cracked shovel

We got another foot of snow on Sunday night. And then a few more inches on Monday afternoon. That's my car parked out on our street, lonesome and cold and waiting to be buried by the plows. Rory went out on Sunday to shovel and while attempting to throw snow up higher than his head while trying to clear our driveway, he felt a large muscle spasm in his back and slowly walked back into the house. Since then he winces when he picks up Ivar. It is not good.

So Monday I set out with my snow pants, our cracked shovel and a sunny attitude ready for some good physical exertion and fresh air. I removed the foot of snow down our steps and on our side walk and out to the street. It felt good.

A funny thing happens when you're shoveling your sidewalk though. Even though I had a cracked shovel, it was hard to stop at our property line. I don't know how I could do that in good conscience. Because my next door neighbor has two new knees. And next to her is a sweet older couple who I watch steady themselves to their car when they head out for errands.

So I took my cracked shovel and made my way up the street. I shoveled a path across my neighbors side walk and made it to the next house past hers that I've always felt belonged in The Shire. It's so adorable and charming. When I was shoveling the older couple's sidewalk who lives in this hobbit home, the husband stuck his head out of his front door and thanked me and told me his son would be coming a bit later to do the rest. I told him to stay put until he comes, it's icey by the curb.

He told me that on Sunday when he and his wife returned from church they both slipped in the street and he had to crawl up to his front stoop to use the railing to stand back up again so he could go back to help his wife get up.

Oh my word. You have no idea how many times I have envisioned this scene and how sorry I am that I didn't see it so I could go and help! I look out at his car all the time when I walk with Ivar past our picture window. He assured me they were okay, just shaken up a bit. I now look out that window every 30 seconds with worry...

Then I made my way to the back to shovel the drive there. I thought about how many times Rory and I high-fived in Omaha when the snow fell and we didn't have to lift a finger in our apartment. I began to wonder if everything has a way of evening itself out in the end...

Now I don't know how to really show this, but that picture above is our driveway. You step down three steps from the backyard to get to the garage and so we already have to lift our driveway snow up two feet onto the retaining wall.

But we have gotten so much snow this year, that the two foot retaining wall has now morphed into six or seven feet of madness. Honest to goodness, there is no place to put the snow other than on that growing mountain. Hence Rory throwing his back out has he attempted to catapult our snow over the lilacs.

My sunny attitude was now overwhelmed and I gave up at this point, deciding the only way this driveway (which has two foot drifts in parts!) is ever going to be cleared, is if we shovel onto a tarp, drag the tarp up the steps and dump the snow in our back yard. And just repeat that process 75 times.

Naturally we decided to wait on that project and watch the bachelor instead.

It does make me wonder though...wouldn't it be great if someone made a machine of sorts that would run on gasoline and in essence, throw the snow over that tall heap? A blower of the snow. Something that would make loud noises and would sounds like heaven walking down your sidewalk if a neighbor was so kind to clear a way. Maybe you could paint it red. And when you cleared your neighbors walk, the snow flying through the air would mark your arrival like a festive flag at the start of a parade and the noise would sound like trumpets to them because all they would hear is, "put that cracked shovel down! Go cozy up in your warm home! Because I'm your neighbor, and I have a... Snow Blower!!!"

Alrighty. I know I'm getting loopy now. Thanks for still reading. It's 3:43 and we're trying to help Ivar skip his 3:00 feeding so for the first 20 minutes of this post I was listening to my crying son. But he fell back asleep and now I should do that too... Thanks blog readers for helping me pass the time :)