Snow Time in Hobbs . . .

... and it must be cleared away.

If you want your mail delivered, says the mail carrier, you've got to clear the walks - that's the rule!

Eight times it has snowed in Hobbs. Unusual for a place that seldom gets snow. This last storm left us five inches of the white stuff - the next storm might be more.

Earlier the skies dropped two inches, then three, then four, now five; that's why I say maybe more next time. But when the mailman passed by the house without bringing in the usual bills, I wondered why no mail?

"Well, you haven't cleared your sidewalk and the walk to your house" said the guy! Apparently when the snow got to five inches, it was too much for him, even though he had been able to maneuver to the house the first four storms without the walk being cleared. No boots maybe?

So with the ultimatum "shovel or else" I resurrected from my "saving stuff" my trusty [probably] 35-year-old hand-powered yellow sidewalk snowplow and cleared all the walks and my driveway to boot.

Next day all the snow was gone, the result of God's brilliant sunshiny warm day. The mailman never did see me plowing snow . . .

But there were a number of drive-by honks from folks who either slowed way down or stopped when they saw this old guy clearing snow a mile a minute as if he was used to doing it.

As a matter of fact, the old guy, me, was/is used to it. In a previous blog I think I explained that old yellow plow had seen its days, in Levittown, Pennsylvania and North Adams, Masachusetts, in deep snow and in Truth or Consequences down here in New Mexico in sand!

That old yellow plow without a battery and now with two bald tires and a rusty chain hoist [to lift the blade when backing up] cost me the astounding sum of $14 in the early '60s [for you younger blog readers that means 1960].

Sometime after I hit 100, somebody might want to buy it as an antique if it is still around. One of the kids might have appropriated it however for continued snowplowing by then if this pattern of snow continues so far down into this warm, sunny area.

There's a picture of the plow and me up top there. Don't credit me for putting it there. A geek from California, son DP, an expert at computers, dropped it in there and hopefully I will remember how he did it for a future blog.

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