Dec 25, Continued
Dec. 25th, 2008 05:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
helwenThe walk went pretty well. We started out walking in the field and then down and over to the other side of the road. My shoes come with a set of poles but I only find them to be semi-useful. I had a tendency to lean slightly forward when I was using them, just enough to be a problem for lifting my right foot clear. Wearing snowshoes doesn't mean you rest delicately on top of the snow like Legolas, just that you don't sink down more than a few inches! Which is nice when you're walking over deep areas of snow, of course. I've had trouble getting the right foot to toe up properly for years (a special feature of flat feet combined with other oddments of this body's operation :D ), so it takes a bit of effort to keep things going properly. My right knee was a bit unhappy with the extra work at the time, but seems to be fine now.
My shoes are only 9" wide, so walking with them isn't too much different from regular walking, just lifting the feet a bit higher (and about 2-1/2 feet long). L was wearing an old farm pair, the biggest, widest ones he could find, I believe. He had to take longer strides than normal, but on the plus side the wider ones don't sink quite as much into the snow. On the negative side, they're 4 feet long, so maneuvering in tight quarters is a little trickier.
I discovered that stepping backwards really isn't an option, because the shoes are fastened on to the front part of the foot but the heel is left free (compensation for essentially having a big piece of flooring stuck to your foot). So you need to be able to turn, preferably without putting one shoe onto the other and trapping yourself. Only had one incident, when L and I were a bit too close to each other and were trying to deal with some fallen branches at the same time -- I stepped onto one of his shoes, lost traction and fell over. It was pretty funny trying to rearrange his shoe and my legs so we could get free of each other without taking the shoes off (always an option, of course).
As expected I tired out before he did, so after checking out the grove I rested for a while and he went on to check out some of the lines. So far, so good. Most of the major damage so far this year seems to have been from the big wind storm earlier this autumn. There are still other areas to check out of course, but the general consensus seems to be that other parts of Ashfield were harder hit than we were. In the grove itself the only thing we noticed down was one of the trees in the north that's been dead for a while, just hadn't fallen over yet. The maple and the white birch are both looking very good.
Absolutely gorgeous day today once the wind died down, upper 30s and sunny!
My shoes are only 9" wide, so walking with them isn't too much different from regular walking, just lifting the feet a bit higher (and about 2-1/2 feet long). L was wearing an old farm pair, the biggest, widest ones he could find, I believe. He had to take longer strides than normal, but on the plus side the wider ones don't sink quite as much into the snow. On the negative side, they're 4 feet long, so maneuvering in tight quarters is a little trickier.
I discovered that stepping backwards really isn't an option, because the shoes are fastened on to the front part of the foot but the heel is left free (compensation for essentially having a big piece of flooring stuck to your foot). So you need to be able to turn, preferably without putting one shoe onto the other and trapping yourself. Only had one incident, when L and I were a bit too close to each other and were trying to deal with some fallen branches at the same time -- I stepped onto one of his shoes, lost traction and fell over. It was pretty funny trying to rearrange his shoe and my legs so we could get free of each other without taking the shoes off (always an option, of course).
As expected I tired out before he did, so after checking out the grove I rested for a while and he went on to check out some of the lines. So far, so good. Most of the major damage so far this year seems to have been from the big wind storm earlier this autumn. There are still other areas to check out of course, but the general consensus seems to be that other parts of Ashfield were harder hit than we were. In the grove itself the only thing we noticed down was one of the trees in the north that's been dead for a while, just hadn't fallen over yet. The maple and the white birch are both looking very good.
Absolutely gorgeous day today once the wind died down, upper 30s and sunny!
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Date: 2008-12-26 01:45 am (UTC)I'm glad you got out!
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Date: 2008-12-27 03:18 am (UTC)