Surviving Jonas
It’s a bright sunny day here outside the nation’s capital. It’s supposed to warm up into the 30s, but it says six degrees on my outdoor thermometer right now. Yesterday was sunny, too, and only zero degrees when I woke up. I measured in three places–29 1/2, 30 1/2, and 30. So I’m figuring not scientifically that we got 30 inches. I started our snow removal process–me and my trusty shovel–about 10AM yesterday. My wife, Chris, called me in at noon. About 2/3 of the driveway is now clear. Some of the snow melted off a bit, but there is still a lot more left. Then the snowplow finally came through during the night. It appears from our bedroom window that another 30 inches is piled on top of what we have.
Friday night, I thought I would keep the snow off the back deck as much as possible. At least we would have a way out of the house; our dog Zeke would be able to use his natural facilities, and Chris would be able to get up the hill to the bird feeders. So I shoveled that area out about every hour. It was coming down at a rate of about two inches per hour. Zeke doesn’t much like cold weather or snow, either. He was refusing to go out. So about 1:30AM on Saturday, he is whining that he needs to go out. I take him to the door and he sees the six inches or so that had accumulated since we went to bed and looks back to me as if saying, “I ain’t playing this game, homey. You gotta do better than that.”
Saturday was definitely a snow day. Every time we thought it was letting up, it intensified. I kept up with the deck and part of the back yard, but by now it’s starting to get up around over our knees. At least Zeke was getting used to the idea that he was going to have to go outside, and I think he was starting to like it ever so slightly. Then I got to thinking: I bet our heat pumps are covered with snow, and that will be driving the electric bill up. Nothing gets a tight old Welshman moving like the threat of a high electric bill. So I took a broom and trudged through the snow (now drifting waist deep) around the side of the house. About 20 minutes later, I decide to go around to the other side and clear the satellite dish. I run about 2 1/4 miles a day, and I was out of breath doing about 30 yards in waist deep snow.
So much for global warming. After about an hour of snow removal duty on Sunday, I’m ready to sign up for HGTV’s Beachfront Property show. A little warmth would go a long way. But we have a lot to be thankful for–didn’t run out of water, didn’t have to use the generator, had plenty of food. Yep, the Lord is good–He is as in Psalm 32:7, “You are my hiding place; you shall preserve me from trouble.” As I look at that six ft high pile of snow at the end of my driveway (the snow plow has passed twice since I started writing this), I am pondering Jesus’s words in Matthew 17:20, “If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say unto this mountain, Remove from here to yonder place; and it shall remove.”
