mother's car is even less snow-worthy than Uhura Mazda, so I called to make sure they could make it. Nope: car couldn't make it, plus daughter was sick. "No problem," said I. Talked with client, who is currently awaiting birth of daughter's baby in Maryland. "Go ahead and use the Jeep," she said. Got instructions on care and feeding of Jeep, but neglected to get instructions on how to open the automatic garage door, which this morning I couldn't manage to figure out for myself. Result: Rhodry the Valiant Malamutt and I hiked through Chicama Vineyards and around the edge of Thimble Farm to Malabar. Not as dramatic as it sounds: the walk is almost as the crow flies, whereas the drive is extremely round-about. Flying crows don't have to deal with snow, negligible or not, but we still managed to trudge from one farm to the other in less than 20 minutes. Rhodry stopped in the middle of the road -- OK, a lightly traveled dirt road that at the time was almost impassable -- to pick the ice out of his paws. Fed horses, let them out, trudged home, Rhodry lagging to pick more ice out of paws. "Rhodry, you're supposed to be a snow dog!" said I. Could almost hear him reply, "I am an 11-year-old puppy!" After another talk with client, I entered the 21st century (or, more like, the 1970s) by bending the automatic garage door to my will. "Open sesame!" Open, sez me. It opened. Ali Baba could not have been happier to get into that cave. I'm now tooling around in an 8-cylinder Jeep with all-time 4WD. It has a button on the sun visor that does "open sesame" and "close sesame" too. Oh yeah: Howie, a sweet but easily worried Thoroughbred at my live-in horse-sit, was way off his feed and evidently depressed at bedtime feeding last night. A very mild colic -- something he's prone to but in three years had been kind enough not to do on my watch. His two mares left Wednesday for appointments with stallions in Pennsylvania, then there was that negligible snowstorm yesterday. Howie was upset. (Susanna was also a little worried.)After consulting with owner this morning, I gave Howie some Banamine. Howie is now doing fine. (FreeCell streak: 96.)
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