We had a pretty good Winter's plan going. I was working on the framing plan for the new house, we had already completed the planting plan and had been making dirt for beginning the Greenhouse winter planting. Everything was moving along slowly, but smoothly. Then came the fairly minor snow event the people on the news were calling Snowmageddon.
The weather service had warned of up to sixteen inches of snow and possible lows in the low teens. The grocery stores and gas stations were wildly busy with people planning on hibernation for at least a week. If we had day jobs, we would have been receiving warnings about staying home despite the fact that most everyone would not be going out of doors for anything and work would turn into a snow party. But the storm, though wet and cold for sure, was something of a dud, we got about two inches (if that). But this isn't to say that we escaped un-harmed. The snow came in at about one in the morning, so we were asleep when the bulk of it came down along with the roofs of the Greenhouse and workshop.
I woke up at about three to see that the roof of the Greenhouse had come down and was a bit surprised by the collapse since the Greenhouse had come through high winds and heavy rain for nearly a year. I was also surprised to see that the workshop roof had not collapsed, at that point in time, because I had built it with less structure at the end walls. It too had come through heavy winds and loads of rain, but heavy, wet, sticky, snow eventually took it down too. I hear it fall at about four in the morning and it sounded like a truck dragging a trailer that was upside down.
We had put our new Runner Ducks (I haven't told anyone about these until now) in the Greenhouse to get them used to the new place and until we could finish their new home. (More about this when later.) They came through the collapse just fine, but always have a surprised look on their faces anyway so it's hard to tell. The snow on the rook of the greenhouse had pooled in the middle of the collapse and this was going to make this a hard thing to fix. The walls had all stayed up straight so it looked like an above ground swimming pool. The ducks could run around the edges of the Greenhouse, near the walls, so they we plenty happy. It was Ann who had to go in to feed them, she was less happy. The Greenhouse will have to be rebuilt, but some of it is salvageable: the walls, the ends, the plastic. We will have to figure a new roof, but all is not lost and I built it to be replaced cheaply. The workshop roof is also going to need replaced, but it was lighter and smaller and has less damage to the plastic so things will work out there too, after a bit of repair.
The rest of the snowy night deposited a bunch of ice and snow on the roof of the tiny home cabin and the lean-to tractor shed where the dogs have their well heated house. The following morning we went out in the snow to wash the ice off and apply some salt so that ice wouldn't build up, but it didn't snow much more than it did on that first night and hasn't done much since. This was two nights ago.
Last night it rained buckets. The weather radar we have on our phones told us of a completely unusual wind pattern which was funneling (not kidding here in the least way) and focusing the rain right over our heads. The result was about five inches of rain in one night and the pool in the Greenhouse filled up a lot more. We worried over the amounts of rain and the weather people were forecasting stormy doom upon us all, but it didn't turn out to be much more than a bunch of rain. By morning the rain slacked off and the weather was cool but wasn't too bad.
We rain geared up and ventured out to see what we could do to keep things from breaking down until the weather clears and we can begin re-building. So we went out and pumped it all out, then tried to figure a way to raise up enough roof to keep the pool from re-filling, the same for the workshop. We pumped out the swimming pool and shored up the Greenhouse roof (poorly) so that we could move around in there. Then we figured a way to keep the workshop from taking on a lot of water, but didn't even try to raise the roof back up. It slopes downward enough that water shouldn't pool up there any more and we can get to tools.
All in all the damage wasn't really huge, just sort of inconvenient. But at least it happened in the slow season.
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