Getting Out of Snowbanks

Winter hit quickly at A Land of Grass. Just before Thanksgiving, the temperatures dropped from the 40s to the 10s, 4 inches of snow fell and a 30 mile-per-hour north wind blew.

The cows huddled, the dogs curled up and the sheep wondered what the fuss was all about.

Even before my 84-year-old mom, stepfather and aunt attempted the challenge of my driveway, they slid into the drifted ditch on the county road.

They climbed into my pickup and out of the bone-chilling darkness while my brother and I attempted to shovel enough snow away so we could bring the car back onto the road.

My hair froze into brittle icicles as I shoveled.

We would have pulled the car out, but we had no access to the solid frame.

We could have dug through the spare tire compartment to find the threaded metal tow ring, then scooted under the car to remove the plastic undercarriage cover, threaded the tow ring and hooked a rope to it -- all with headlights providing the only light while one of us laid in the snowdrift with icy BBs pelting a face.

Instead, we shoveled until we made the situation worse and cussed the car’s modern design.

Mom decided to call a tow truck the next morning.

Fortunately, she has roadside assistance so expense wasn’t an issue -- only my humiliation of paying for help instead of solving the problem myself.

I felt like a failure who caved in to the overwhelming message for modern society: Don’t attempt to be self-sufficient.

A few days later when I encountered a rarely-used road that lays below the cropland it bisects, I chose to test my pickup in the hard-packed snow drift that filled the road for 100 yards.

I slipped into 4-wheel-drive and gunned it.

My engine racing, my wheels throwing snow over the top of my pickup, I plowed through the drift with self-sufficient power.

Until the truck bogged down halfway into the drift.

I was as close to the end of the drift as to the beginning.

I slipped into reverse.

The engine raced, snow flew over the pickup and the wheels carried me to within 50 feet of bare ground.

Then the tires continued to spin, but the truck didn’t move.

I was high-centered on hard-packed snow.

I was shoveling under the pickup when my neighbor arrived.

In the dusk, he had spotted my distant black truck and thought it was a wayward, lonely cow.

Nope, just Lisa, still mad at the stupidity of modern society.

My pickup has tow hooks, but my neighbor didn’t have a strong tow rope.

Jordan did have strong muscles.

As I slipped into reverse and the truck began to move, Jordan pushed on the side of my pickup.

The truck was being sucked into the deep snowdrift, but Jordan shoved it back into the tracks I had already cleared.

I was back on bare ground before I let off the gas.

Then Jordan and I stood out of the wind for 30 minutes, chatting about the mountain snowpack, cattle markets and when to feed hay, unwinding from the adrenaline rush of solving a problem.

Somehow, accepting help from my neighbor was completely different from calling a tow truck for help.

Maybe that’s because I know my neighbor would never accept payment for his help, but we both know I’ll help him someday in return.

Then I turned around and took the more-traveled route home.

Sometimes, proving I’m self-reliant means using enough good judgment to avoid stupid predicaments before I need to get out of them.

Until I learn that lesson, I’ll depend on my family and neighbors to help me out.