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Okay, so we got our first real snow. I even got text-message confirmation on my phone that this qualified as an actual blizzard and that it was okay to call it "the blizzard of ought-five." I'd been using that name for every stray snowflake that'd fallen since my arrival in the state. It's nice to know I'd finally gotten it right.
Real snowfall is a wonderful thing...mostly. It quiets the world and makes everything look bright and beautiful. It also gives people who paid too much for snowmobiles some sort of validation of their purchase. Ditto for snowblowers, plow attachments for pickup trucks, and those weird ergonomic-handled snow pusher-type shovels.
So, basically, everyone was feeling pretty smug.
The cool thing about major snow in Iowa is that it is treated like a matter of course. Snow = plow. They just deal with it. The road clearing begins almost immediately and they keep it going on a periodic basis in order to stay ahead of heavy accumulation.
Snow comes in various types, of course. Early in winter, when the air is still dry, the snow is very light and it compacts easily but does not really stick together. Unless it is plowed.
Later in the season, when the air contains more moisture (I'm told) the snow is much wetter. It sticks together more and is much heavier per unit volume.
So, we had 17+ inches of very powdery dry snow. It shoveled easily. Unless it was previously plowed.
I dug a beautiful trench -- sort of a lazy S-shape, from my front door to the street. Then I left home to walk to work (at Dana's). I blithely assumed that the plow-master would notice my nice little path into the street and respect its boundaries. Not so. But I'm getting ahead of the story.
Plows, no matter how plentiful, can only do so much in a given period of time. People often help each other out by plowing driveways, walks, etc. The guy with the snowblower will often do his neighbor's walkways too, while he's at it, you know.
But even this informal (or formal) arrangement of snow removal suffers from the drawback of availability of labor. If one must leave the house by car before the snow removal person/volunteer/good Samaritan has been to your place, then you must shovel.
It's a choice one makes -- whether to shovel or not.
I made the wrong choice. We needed to go to the Post Office, and I thought the snow was very light, though deep, and it'd be a 1/2 hour job to move it from one place to another in the driveway. Well...17 inches x about 200 square feet of space (conservative estimate of the length x width of driveway space needed to get the car out at an angle) equates to almost 1/2 million cubic inches of snow to be moved.
There is no way to do this. It's impossible. Or, really, it should be assumed to be impossible. By anyone with an ounce of sense. Anyone who knows the plow guy will be through here eventually anyway. Anyone who lacks the right kind of shovel.
Okay, so I did it anyway. I was very clever in cutting a path through the huge pile of snow left by the plow in the alley next to the driveway, so didn't have to shovel the entire length of the driveway (i.e., another 500,000 cubic inches). But I wasn't all that clever because shoveling snow that has already been plowed is like the legend of Sisyphus, only colder. And more pointless.
But I did that too.
And we drove 2 blocks to the Post Office.
Okay, really, I shoveled all that so that I'd be able to get the car out so I could get to my early morning flight out of Des Moines. Good thing I did it too. Because the plow guy didn't come to do the driveway behind Dana's until later the next morning and I would've missed my flight for sure.
But still...
So, I was exhausted after all that shoveling, of course. I reminded Dana of her promise to handle all the shoveling that needed doing in our relationship. She simply pointed out that superfluous shoveling, by definition, did not NEED doing, and thus fell outside the bounds of our agreement. She had me there.
At any rate, after work that day, we ate dinner and I had Dana drive me home so that I could get some sleep, pack, etc. for the early a.m. drive to Des Moines.
Know this...Plows do one thing very well. They take snow from one place and pile it very high someplace else. That is what they are for. It's all they do. Apparently, on my street, the plowing pattern is such that the very high pile is on my side of the lane. Yes, I returned home to find that my gently curving path from door to street was about 1/3 buried by a four-foot high embankment of plowed snow. To get to the house where MY shovel is (a housewarming -- ha! -- present from my future inlaws) I had to scale this mount. I had gotten lazy when leaving Dana's and decided NOT to lace up my snow boots. I stepped up onto the heap. And sunk in to my waist. Snow inside boots, I sludged forward, dragging Smokey up and over the hill along with me. Dropped off the dog, grabbed the shovel, and boldly reasserted my pathway into the street. HA! Take that plow guy!
