Snow Cakes, Turkey Vultures and Extreme Extermination Measures

We have a very long driveway. It clocks out at one tenth of a mile.

We had a very large blizzard; about 18 inches dumped itself all over the DC area.

That driveway is a pain when you just want to get the mail or bring back the recycling cans. But when you have to shovel snow....pass the advil please.

Our children were dutiful. I will give them full marks for their valiant attempts to shovel the white stuff away. We got through 2/3rds of the job but fatigue and darkness postponed completion by one day. So today, in an effort to eliminate the job and keep the kids from despair, my husband hit upon snow cakes.

He shoveled out breaks in the drifted snow, carving out rectangles that were 8x5x2 and then we personalized them with the shovel. Different sizes were rendered for different children. Then we dressed them warmly and sent them outside. The walk was clean within the hour.

So now I'm wondering, if I wrote their names on top of their piles of laundry, would it get put away in sixty minutes?

Snow brings out the crazy in most of us.

So when I saw my kids all staring at the far back trees and throwing snowballs into the air, I assumed they were having a normal sibling scrimmage. My oldest was studying for exams and I decided he needed a break so we dressed warmly and snuck out the front to spring a surprise attack. We ran out to find two of my children lying still on the dry shoveled driveway. The others were motioning for us to ssshhhhhh.

They were trying to lure a Turkey buzzard by pretending to be carrion so they could throw snowballs.

No Turkey Buzzards were fooled by my turkeys, not even close.

Then, the mailman pulled up in his truck. He had to wait for the children to scramble off into the snow as he pulled up to hand out five boxes. Telling him they were bait for scavenger birds didn't even raise an eyebrow. I'd say that meant he'd heard such things before but I doubt it.