Monthly Archives: February 2015

Feb25

Another snow day in January.. wait, no! February!

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02-Feb-2015

 

Here in Boston, we’re ready for it.

Wait, what are we ready for?  Shut up.  It doesn’t matter.  We’re wicked ready.  For anything at all.  Bring it on.

 

 

And then, we had a huge storm, that somehow magically skipped everyone else to bury us in fluffy white snow.  Cool.  Screw you, New York.  You thought you’d have it bad… we just went on with our lives when we got our snow and your snow combined.

And then, a week later, it happened again.

This is the story of it happening again.

 

Actually, that’s a pretty boring story.  It snowed.  From the sky, as one would expect.  It piled up, as one would expect.  I shoveled it, and the other folks who park near me let their cars get buried under another foot or so of snow.  I got cranky, then I got over it.

Basically, we kept moving on, as Bostonians do.  Driving was harsh, and I had to take a vacation day from work, but ya know.  It is what it is. And shoveling wasn’t even that bad, since there’d only been one storm, and the snow hadn’t really piled up too bad yet.

I would later come to regret having mentioned that.  But for now, it was all good.  I dealt with it, put on my heavy snow gear, and ran around the city in the snowy twilight.  It really is beautiful, when the snow sifts through the streetlights…

Feb21

A visit to Connecticut before the storm hits

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Weekend of 31-Jan-15 through 01-Feb-15

Ben Hutt Jan 2015

As we’ve established, I enjoy visiting my Aunt.  Her house in Connecticut is amazing; she just creates this perfect atmosphere of warmth and serenity, no matter what season it is, or what’s happening in my life.  This winter has been rough for me, as most winters are… I dislike being trapped, and the longer commuting times due to the snow, combined with a lack of sunlight and general “you can’t do that, because it’s zero degrees out and there’s a billion feet of snow on the ground” makes me more than a bit blue.

So, I drove down to CT to visit and recharge my batteries.

The drive wasn’t too bad – it had snowed pretty hard earlier in the week, but there had been enough time and snow and plows to clear the roads out pretty nicely.  Of course there were a few spots that I had to slow down and be careful at the wheel, but for the most part the drive was the usual relaxing.  It did help that I’d stopped in Cambridge for a bite of breakfast before hitting the highway – that way I was able to just drive straight, and had a belly nicely full of pancakes and coffee to keep me going.

Once I got into Connecticut, there was a short bit of hanging out and catching up – chatting about my job, her writing, my lack of writing… the usual stuff that my Aunt and I chat about.  Eating kumquats, and playing with Einstein (pictured above, with me).

The main goals of the weekend were to eat delicious pizza, do a bit of shoveling, get grain for the goats, and get hay for the goats.  The pizza part we killed off that first night, along with picking up the grain (if I remember correctly).  However, the shoveling and hay had to wait for the next morning…

My Aunt, as we’ve established, is amazing.  So her goats are, obviously, amazing as well.  But that means that they need amazing food, and amazing hay can be hard to find.  So, we went to a small farm, with a large barn.  And an owner who scours the nearby farms (and some not so nearby farms) for bales of hay, and then organizes them all up into the huge barn.

And from the huge barn?  Tetris skills man.  Tetris skills to get six huge bales of hay into one small Volvo.  I mean, not a tiny car by any means, but definitely not a monster van or anything… or even the usual pickup that you’d expect.  But it can be done, and it was be done, because it done got done.  Yes.

And then – we belted up to do battle.  See, the path down to the goat’s barn was all well and good for walking, but not for trucking bales of hay down from the car.  So we shoveled it out.  Nice and light and fluffy snow, and the job was made easier by the fact that somehow Boston’s been a magnet for snow this season – meaning that there was only ~8 inches of snow on the ground, vs. Boston’s 16-30 inches.

So it was a simple job.  Moving the hay was a bit tougher, but definitely fun due to the wicked hook that we used to haul it from the car into the wheelbarrow… Seriously, that thing reminded me of Captain Hook…. but scarier.  I loved it.

Once the hay loft was stocked, we played a bit with Violet and SweetPea, helped them do their nails (Trimming their hooves, really only Violet, since SweetPea was too big for me to hold onto), and ran around the pen like crazy people.  Sometimes I chased the goaties, sometimes they chased me.  Usually we just ran around crazy, enjoying the outdoors and the winter as only Swiss goats can.

 

 

Blog Link for my Aunt!

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Plantswise-by-Tovah-Martin/188220037885906?fref=photo

Feb9

A snow day in January

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A snow day in January

Right before the end of January, actually…

27-Jan-15

They said it was going to be a storm to end all storms.  A blizzard named “Juno”, for one reason or another, and that it would be the most snowfall that New York city had ever seen.  Boston would get the worst of it, of course, with nearly three feet of snow landing on my doorstep.

It’s never as bad as they forecast, of course.

But this time… it was pretty damn close, if I have to admit.

This storm was going to be the storm that ended all storms.  The forecast called for over three feet here in Boston, and it was supposed to be the single largest snowstorm to ever hit New York City – literally, in recorded history.  Worcester was going to get more snow than it had ever seen in a single day, and most schools had already decided to close far before the storm even arrived.

In truth… yeah, it was pretty brutal.  We dealt with it though.

New York City didn’t get much – not nearly as much as they thought.  Worcester did get hit hard – they broke their previous snowfall record, with over three feet landing.

Cambridge… we were fine, really.  There was a Travel Ban in effect, so the plows had enough room to move and clear, so that wasn’t really an issue.  My office was closed, so I didn’t even bother waking up until late-morning, and even then I didn’t head out to start shoveling until after I had a good breakfast and took some time to relax and let it digest.  In told, I think we got a solid 30-36inches of light and fluffy snow… there really wasn’t too much trouble with it, to be honest.

See, we hadn’t gotten much snow yet, so there wasn’t a problem finding a place to put the snow.  I just piled it up in my front yard, and to the side of my car in the empty spots.  It was nice and simple… a fun time.  Not to last, of course, but “the ignorance of youth” and such.  Either way, the shoveling only took me two or three hours total, to have my walk and parking area completely clean… so that left me a ton of time to relax and sip cocoa.

Or, it would had if I was that kind of guy.  Instead, I had a snack, put my gear back on, and ran back outside into the snow.

I explored all over the area… I’m honestly not sure how many miles I covered, probably less than three, but I had a blast exploring and playing in the show.  I got the chance to walk in the streets a bit, thanks to the travel ban, but I stuck to the walks for most of it… I have good boots and snow-gear, so I could slog through the fluff without getting soaked… and that’s half the fun of a storm, right?  I even spent a bit of time running back and forth on an abandoned Mass Ave, body-slamming my way through the huge snowbanks that had been piled up by the plows.

Note: one of the banks was a LOT thicker and more solid than I expected… and I may have ended up sprawled out in a tumbling roll when my legs stopped and my torso kept going.  Think a very awkward cartwheel.  In the snow.