I went inside, took off my boots and collapsed. Got up later, packed, got dressed and ready to leave (for a trip to warmer climes). Looked outside and realized there was no way to get out to the street dressed as I was. The pile was BACK!
Got out my trusty shovel...
Now, Dana tells me that this is all my own fault and that I should just learn to appreciate the wonderfulness of plowed streets. I do appreciate the streets, really I do. And the fact that someone comes out and plows the driveway all the way up to the garage door is truly wonderful. Even when they do it a day or so late because of how busy things are what with all the snow everywhere and the need to get a path to EVERYONE's doors.
But all I ask is a path. A little, narrow path, that I can walk from door to street. I don't ask much. Just leave me that and I'll stop whining.
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You got a snow shovel as a gift? Awww. That's so sweet.
I'm serious. I remember the first time I realized I needed a snow shovel and didn't have one. The stores were all out. My aunt and uncle finally gave me an old, well-used one. I was so grateful.
And my grandparents gave me an ice scraper after the time I got to scrape the car windows off with plastic knives and old credit cards, but I suppose almost everyone has done that at some point. Right?
Posts: 1990 | Registered: Feb 2001
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Not Bob. He bought a six foot long telescoping industrial strength ice scraper and snow brush. Which he's never used, since he parks in the garage.
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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Seriously, be careful. A lot of people die every year after shoveling snow. I know someone who did. Shoveled, got into his car and dropped dead. Be careful.
Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
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That, too. Trust me, the snow will still be there for you to shovel later. Take it slow. The important thing is that you are there for Dana later, as well.
[ January 11, 2005, 10:06 PM: Message edited by: Glaphyra the Righteous ]
Posts: 93 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Good stuff, Bob! By the way eventually your desire to plow through those snow banks in a flurry will drift away. That's when you'll know you've become a true Iowan?, Iowanite?, ah I know, Midwesterner.
Posts: 2022 | Registered: Mar 2004
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I've had my heart checked regularly because none of the doctors can believe I don't have any signs of heart trouble. But there it is.
I have this weird inversion in my EKG. Not uncommon, but whenever a doctor uses one of those automated EKG machines, it sets off alarms and has to be checked out. Since I switch doctors every few years (by moving, usually) I end up going through a cardiac stress test pretty much within a week or so of my first annual checkup with the new doc.
Most recent checkup was one year ago. They said "oh, wow, you really are okay. Weird."
HA!
Of course, I was VERY careful shoveling because I do have a trick back and am pretty thoroughly out of shape (well, lumpy is a shape, isn't it?) so the shoveling was mostly the kind one sees road crews doing, i.e., leaning on the shovel a lot.
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
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Bob, Don't forget the instructions that came with that shovel. "Find a neighborhood kid and slip him a couple of bucks." All of the warnings on this thread should be heeded
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They really should be. While the test are nice and all, they are far from difinitive.
And he really didn't drop dead in the car. That would be more like "fell over dead." He got in the car, started off to work, got a flat tire and dropped dead when he got out of the car to change the tire. Can you imagine dying on the side of the road all by yourself thinking about needing to change a stupid tire?
That said, I remember the "blizzard" of seventy something. My father, thinking there had been a couple of inches of snow, decided that he would by-pass the shoveling at 6 am on Saturday morning (which drove my mother nuts because then you have part of the driveway that has compacted snow that you really can't shovel off and it could last all winter like that! (And you wonder where I get it. ) Anyway, he thought there was just a little drift piled up in front of the garage door, so he got in the car and hit the accelerator thinking he'd just kind of plow through it. Not. 17"! We couldn't leave the subdivision for a week. A helicopter came and landed in the common ground and picked up all the doctors and nurses and a guy with a motorcycle made it out about day 3 and got milk for everyone with kids. It was fun.
Then again, I grew up on Lake Erie with lake effect snows, so 17" was more like normal for us. My dad used to hose the yard down (to create a layer of ice over the snow) so we could build nearly life-sized snow houses.
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Surprisingly, there were NO neighborhood kids to be found when the time for shoveling came.
I was out there thinking of the advice that came with the shovel. I thought "now, just where would one find a neighborhood kid?" and later, "where's a neighborhood kid when you need one?" and finally "I bet there are unprecedented numbers of neighborhood kids buried in this damned snow pile."
