Oh NO! Snow...

In the concrete business, snow is a 4 letter word. While it is possible to pour concrete in the snow, it is not advisable, nor is it a barrel of {stamp} monkeys. I have worked outdoors most of my life (I'm 46), and I can tell you from bitter personal experience that when you manage to get enough clothing on to keep you warm at 30 degrees with a windchill in the zero range, you cannot work. Anyone remember the little brother in the movie A Christmas Story? Imagine trying to finish concrete dressed like that. Impossible I tell ya!

So, since it snowed last night, we are not working today. My hubby asked if I needed him to drive me to the barn to feed the horses. I thought about it, and since the news said the roads were good, I decided I could drive myself. I must admit that driving my pickup on ice and snow scares me gray headed. I am a good driver... The yuppies who drive their 4WD Urban Assault Vehicles are decidedly NOT good drivers. They appear to believe that 4WD makes them immune to the laws of physics, and have no compunction about driving their usual careless..er carefree manner. This terrifies me, and I am not easily terrified. I feel perfectly safe driving on the snow and ice, until some idiot comes blasting up behind me flashing their lights and shooting me the bird. For any of the above mentioned folks, doing this will NOT make me drive faster. It will not make me like you. I will continue on at what I consider a safe speed. I will wave to you as you go around me, cursing and slinging muck on my windshield. I will laugh hysterically two miles later when I see your UAV in the ditch. Oh, and I won't shoot you the bird as I go by.

Anyway, the roads started out fine, just wet. About 8 miles from the barn, suddenly there was ice and snow on the road! AKKK!. I slowed down and continued on. Fortunately my barn is in the opposite direction of rush hour traffic, so nobody ran up my behind. Thank goodness. The snow gradually got worse the farther I drove, but I took my time, and made it without any unplanned visits to the local bar...ditches. I did not realize just how deep the snow was until I got out of my truck to feed the creatures. It was about 6-8 inches. I should have worn muck boots!

The Nanny was convinced that she was starving. She shoved her face in the bucket *twice* before I could shuffle through the snow to the barn. Baxter went ahead of us because he is afraid Susie will kill him. Nobody died, and they had their breakfast served in the usual manner. When I pulled in, I parked just barely off the road in case anyone needed out. I should have known better. I spent the next ten minutes skating my truck around trying to get it backed the 3 feet to the gravel. It finally spun around a bit and found some purchase, and I was on my way to the shop. Whew!


We have a pretty large shop, and when we aren't working out on a job, we have projects we do indoors. The latest project is a mail box post for my brother. These are large concrete posts that weigh around 300 to 400 lbs. We customize them with the address numbers, and maybe an initial, or some other design. It is a nice chance to be creative with concrete. We also do concrete patio tables. These are a ton of fun to do because we have some room to make cool designs. Fun with mud! Concrete work is the ultimate end to what children everywhere do when they play in a mud puddle, rolling the mud into balls... It's all very profound ;)

Here are a couple of pictures of our table and mailbox post at the shop. I love this post. It is sort of Art Deco, with it's rounded corners and cutouts. It is fast! The pedestal for this table is a large concrete urn turned upside down. It's heavy enough to support the tabletop, but still easy to move. Plus, it is decorative :-) My hubby made the table and post. I don't do much of the cast stuff. I did stamp the concrete on the ground though. It's my favorite color for stampwork, Stone Blue.

Next time: This is the house the Stamp Monkey built.

Camille