You've Got Mail

One of the eternal facets of life in New England, is the ongoing skirmish between homeowners and plow drivers. Now, I have to admit that if I was the one getting up at all hours of the day and night in crappy weather, I'd probably be a little cranky myself. But the plow drivers have an outlet for their angst.

Whenever we shovel out the driveway, no matter how long we wait, the plow will come by in the next hour and shove all the snow from the street back in. Three inches of snow? The plow curl across the end of the driveway will be two feet high. And when the snow is over- sometimes a day or two later? After you've shoveled out again? They come back and widen the street, pushing another three feet of former snowbank back into your driveway. It's an unequal contest even when the homeowner has a giant turbo-powered snow-blower. My husband and I and our two little shovels? We don't stand a chance.

And when that gets old, there's always mailboxes. Ever seen a plow with the outlines of little black mailboxes painted on the sides? Me neither. I bet the town objects. Which is a roundabout way to explain that after the storm earlier in the week, we found our mailbox lying on a snowbank half a dozen feet from the support post. To be strictly fair, the box wasn't in great shape to begin with. I have vague intentions of replacing it, probably when the door finally rusts through and falls off. But certainly not in the middle of winter. So I brought the poor battered thing indoors and looked to see how it was fastened.


It turns out, they have a recess in the bottom. So to mount it, you cut a board to the width of the box, fasten it to the post, and then screw or nail the box to the board through the sides. Seemed simple enough, though I made exceptionally quick work of the sawing given the frigid temperature prevailing in the garage (where the big saws live).


And, now much more securely fastened, it's been returned to its place by the street.

I'm just hoping the plow drivers can resist the urge to smack it until spring. For the new box, I'm thinking granite post with steel supports.

In other news, the cheery autumn-colored hat is done.


And I've finally cast on a new hat for myself. Not soon enough to combat the artic blast that arrived today, however. The crummy old hat is seeing more action than it has in years. I wore it yesterday, then today going in, and then most of the morning at work. We never did get out of the single digits- it was 0 degrees F (-18 C) this morning when I went in to work, and -9 (-13C) on the way home. Not counting wind chill. (That's outside, we made it into the 60s inside the office. Eventually).

Woats was equally unimpressed by hat and weather. But really, really cute!