This may be the record snowfall year in Maine! The old record of 181 inches was set in 1955 and I remember skiing to the grocery store on a pair of old paratroop skis from the Big War to get supplies. The snow covered the telephone poles and the roads were closed for a full week before the state sent a huge rotary Oshkosh snow plow to break the road. Big crowds of people went out to the roadside to see the Oshkosh blow the road open. It was quite a sight to see the huge machine swallow the snow and send it over a hundred feet out onto the side of the road.

A couple of days later, the Canadian Pacific opened the tracks from the Canadian border to the turntable in Presque Isle with a huge plow and two steam locomotives hooked in tandem and third engine pushing backward in the rear just in case the plow got stuck and had to be pulled out. The banks along the tracks were twelve feet to the top on the initial push and the steam coming out of the engines was something to see.

We will probably break the snowfall record this month, as we have had 137 inches so far. Wednesday it is forecast to snow about a foot and then we have a Canadian Clipper coming in with another huge snowfall on Saturday in time for the weekend.

I know this has been a record for snowplowing at the WhistleSmith. Every morning for most of the winter, I have put in two to three hours on the orange Kioti and the banks from the road to the woods in back of the shop are sixteen feet deep and ten foot high on both sides of the driveway! Here is a picture piling up snow along the sides of the driveway from the house to the main road. Even with having had two thaws and a heavy rain, there is very little room left to pile up more snow!