“Trees Were Coming Down from Everywhere!”

continued from page 10 Road had three trees across their driveway, “not huge trees, but until we could cut these up by hand with our bow saw, the plowing couldn’t happen. And the plowing couldn’t happen until GMP opened up Partridge Road after three to four days of our nine homes being landlocked by downed trees and wires. We all made it through intact, and it was beautiful and the weather, thankfully, was quite warm post-storm.”

Camp Arden Road was blocked and Debbie Cook was home alone to “survive multiple days without power! It was a struggle with the sheep, snow from the roof, needing help from neighbors to snow blow, and large branches down in the driveway. I was the recipient of three wonderful acts of kindness including from two VELCO workers who helped with shoveling!”

To return to our house on Quarry Road, Liz assured us in our phone calls that though the snow was heavy, it was so wet it was sliding right off the roofs that I would normally clear of snow with my roof rake, and the power was out for only a few hours. The snow was definitely heavy to clear from the paths, though our snow scoop (which I highly recommend) used a couple of times during the storm made that manageable. And her dog, which is now living in a city house, was delirious with the off-leash pleasure of bounding through and rolling in the depths of delicious, cold snow. It’s always good to try to see the world through a dog’s eyes, but I have to say that our Dummerston neighbors seemed to generally have a sense of adventure and resilience about this most recent of our increasingly common major weather events.

Finally, everyone I spoke with expressed genuine appreciation for the efforts of our road crew, the power companies, both local and from far and wide, and all the able-bodied and appropriately-equipped neighbors who pitched in to clean things up. Thanks also to the mail carriers who tried to live up to their mission. And how lucky are we in Dummerston to have neighbors who check on each other in times like these to make sure we are all safe.