Mark's in Alabama!!!

So, we share this huge driveway with our next door (set back behind us) neighbors, Mark and Naomi, who have 4 children--one away and three at home. We've often had 11 cars in the driveway.

Our house was built in 1850 by a Congregational minister named (gasp!) Bradley. He went out in the back yard years later and built a house for his spinster daughter. That's where Mark and Naomi live. Until we bought our house some 29 years ago, the two had always been in the same hands. Cheshire Academy owned them for years as teacher housing. Then a doctor bought them and when she moved to New York she had a lawyer declare them a two unit condominium. We do share a water line and it was cheaper to have them made a condominium than to put in a new water line. To my knowledge we are the only two unit condominium in Cheshire. I checked with a lawyer and we'd have to put in a new water line and tear up the driveway doing it, to ask the zoning board to make them separate houses. I'll leave that to my son, a lawyer, when we're dead and gone.

This year Mark bought a snow blower (we paid nearly half--since he'd be clearing our driveway too). And up until today, he'd hardly used it. But today, with over 6 inches of snow, Mark is in Alabama with their daughter, Zoe, visiting the University of Alabama. Zoe is looking mostly at southern schools for college. They're no where near the tornadoes that have ravaged the state.

So, the one time we need it, there's no one who know how to use the snow blower!

So Naomi and her daughter and son and Bern and I shoveled for much more than an hour. Bern cleared our walkways all by herself before I was awakened by sweet dog, Bridget, whining at me because 'the woman' was outside and Bridget was lonely.

I wore my boots for the first time this winter. They're size 13 and I wear 10 1/2, so I can put them on without unlacing them.

I haven't done so much manual labor for a while and imagine I'll pay for it tomorrow.

But what a day for Mark to be in Alabama....