The Perilous Life of a Country Mailbox

Mike and I have lived in our house almost four years now.  We installed our first mailbox, however, a year or two before the house was even built.

At this point, we have owned and installed three mail boxes.  The first mail box got knocked down by a snow plow when we were not even living here full time.  The post office had to get snippy with us before we finally got around to replacing the box.  The second mailbox was built over a fence post in the hopes that it could withstand contact with a snow plow.  I guess it was successful at that but it leaked and I was forever putting new house numbers on it because they would slide off.

So we are on our third mailbox.  It does not leak but I was tired of the job of replacing the house numbers periodically so we added a custom reflective green address aluminum sign.  As a result, I have been very pleased with our third mailbox.  A snow plow even tried to knock it over this winter and was fortunately unsuccessful although our sign took a beating.

So I was a bit concerned one winter day when I came home from church and noticed deep tire tracks next to the mailbox.

I asked Mike if he knew what happened and he was gracious enough to get in his truck and recreate the incident for me.  The incident occurred about 10 am on Sunday morning.  Both Mike and I had driven to church in separate vehicles at about 8 am in the morning with no problem.  However, as the day progressed the ground became more and more icy.  Mike drove home in his truck very carefully and was just relaxing as he turned into the driveway.   

The truck wheels could not complete the turn and the truck headed straight for the mailbox. 

Fortunately, the truck was angled enough away from the mail box that it was still standing when the truck finally stopped.  

Maybe we are getting luckier with this mail box.  So far it has escaped demolition from a snow plow and Mike's truck.  If it has nine lives, I can relax as I have seven more to go.