Calling 9-1-1 ...

Josephine, bless her, has an incompetent for a driver on some nights. Last night was one of those nights. I managed to run right into my very own snow drift on my very own driveway. And I actually managed to grind my front tires into the multi-layered snow and ice until she was not budging.

I called BA, that genius sister of mine who can figure out the logistics of pretty much everything. She dug snow out from under Josephine, pushed, pulled, put down that gravel stuff around the tires ... one hour later, and Jo hadn't budged. I crawled out the passenger side of the car (the driver's side was firmly entrenched in the snow bank) and BA helped me lug the groceries from the bottom of my driveway into the Tea House.

The next day Don, the man who rescues me from all sorts of peril, came to take a look. He enlisted Mike, who had brought his snow blower to the TH and blew clear my parking lot before starting on his shift. Together they whittled away the snow on the driver's side of Josephine, and dug around the tires some more. 

Nope.

Rick, one of my kindly neighbours, joined the men with his shovel. The tires kept spinning. They needed another person to push, Don decreed. That would be me, I surmised.

While I put on my boots and coat, I asked the occupied tables in the TH if they would be patient with me as I was running outside to try to help push my car out of the icy rut it had ground itself into.

One table had four EMS professionals at it. They asked me what was going on; when I told them, they all jumped up as if they had just heard the first notes of the Hallelujah Chorus playing. "We'll push!" they volunteered and all trooped out of the back door at the TH.

Within 30 seconds or less - actually, JUST long enough for me to snap this picture - Josephine was free. No, no, they didn't want any thanks, they said; they were just happy they could be of service and that it all worked out.

However, Lisa, Mel-Mal, Ben and Erica - with Don tucked in between them! - you don't know what a re-charge you gave to my heart and to my day by your great kindness. 

  
Our paramedics are amazing. Three Hills is so blessed to have people of such calibre working and living among us.

But please, keep parking across the road when you come to the TH for your breaks ...

Hallelujah!

Here Comes the Sun

Images this morning as I returned from picking up my car where I had left it yesterday afternoon in order to drive with my friends to Red Deer:

White-out!

We had been at the Red Deer Rebels hockey game on Friday night. We got on the road and discovered wind flailing the snow until it was tumultuous.

Three of us wanted to turn back and stay in Red Deer. But the driver felt we needed to keep going, that there was a reason ... We stopped at every vehicle that had hit the ditch, ensuring that there was no one inside; the reason we were not there ourselves was that there were three of us navigating between the bumpy yellow centre line and the suddenly wavy outer white lines - on both sides of the highway. 

 We had just passed a little town called Huxley when we encountered a complete white-out. With our hazard lights on, we sat in the middle of the highway for a few moments until the wind died down somewhat and we could inch our way forward again. 

Suddenly: "Are those footprints?!" and a few yards up ahead there was the bobbing figure of someone walking on the side of the road. We picked him up. His truck had swerved all over the road before coming to rest, stuck at the side. He had no cell phone and had running shoes on his feet and a Red Deer Rebels cap on his head. He was trying to get to Trochu, where he lived. He had about eight miles to go, and he was pretty frozen and somewhat disoriented. 

We drove him to his home: his wife was sitting in the semi-dark next to their front window. And then we pulled wearily back onto the highway for the last 15 kms to Three Hills. 

What if we had stayed in Red Deer and that man had been struck by a vehicle in one of those white-out spells or had wandered off into a drift himself? We ourselves made it safely to Three Hills, three hours after we had set out from Red Deer. I am so grateful that our driver didn't listen to the majority vote and listened instead to the "still small voice" in the middle of the storm compelling him to carry on. God moves in mysterious - sometimes terrifying - ways!

And we, all four of us, are so grateful.

Three Hills, AB

Three Hills, AB

BLOWING SNOW WARNING IN EFFECT

WIND WARNING ENDED

Current Conditions




-18°C

• °C
• °F

Observed at:

Three Hills

Date:

12:00 AM MST Saturday 28 December 2013

Condition:

Not observed

Temperature:

-17.6°C

Dewpoint:

-19.5°C

Humidity:

85%

Wind:

NNW 51 km/h

Wind Chill:

-32

Forecast

Graphic forecast

Fri
27 Dec




• 60%
•  
• -19°C

Sat
28 Dec




• 60%
• -15°C
•  

Sun
29 Dec




•  
• -8°C
• -21°C

Mon
30 Dec




• 60%
• -12°C
• -14°C

Tue
31 Dec




•  
• -7°C
• -17°C

Wed
1 Jan




•  
• -4°C
• -10°C

Thu
2 Jan




•  
• 5°C
• -9°C

Detailed forecast

Issued: 1:33 AM MST Saturday 28 December 2013

Blowing snow warning in effect.

Tonight

Snow ending overnight then mainly cloudy with 60 percent chance of flurries. Amount 5 to 10 cm. Blowing snow with visibilities frequently less than 1 kilometre. Wind north 50 km/h gusting to 70 diminishing to 30 gusting to 50 overnight. Low minus 19. Wind chill minus 27.

Saturday

Mainly cloudy with 60 percent chance of flurries. Local blowing snow early in the morning. Wind north 30 km/h gusting to 50 becoming light in the morning. High minus 15. Wind chill minus 31 in the morning.