The Big Dig Out

Just in case you haven't seen enough snow pictures from the east coast storm this weekend, I've got a few more. Here in central New Jersey we ended up with anywhere from 27" to 34", depending on where you measure; the official National Weather Service amount was 28.3". We had some drifts like this one that were over 40".

The wind scoured the snow away from the back corner of our house 

(thanks, wind, that was one less downspout I had to dig out!), but also managed to nearly

 bury my neighbor's cars. There is a Volkwagen under that pile of snow behind the
maroon van. The wind was fierce but thankfully we didn't lose power.

John and Justin waded through thigh-high snow to dig out the snowblower.

 

This mountain of snow at the end of the driveway may melt by March or April.

Here you can see some of the 34" walls of snow we had to dig through to

 clear the sidewalk.

It looks like I won't be hanging out any laundry for a while, not without putting on my
hip-high waders. My sister did point out I could hang short things. :-)

Here's Justin, our snow-clearing hero, relaxing in the sun after tunneling through one of the 40" drifts. He manned the snowblower while John and I shoveled all the places that aren't snowblower-accessible, then grabbed a shovel to help us dig out all the vehicles and aid his weary parents with the final clean up. It took the three of us six hours to dig out, and I'm so grateful we had Justin's help!