Guest Post by Hardscrabble Farmer
Each year around this time the local road crews begin posting the 6 ton limit signs on the secondary roads. What happens is that as the daily thaws near the surface freezes overnight above the frost line in the subsoil, the paved roads begin to rise and the following day as it thaws once more, fall into declivities leaving a washboard of ruined macadam in its wake. The weight of vehicles that roll over these paved areas determine the extent of damge left behind with larger vehicles inflicting the most damage.
The longer the period of thawing and the deeper the years frost line render the verdict for each road, some ruined permanently, other left with easily recognized soft spots and ruts that locals drive around like a blind horse for the next eight months when Winter sets the roads up once more in deep ice and some form of drive-ability. I have no idea how much cumulative damage is done to alignments, under-bodies, u-joints and exposed electrical wires, but if cast off hubcaps and randomly worn tires are a sign, it’s got to be in the high hundreds of millions. At least there is a seasonal version of job security for those handy enough with tools to fix the problems caused by the frost heaves.
We’ve learned that the snow always melts over the septic tank first, that the grasses have already begun to green up before the last of the snow is gone, and that when you see plumes of white smoke rising above the clefts and folds of the local valley it isn’t fire that’s causing it, it’s steam jetting skyward from the countless evaporators hidden in sugarhouses throughout the area. A sugarhouse is a simple affair, usually longer than wider, often windowless featuring a huge store of firewood parked under an adjacent overhang where it is easily accessible. Atop the sugarhouse is what appears to be a smaller version built centrally with louvers that drop down on hinges to rest on the sugarhpuse roof when it is in operation.
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