I was caught a bit off guard last week when the wife announced that, at 75, she was finished wrestling with our snow-blower and had recycled it.

As a writer, I don’t usually involve myself with day-to-day domestic matters, but, with Juno then impending, I was impelled to quickly go on line to seek alternatives.

My Google search soon came up with what looked like an answer to my needs. The Hyastani Snow Removal and Gas Grill Maintenance Cooperative on Nantucket had recently set up to service Eastern Massachusetts, the Cape & Islands. A productive conversation with owner Ardash Epranian followed, during which I determined that, as a Cypriot, he was intimately familiar with island-to-mainland heavy equipment operations. Satisfied, I signed up for the season and sat back to let the blizzard do its worst.

Well, the best laid plans…..

Now we know that, with Juno’s first icy gust, Nantucket went black, losing all electric power, including that needed to operate the doors of Epranian’s equipment garage. He was last seen going door to door in a skiff along ice floe-choked Main Street in search of a portable generator.

Meanwhile, back here in Cummaquid, I called every snow-plowing service on the Cape, only to be told that the earliest anyone could get to me was sometime in May.

Anyone out there got a snow-blower my wife could borrow?