4.4 Below

As I sit to write it is 4.4 below tonight. And that's NOT Celsius.

It is officially winter, and definitely cold.

My father refuses to play the game with my Montana sister and my Minnesota self over who has the worst weather and wind chill factor. His proclamation is that "once it's below zero it doesn't matter, it's just damn cold outside." He still lives in northwestern Illinois where we grew up. My sister and I agree, it simply doesn't get as cold there - at least not for as long and not with as much wind (he lives in a ravine) as our locations. But in recent years he has shoveled a lot more snow than our families have had to move around.

Snow and balding tires were my nemesis this morning. I drive a 2004 Ford Focus SVT. Go ahead and laugh at my Focus. It's a secret weapon with more power than the average onlooker would guess with a sweet BMW transmission; six gears to go from zero to 70 in nothing flat. Except when there's snow and it's cold and slippery. Todd Palin would laugh hilariously at this "snow machine." It's a low-slung suspension with high performance wheels. Currently the treads on the wheels are performing less than adequately.

This morning Joren and I hopped in the frigid Ford to head for church. Being part Clark and part Skov we of course didn't allow enough time to warm up the car (it was in the garage and required no scraping), much less exit the driveway.

I barely got out of the garage when I got stuck. Dale did scrape and blow the driveway the previous night and we didn't even get another inch of snow accumulation over night. Granted it was a rough job; the hydraulics on the tractor are frozen so he couldn't adjust the height or position of the front bucket or the level of the snow blower. But he did pretty well. I seemed to be hung up on a brittle ridge of snow. I tried rocking the car back and forth and it wouldn't budge. Finally something made a cracking sound (never good on a subzero morning) and we seemed to be free. It then occurred to me that the car sat for over 24 hours as the temperatures plummeted after a snowfall. I bet my brakes had been frozen and had just broken free.

I made it almost 40 feet around the curve of the driveway and headed in the correct direction before I spun out again. Argh! Joren hopped out to see what the problem was and said the tires were spinning but no traction. He tried giving me a push. But his shoes have less tread than my tires! I invited him into the driver's seat in the cockpit of my treasured traveling office so I could try giving it a push. Traction and leverage is everything. Who would have guessed this 46-year-old mom could out-push a strapping young seventeen -year-old? Okay, shut up about my out-weighing him!

We got it going and he started to slow down. I ran behind, "Keep going, keep going," I shouted and gestured. I ran along side, continuing my verbal encouragement, got the passenger side door open, hopped in, confident that my son wouldn't run me over, and said "I guess you're driving to town!" He started to slow down to buckle up and I cried out, "NO - just drive! We still have to make it over the snow plow ridge at the top of the drive way. If we stop we'll never get out!"

Traffic gave us a break and we were able to squirt right up onto a mostly cleared highway. We buckled up and made it to town safely, if a little late for church. We had a good laugh and then proceeded to get the giggles during the Nicene Creed during worship. Simultaneously Joren managed to claim "I believe in the Holy Spit" as I misspoke of my belief "in the Holy Carrot." I don't know what possessed our tongues or our brains, but we cracked each other up pretty badly. I hope God had a sense of humor this morning.

We received our blessings for travel over the holidays and made our merry way to Kohls in Cottage Grove where we purchased Joren some new treads.

Next time he can push us out of the driveway!

P.S. at the time of publishing this post the temp has already dropped another full degree. Brrrrrr.