Mont. Town Uses Snowplows For Tumbleweed

Montana residents are used to digging themselves out after heavy snowstorms, but residents of one neighborhood had to put a snowplow to different use: clearing mounds of tumbleweed from their driveways.

Winds flooded a Springhill-area neighborhood with tumbleweed Tuesday, covering sheds, burying mailboxes and blocking a street and driveways.

Residents of Shooting Star Lane were forced to use snowplows and pitchforks to clear the debris.

Cindy Bowker, who has lived in the neighborhood for 12 years, awakened to find tumbleweed surrounding her home, blanketing her back deck and windows.

She had to tunnel through the weeds from her front door to her two-car garage and driveway.

"Both garages were covered," Bowker said. "We got the real dense stuff out and just drove through it. It was up over the headlights. It was all the way up the steps and covered our front door."

A few residents of the seven-home cul-de-sac blamed a 160-acre farm northeast of them for the tumbleweed problem. Half of the farm's crop went bad last year, and the weeds sprouted on about 80 acres, Bowker said.

Across the street from Bowker, Hank and Jan Mueller's snowmobile, shed, camper and driveway were covered with tumbleweed.

"We've had blizzards up here, but this was not like anything we have ever seen," Jan Mueller said.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press.

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