Drip Drip Drip

Husband arrived home safe and sound and went straight to bed when we returned form the airport at around 11:00 Thursday night.  He had been up almost 24 hours by then and had traveled by car, train, train, plane, plane and car to get back home.  He brought me home some lovely prezzies like a bottle of my favourite perfume that I can't seem to find over here (Annick Goutal - Eau d' Hadrien), a lovely bottle of Ardbeg Islay Scotch - Mmmmm smoky goodness for winter warming, my Brit magazine requests (plenty of trashy pulp like Hello and Ok! for the pictures, Donna Hay, Olive, BBC Good Food, Q and a few copies of the Independent), and a beautiful blue and white plate from Holland with sheep(!) grazing on it.
All was well until I woke up on Friday to make tea.  When I walked into the silent kitchen the first thing that I heard was *drip*.  I looked at the tap in the sink.  Touched the tap, dry as a bone...*drip* - behind me.  My kitchen is an addition and right where it meets the original house water was dripping all over my beautiful wood cupboard, running down the face and inside the doors and pooling on my unfinished hard wood floor.  F*CK! Ice dams have struck.  Thankfully I stored my roasting pan on top of the cupboard so it had about 2 inches of water in it that was thankfully not on my wood cupboard and floor.  Not only has husband never seen this much snow before, he has no idea what an ice dam is.  I wake him from his slumber.  Call every hardware store in a 20 mile vicinity to find a roof rake to pull the snow off and I dress and hit the road.  Dad was in the garage so I told him what was up and left him to give husband his lesson in ice dams.  By the time I returned with liquid ice melt and a rake they were on a ladder and pulling the snow and ice out of the trough formed by the little alpine roof that covers our back door. It was a few inches thick and see the window above it that roof, It is coated in a sheet of ice about two inches thick.  Good times!  Welcome home honey!  I see Chris was having just as much fun at her house. Sympathy all around.
Then as Dad and husband and I were all working on the project Dad looked over and nodded towards husband and mouthed, 'Have you told him?'.  I shook my head no.  The morning already sucked, why not get it all out of the way.  'Ah honey', I began.  Notice how nice and clear the driveway is, how the wood racks aren't surrounded by snow, how the carport area is so nice and clear?  The plow guy didn't do that, we did.  'You bought a plow? Good. All the guys at work have them'.
HA!  He thought I bought a plow for the truck.  Surely the snow blower will be nothing after that. 
So Dad goes and fires it up and the garage door opens and voila, the orange beast rolls out.  We gave him his first lesson and he was off.  Whew.  I made it through that one unscathed.  Oh and for the combustion curious it was the new 6 HP one they make.  The 10HP was really to big for what we require and at this point a beggar can't be choosy.  It was all they had besides the horrible yardmaster ones.

Husband booked us two tickets to see The Polar Express today at the iMax at Jordan's this afternoon so I will finally get out of the house.

Oh, and the dripping stopped this morning at least we hope.  I'll tell you for sure when it gets above freezing.