28th January 2019
Today was my first opportunity to clear the snow from the driveway. There had been a severe weather warning for West Michigan, meaning a shed load of the white stuff was due to fall. This has been blamed on Canada, the only thing the poor Canadians can be blamed for. So we went off to sleep thinking that everywhere would be buried completely by morning. As it was only six inches that fell, this was my opportunity to show my snow clearing skills.
First I had to dress appropriately with big boots, big coat, woolly hat and gloves so thick I couldn’t bend my fingers. All this attire meant I had to walk sideways out of the doors
Armed with a snow scoop I ventured into the bleak mid-winter, ready to attack the drifts.
It was not the freshly fallen snow that was the problem, it was the rock hard ice that had been compacted from the last storm. This compounded by the bloody ploughs who build a wall of snow at the end of the drive. I started on my task whistling a merry tune, but that soon stopped as my strength was sapped, not from the scooping, but from the weight of the clothing. The ice was no match for the scoop, I had to bring in the big guns, the shovel.
The perspiration was running down my forehead, I was getting hotter as I was chipping chunks from the iceberg. I looked over to the other houses close by who had snow blowers. These are the people who wait for the first flake to fall and then break out the machine. They don’t have the manly pleasure of working until it feels like your heart is about to explode inside your padded coat.
I had expected to stay in the warm and get on with some woodwork, but no, Kelli had scanned Facebook Marketplace and found a piece that was not far away. Off we drove into the unknown. The piece was down in a basement, so we had to carry it up the stairs. I gallantly took the heavy end, and we progressed up step by step. It felt like I was balancing the whole thing, and it was only the thought of falling back and squashing the person’s cat, that was following me, that kept me going.
Once loaded on the truck we head back to the warmth of home.
It looked like the plastic film we stretched over the windows was having an effect on the room temperature, so yippee to that.
The bad news was that Painted Farmgirl was closed due to the anticipated weather, so no sales today.
I managed to clear half the driveway before my strength gave out, (not really, but I needed an excuse to stop) and I came inside for a well earned cup of coffee.
Kelli pulled off another triumph by putting on Marketplace some drawer knobs with a chicken image on them. This is recycling at it’s best. We took them off a dresser we are renovating, and straight away had two people wanting them. This is why my wife is my hero, now the challenge is to sell a pile of wood shavings, if she can do that she will be god!
We also finished the low dresser, or blanket drawer, as we later found out.
Another Lifetime to go 