Alas, no neighborhood kids.
Kayla. I really WAS careful. I took frequent breaks, kept hydrated, and didn't overload the shovel. But the warning is well worth repeating. I had an uncle (by marriage) who had a heart attack after deciding he should start running for his health after smoking for decades. It eventually killed him and it was really triggered by that one episode of deciding he needed to do something to get back in shape and then overdoing it all at once.
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Wonder if that was the storm of 79 (I think). I was 6 (if it was in fact 79). We got so much snow that it was drifted up the back of the house literally to the third story window of a split ranch with an upper addition. My sister, who's two years younger, and I climbed into our snowsuits, out the window (that was our bedroom at the time) and slid all the way down to the far end of the back yard. Ran down the alley to the end of the block (only 3 houses), around to the front door which had been cleared, and back upstairs to do it again. After the 4th or 5th inbound pass, Mom finally got curious and followed us up. She was more upset about the open window with the heat on than she was the fact that we were occupying ourselves and running the block unattended. Posts: 4515 | Registered: Jul 2004
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Goody Scrivener, I think that was it. We moved to St. Louis in late December '77 and it was within a year or two of moving that our friend died back in Ohio. (He was my gymnastics coach's husband and we swam in his pool every summer.) I was thinking it was somewhere between '78 and '80, but couldn't place it exactly as I have a really spotty memory. I do remember that the only time we actually got out of school at noon in Ohio was during a blizzard. Yes, they had all the kids walking home in a blizzard. And then it had the nerve to stop snowing by the time we should have gotten out.
In St. Louis however, they closed school if the wind blew too hard. We were totally blown away by "heat" days. And God help you if you actually have to drive in the mid-west with these nut jobs if there's even a quarter of an inch of snow. It's like they don't know how to drive! (I'm sure that doesn't apply to you Bob. )
Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
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I do NOT know how to drive on ice and snow. I was sort of looking forward to practicing after this storm, but had to leave town on a trip. Maybe next time.
Anyway, we passed a fair number of vehicles in the ditches alongside I-35 on our way to Des Moines the next morning, incuding one tractor-trailer.
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Bob, your furture brother-in-law suggests waving a $5 bill in the air as the best way to find a neighborhood kid after the snow falls. It costs more if you don't close the deal until the snow is on the ground.
Posts: 21 | Registered: Dec 2004
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Really, by the time the snow is on the ground, they are all doing the happy dance inside and praying that school has been canceled. They then talk about how it's too cold to even walk the dog, much less shovel the driveway and spend the rest of the day playing video games. Sheesh, if you knew anything about snow, you'd know that.
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Bob, I like your observation about the way the world is quiet when it is snowing. It's one of my favorite things about snowfall.
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Bob would be thrilled, although (as I keep telling him ) we don't need one because the guy who plows the church lot plows my (soon to be our) driveway and sidewalk at the same time.
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We got 10 inches of snow last week and I was having a rotten day (see ranty job email). I went outside and was determined to get our driveway shoveled.
It was so quiet and beautiful and the exercise did me some good. I love freshly fallen snow at night.
However, I had the opposite experience with the plower:
Our neighbor has one of said expensive snowblowers and usually does our driveway. I really appreciate this, but it makes me feel incredibly guilty.
I, seeing the large driveway in front of me, deep snow and lack of places to move it to, was piling the snow into a pile next to our garage. I made it about half way through the driveway before the pizza guy came. (Tom, the cunning guy that he is, knew that I wouldn't be able to resist and would have to come in.)
A few hours later, friendly neighbor came and plowed the rest of the drive. When I went out the next morning, my pile had disappeared. Snowblowers have a great range on them and he just blew the snow out across his own lawn.
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Be careful.
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) Anyway, he thought there was just a little drift piled up in front of the garage door, so he got in the car and hit the accelerator thinking he'd just kind of plow through it. Not. 17"! We couldn't leave the subdivision for a week. A helicopter came and landed in the common ground and picked up all the doctors and nurses and a guy with a motorcycle made it out about day 3 and got milk for everyone with kids. It was fun. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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) we don't need one because the guy who plows the church lot plows my (soon to be our) driveway and sidewalk at the same time.
