Shoveling Warriors

As much as I love the snow, I have to admit that all that shoveling is quite the workout. It is good to keep in mind, however, that being active is a good thing, especially as I get older. It's also worthy to note that I am greatly aided by the contributions of the kids, mostly N, but sometimes A. On really snowy days I am amazed that at one time I did this all by myself.

As most of you may know by now, our area got slammed with a couple of big storms, and while I'm happy that we finally got some snow, the fickle weather can make it a chore to clear. This is especially true when the snow turns to freezing rain or rain and then cools down again. This is exactly what happened recently, and it makes it so the white stuff weighs a ton. Plus, since we had a freeze thaw pattern earlier, there is a crust of snow underneath the softer stuff that in certain places needed to be cleared. As you can guess, we had our work cut out for us. The main reason for this is because we have to be able to cart wood in a wheelbarrow to the house. If the under-layer is frozen solid, no problem, though it's slippery. If it's softer and crunchy, however, it needs to be cleared. It took us a while to get it done, and required the use of a metal shovel to break it up and move it, and the big chunks of ice keep falling off the shovel, making me say the F-word constantly (such a bad influence on my kids), but we managed to get it done. Thanks to the kids for their help.

I'm not sure how much more snow we're going to get, but I think that most of the below zero days might be behind us. Then again, when you live in New England, you just never know what Mother Nature is going to throw at you, so it's best to just expect the unexpected, or better yet, have none.

Until the next time, thanks for reading, and thanks to Tianyu M. Fang for the pic.