Sunday, January 23, 2005
Shoveling Snow
As I'm writing this, it's about 5 degrees with a 30 mph wind howling outside. The snow has quit, but about 10 inches came down since last night. Today, I ended up shoveling the snow twice. Once this morning, and after the wind put all the snow back, again this afternoon. I can't complain too much about the winds today. The way the wind blew this morning most of my driveway was clear and the neighbors managed to collect most of the wind blown snow.
However, I really don't mind the snow that much. Especially the type of snow we've been getting lately. Nice dry, cold snow that doesn't clump or stick. You see, I don't use one of those smoke belching, eardrum rupturing gas powered snow blowers to move my snow. Just like my push reel lawn mower, I much prefer the quit and low hassle manual stuff. However, it's not all money since I will admit to being a bit of a snow shovel snob.
When I first moved to the house I bought the usual $12 aluminum cheapy snow shovel which all too soon wore out - both times. I finally decided to spend some bucks and buy a "good" shovel. For pushing most snow, I invested near $40 in a heavy Garant Yukon steel snow shovel that was designed to push snow (and made in Canada - eh?). For dry fluffy stuff like we've had for awhile, it's great. To move the big piles around, I then invested around $30 in a big Aluminum scoop shovel. Which stangely enough after buying the "feed" shovel in a farm store, has a note on it that states the lifetime warranty doesn't apply to agricultural use.
So what happens is I push the stuff around into big piles with the Yukon and then move the big piles around with the scoop shovel, and follow up with my cheapy aluminum shovel to clean up the small corners and finish things off with a straw broom. It's actually a pretty good way to get some exercise. Sorta a zen in shoveling.
Every now and then however, I do look a little lustfully at the big shiny snow blowers sitting in Sears - usually when I've finished shoveling snow in a blizzard while suffering from a cold - like this week. Sigh...
2fers: Garant Yukon steel snow shovel and Tractor Supply aluminum scoop shovel.
