Winter Weather And Shoveling

Winter weather has struck with a vengeance. On Thursday we got around six inches of snow. This caused some aggravation because we had to be out in it for an eye doctor's appointments. See my wife's blog for general details on the day.

The part I want to draw your attention to is the shoveling of the snow. After supper, I had to go out and shovel the driveway and the walk ways. If I didn't do it then, I would have to do it all before going to work and that was not happening. The boys came out with me and played while I labored. I'm looking forward to when they are seven and up and can actually help me shovel.

The snow was very dry and so it was light, there just was quite a bit of it. The boys and I tried to make a snowman but the snow was so dry that it did not stick together. I could not make a snowball to save my life. It was still snowing after I finished or rather completed the first wave of shoveling of each area. The next wave would be in the morning.

Sort of a side note, I wonder if the guys plowing take any delight in filling up the end of people's driveways with walls of snow? I had literally just finished shoveling out the end of my driveway when a plow came along. I had to step back so that I would not be covered in the wave of snow coming off of the plow blade. And I got to shovel the end of the driveway out once again.

On Friday morning there was about an inch and a half that had fallen since I finished up the night before. I hurried to clear the walk way, the driveway and clean of the van before heading off to work. Which meant I arrived at work tired and ready for a nap.

For those who don't live where there is a lot of snow you may be thinking, "Why bother when there's only one and a half inches?" I thought the same when we first moved up here. The reasons are:

• If the walk way is not shoveled, the mail man could decide not to deliver the mail. With Christmas approaching we've been getting a lot of packages so I could not let that happen.
• If you drive over the snow in your driveway, it compacts it and those strips (where the wheels drove over) will turn to ice and become a pain in the neck.
• If you can get down to the pavement, even if it is only in spots, that lets the sun heat it up, which assists in the melting the snow and ice around it.

It's also a good idea to clean off the hood and roof of your vehicle, especially if you will be going very fast at all. If the snow stays snow, then it just blows off of your vehicle, which does not do much harm other than possible obscuring the view of someone behind you and making them use their windshield wipers. However, if the snow has hardened and turned to ice, it can be come a deadly weapon. Once you are going fast enough, the wind can cause the ice to come off in a big sheet and fly up into the air, possibly landing on a vehicle behind you. Not good.

Another tip - always keep your windshield wiper fluid topped off, especially if you live where they salt the roads. Salt and dirt in the spray caused by the tires of the vehicles in front of you can fast dry out on your windshield, making an opaque screen. If you don't have the wiper fluid to wash it off with, you will be forced to pull over and remove it some other way.

Sorry, I didn't mean for this post to turn in to one about winter driving tips. Back to the weather and the shoveling. To recap, I shoveled Thursday evening and I shoveled Friday morning.

On Saturday, I made a couple of trips to Lowes to buy a new snow shovel (the one I had came with the house and had seen better days; Thursday and Friday convinced me that it needed to be retired) and some more ice melt. I had to make two trips because on the first one, they did not have any snow shovels. When I could not find any I asked one of the employees where they were. His reply, "On I-95." I was puzzled by this response (I had visions of them having fallen off a truck and being scatter on the interstate), which he read on my face. So he explained that they had run out of them on Thursday evening and were awaiting an emergency shipment via UPS that was due to arrive at any time. Not knowing how long this time would be, I opted to go home for breakfast and return afterwards. On the second trip I was able to purchase one of those ergonomic snow shovels, the ones with the bent handle to minimize the amount of bending over you have to do.

After the boys' nap time I tried out my new shovel, this time to free up our trash and recycle bins. I also worked on some ice still sticking to the driveway, a result of coming home Thursday evening (see bullet point number two above.) Once that was done, I decided that was enough.

Stephanie was gone, Ellie was napping and I had taken the boys out with me to do the shoveling. So I took the boys into the backyard in order to pull them around in the toboggan. That did not last long. On the second circuit around the yard, I decided to try to get up enough speed that I could release the boys and they would go sliding off on their own. It had worked great last year with Will. Something went wrong in the transition from dad-guided to free-sliding, resulting in a capsized toboggan and two crying boys, one with a bleeding lip and one with a bleeding cheek. Boy, did I feel bad, especially as the boys were wailing and asking why I made them crash.

I took them inside, cleaned them up and fixed hot cocoa, with miniature marshmallows. That soothed them.

Sunday morning, we awoke to more snow (2-4 inches) along with sleet and rain. It rained most of the day. Our church service was canceled, so I was not forced to go out and shovel during the worst of it. After lunch the sleet had stopped and the rain had slowed down. I was not looking forward to this but knew I could not put it off any longer. I suited up and headed out for my fourth day in a row of shoveling. This time add in a slow rain to change things up. I was impressed at the difference have a good, ergonomic snow shovel made on my lower back. It did not do anything for my arms or upper back. And even though this snow fall was less than the one on Thursday night, this one was wet, heavy snow.

I'm now plenty sore and tired. I've had enough snow for the winter, thank you very much. I checked the forecast and at least there does not appear to be anymore snow for the next five days.