Shoveling Snow
I normally beg or bribe my neighbors to dig me out of the snow when it hits. Don’t worry, I plan on getting a snow blower some time this summer, so that I can fend for myself. The problem with this latest snow storm is that my neighbor with the large tractor hauled it off last week. I saw him driving down the road with it on a trailer, so I assume he was taking it in for repairs or something. I’m not sure, but he doesn’t have the tractor right now. My other neighbor with the smaller tractor with a snow blower is out of town right now, so he can’t come to my rescue either.
That means that I’m stuck shoveling snow in order to get Kiara’s car out of the garage in time for her cat show this weekend. My car (through a series of unfortunate decisions) is out of the garage, though. I did an hour of shoveling last night, and I managed to get a 10 foot wide, and 4 foot long channel started through the snow bank. The snow is about 2 feet high. Do the math and you’ll determine that I moved 80 cubic feet of snow in about an hour. That actually sounds kind of impressive. The downside to all of this is that I’m only about a third of the way through the snow bank.
It’s really warm today (current 63 degrees F), so I’m hoping that a good portion of the snow has melted off. Of course, it’s really heavy snow, and when it melts, it just gets heavier. I think it may be about the same amount of work to shovel partially melted snow as it is to shovel fresh snow. The volume of the snow may go down, but the density increases. All-in-all, it’s about the same amount of lifting effort once you’re done.
Maybe my out-of-town-neighbor will return sometime today, see our driveway, and be a nice enough fella to snow blow it before we get home. He’s done this in the past, and I’ve always appreciated it. I’ll appreciate it this time, if it happens.
Here’s to hoping that I don’t have to spend another two hours digging through the snow!
