Yet after 17 years lying buried deep under snowdrifts, the machine was dug up, repaired on site, and flown out in an operation costing $20 million.
The rescue of sheep from snowdrifts is a task normally undertaken by the farmers themselves.
In certain conditions it may help to form snowdrifts.
Last week, when we should have been sowing our spring crops, we had—this is no exaggeration—nine-foot snowdrifts and no electricity for four days.
However, in some areas authorities are willing to accept faxed copies when people face snowdrifts and terrible weather.
That was warfare—the dead left unburied, hospitals closed and the sick left to sit in the snowdrifts waiting for an ambulance.
That is not much comfort to a motorist stuck in a snowdrift.
As long as they have a gang of men doing nothing, so that they can remove snowdrifts, they are all right; they can do it.
