This week I have watched as my neighbors have donned their tall furry hats and industrial boots. They have rosined their snow blowers, tuned them to each other and started the ballet that I imagine occurs on snow covered streets across the Northern United States. The whirring of the motors has been kept in rhythm with the scrape of shovels and the flop of snow from trees—the symphony and the dancers perfectly in sync.
I have watched from the bay window in my living room as the family across the street—a mother and two girls—grab color coordinated shovels, and with a flourish begin clearing their driveway in a well-practiced choreography. They go from left to right three feet from each other and push the snow to one side, then step-turn back, pushing the shovel to the other side. I am mesmerized, as I start planning my own choreography.
I decide I am not going to go from left to right, I am going from my garage to the street. I decide I am going to wait until it quits snowing, because isn’t it better to just shovel once? I admire their chorus line coordination, but why oh why are they starting so early? Why are they going across, wouldn’t you just need tire tracks to get out of your driveway? Maybe they are just doing what they have always done and maybe it takes a newcomer to revolutionize the process….
Yep, that’s right, I was an arrogant American in a foreign land! You can only imagine what a calamity of errors occurred in my driveway the next morning from the moment I raised the garage door. With the first push of the shovel I hit such the wrong note on my first attempt at this winter symphony.
In my defense, I have a narrow short driveway with retaining walls on either side, so it wasn’t completely out of the realm of possibility to be able to push snow to the end of the driveway. After all it was the softest, most powdery snow I had ever seen. And the retaining wall certainly had to change my mode of operation compared to the folks across the street who are sans retaining walls.
Well, 10-ish inches of snow, piles up pretty quickly! So after about 5 feet of my “tire track” every single thing I had watched the night before clicked into place. Start early and shovel often, then the snow isn’t quite so heavy! If you shovel out to the street there is nowhere to put the snow, so you have to pile it up at either side! Genius!
My learning curve continued and expanded to include my wardrobe. I started in my chin-to-ankle parka, which quickly became very hot. Half way through the job, I went in and changed my coat, ditched the earmuffs for a hat (because the tree over the driveway kept throwing snowballs directly on top of my head!) and changed from my rain boots to something with more traction. I also changed from sweat pants to jeans, which held up against the wet snow better. The costume change revolutionized my proficiency!
By the time I reached the end of my driveway, I was exhausted, but not finished. I have 152,000 steps from the street to my front door and the mailman will not deliver the mail to my mailbox perched at the top of those steps, if they are not cleared (rain, sleet or snow, my eye!). Additionally, the city will charge me $35 for every hour they note I have not cleared the sidewalk in front of my house. Luckily my neighbor, who has a snow blower saw me sliding down the front slope of my yard as I struggled to shovel the steps, so he performed and a la seconde and cleared the sidewalk in a matter of minutes! He also “shaved” the piles of snow on either side of my driveway, informing me that those would be there until March and close in on the driveway with each snow. He is my danceur noble and will be receiving a world of baked goods for these kindnesses!
Before the second big snow, I assessed my tools and determined that perhaps I should look at a snow blower, maybe find a sharper shovel that will scrape the concrete and find some salt to see if I couldn’t clear the driveway completely before the new snow.
I took an intermission to Theissens (pronounced Tysons) a farm store. It was the biggest of educations so far. There were clothes, sleds, snowboards, ice fishing shacks, boots, snow blowers, with heated hoods and handles (all very expensive) and a myriad of shovels that didn’t even look like shovels. I started there— lifting shovels, examining handles, miming shoveling motions, talking with other patrons who were full of advice. I loaded the recommended shovel into my cart and then made my way across the store. Apparently I drew an audience with my accent and my novice snow shoveling banter. As I made my way with my chosen shovel in my cart across the store, others stopped me and commented on the conversations they had overheard and corrected the advice I had received previously. After being stopped by three other people with advice, I went back to the shovel section and exchanged the shovel I had chosen for an ice chipper, which is indeed what I needed….
I must say the second attempt at shoveling has gone much better. I performed an overture, starting early, shoveling the first 2 inches and will probably go out again before bed and shovel it again.
Meanwhile Mr. Beuchle (pronounced Beakly) is already out there performing his solo dance with his snow blower on my sidewalk, so I have some Molasses cookies to make this evening too!
