This past winter, the entire Mid-Atlantic region was blanketed with some serious snowstorms, and we locals had our fair share of troubles dealing with it. In many ways, my “bad” experiences actually enabled me to see the “good” in our community...

It was the third big snowfall of the season, and the weather reports had seen it coming well in advance. I was ready for some serious accumulation. However, when I awoke in the morning, I only saw a couple of inches on the roads outside my house.
I called my boss and asked, “Is the office going to be open today?” He commented that the road outside his house wasn’t even dusted with snow, so the decision was made to make our way to work.

The story would end here, except for the one variable we forgot. Even a two-inch snowfall, when combined with high
winds, can create drifts and hazardous conditions. And so it was that while driving to work on the country roads, without much warning, I came around a corner and whump! The car was firmly stuck in a big snow drift. The wind had swirled and whirled, and found an ideal spot to deposit the flakes it was carrying, right in a road-blocking pile!

I hadn’t brought a shovel, so I started trying to dig out with the ice-scraper. That was quickly proving futile, so I called my boss and relayed the bad news, “I am stuck and, unless somebody comes to get me, I’ll be here for a while.”

Just as he was considering how he could get someone out to me, without ending up with another stuck employee, the farmer whose field I was partially in came by with his tractor. I was never so happy to see four wheels and a scoop. So, within an hour he had dug me out, and I was on my way. But that is just the beginning of this story.

About two miles later, the very same thing happened again! I was driving along, came around the bend, and the wind was blowing the snowflakes across the road so forcefully that it created whiteout conditions. What was masked from me was yet another snow bank blocking the roadway. I heard the now-familiar “whump” of my car getting stuck.

I got out to survey how deep the snow was, and was promptly buried all the way up to my knees. This time I was really in a pickle, but I noticed that I was right across from a barn. So I went sauntering in, and thankfully this was a dairy farm. It happened to be milking time, so the farmer was there and saw me right away.

I guess he knew why a visitor was trudging into the barn at such a time and on such a day, so he reached for a shovel, and simply told me to lay it at the end of the lane when I was finished with it. He would come and get it later on once all the snow had stopped. Sounded good to me.

I went out and started digging. I wasn’t getting very far, when a car came from the opposite direction and got stuck right next to me, only facing the opposite way. Now, we were both sharing one shovel and not making much progress digging out of the snowdrift.

Then, a knight in shining armor on a noble steed arrived to save us both. Well, it was a Lancaster County version of the fairy tale, so it just happened that our knight was an Amish farmer. His armor was the normal plain garb of his faith, and his noble steed was a stocky mule. He had his Excalibur, which in this case was a nice sturdy rope. After we established where it could be tied to my car, he explained the plan.

During the conversation, I learned that the mule was named “Jakey.” The Amishman got the mule moving with some encouraging “kissy noises.” When the going got tough, and Jakey needed some extra encouragement, the kissy noises changed to outright urging, “Come on, Jakey, come on!” The car was moving, I was being pulled out of the snow drift, and
I was almost free! Almost…

The rope broke with only a little more to go. Well, I was extremely disappointed by the lack of strength in our rope, but fully impressed by the extreme power of just one horse power. We were both scratching our heads wondering if we should sacrifice another rope, or give Jakey the mule a well-deserved break.

Our answer came for us, which was another Amish farmer who happened to have a “mule” of his own – a New Holland skid loader. This battered machine had plenty of dents and scratches, but did it ever throw the snow! The Amishman deftly worked the scoop past my car, coming within inches each time.

The snow that had vexed me was no match for the diesel engine, and the chugging of the motor was music to my ears.
Once the snow was cleared away, and a few skidding starts and stops with my car, I was free. Now, after I was back out of the snow, I was determined to be out for good. But even with my car free, Jakey the mule and his two Amish friends weren’t finished.

While I was getting unstuck, other motorists had unwittingly driven into the eye of the whiteout and also gotten stuck. I am sure it ended up being a tiring day for two men, a mule, and a machine.

I stayed on the main roads the rest of the way, and arrived terribly late for work, but with a gem of a story. Good thing I work for a magazine!