You know, one thing about all this snow that I have to emphasize (if I have not blog-posted about already) is that I am will be so goddamned relieved once winter is over because of the responsibility of tending to it. All of it. Not just shoveling, although that's a huge part. But there are ancillary other considerations that go into this ... thing/concept of snow that radiates to all parts of your day.
I will start with today's pain-in-the-ass. Like I blog-posted about before, I didn't think raking the roof was enough because the ice is damming at the gutters. So I spent some time today (after becoming too lazy to do it last night) finding roof pucks, those discs of calcium you're supposed to toss onto your roof in order to melt the snow and ice. I spent a good amount of my afternoon hunting around for it, finding it, getting upcharged up the wazoo for it (I just know it), then practicing trying to hurl those damn things up two stories to a patch of the roof that will help melt the ice and stop the ice dams. Those damn things dropped onto the floor once too often this afternoon, I tell ya.
Oh, and one thing I may be should have realized well before today: If any human touches snow that has fallen on the ground, it becomes tremendously icy and heavy. I was able to chip away at the end-of-the-driveway snow, that heart-attack snow that was shoved onto my property by the city, but I literally have no energy to do clear any more of my driveway now. Well, I did try and attack the mounds of snow that I raked off my roof and, uh, just left there. But I need an ice-breaking ship in order to penetrate into those mounds -- frontyard and backyard -- and I failed. There is literally a mountain (OK, maybe not literally) of hardened snow lining the walkway up the front door, and literally a mountain (OK, maybe not literally) of hardened snow that currently sits on my back deck. After trying to scrape down the front mound, I stood on top of the back mound to shovel, and I fuckin' couldn't do that, either. So I gave up.
The sun was shining today. And for this part of the year, it is warm. I had my jacket on when I tried to start the snowblower (and that didn't work, for crissake), but by the time I went to shovel, I was too hot! I took off my jacket and my sweater, and I felt fine shoveling with just my thermal shirt on.
When a Minnesotan suffers through a winter as hellacious as we've gone through, and you feel the warm radiation of the sun like we had today, dammit, you feel like going out. That's what I want to do after I blog post this. But there were days (and, to admit, those days are in the past now) where your cabin fever compels you to do something, but you can't because it's snowing, or, like Saturday, forecasts say it will snow and you don't want to get into an accident on the road. It sucks that your free time is dictated by the weather during the winter, and Mother Nature's oppressive barrage of snowstorm after snowstorm probably ginned up a lot of internal frustration in people. I continue to think Minnesotans are great people because the winters keep out the pussies and the stupid, but for a second consecutive winter, I have had enough.
So, even though the advent of spring means the advent of my allergies (let alone the return of my parents), I welcome it. I can do whatever the hell I want without needing to shovel, or rake the roof, or worry about ice dams, or check the weather report to see if it's smarter just to stay home.
This week, however, may not be the week where we bust out our spring clothes. It'll be above freezing starting tomorrow ... where we'll get rain, and lots of it, to the point that there are Flash Flood Warnings being issued for our area. At least I can drive in it -- well, assuming it's not flooded -- and at least that rain will eat into the snow that's on my roof and walkway and deck. But snow is supposed to come back in Thursday night, and with it temperatures back below freezing. So, for all I know, even though we're all done with this fucking winter, this fucking winter ain't completely done with us.
I will start with today's pain-in-the-ass. Like I blog-posted about before, I didn't think raking the roof was enough because the ice is damming at the gutters. So I spent some time today (after becoming too lazy to do it last night) finding roof pucks, those discs of calcium you're supposed to toss onto your roof in order to melt the snow and ice. I spent a good amount of my afternoon hunting around for it, finding it, getting upcharged up the wazoo for it (I just know it), then practicing trying to hurl those damn things up two stories to a patch of the roof that will help melt the ice and stop the ice dams. Those damn things dropped onto the floor once too often this afternoon, I tell ya.
Oh, and one thing I may be should have realized well before today: If any human touches snow that has fallen on the ground, it becomes tremendously icy and heavy. I was able to chip away at the end-of-the-driveway snow, that heart-attack snow that was shoved onto my property by the city, but I literally have no energy to do clear any more of my driveway now. Well, I did try and attack the mounds of snow that I raked off my roof and, uh, just left there. But I need an ice-breaking ship in order to penetrate into those mounds -- frontyard and backyard -- and I failed. There is literally a mountain (OK, maybe not literally) of hardened snow lining the walkway up the front door, and literally a mountain (OK, maybe not literally) of hardened snow that currently sits on my back deck. After trying to scrape down the front mound, I stood on top of the back mound to shovel, and I fuckin' couldn't do that, either. So I gave up.
The sun was shining today. And for this part of the year, it is warm. I had my jacket on when I tried to start the snowblower (and that didn't work, for crissake), but by the time I went to shovel, I was too hot! I took off my jacket and my sweater, and I felt fine shoveling with just my thermal shirt on.
When a Minnesotan suffers through a winter as hellacious as we've gone through, and you feel the warm radiation of the sun like we had today, dammit, you feel like going out. That's what I want to do after I blog post this. But there were days (and, to admit, those days are in the past now) where your cabin fever compels you to do something, but you can't because it's snowing, or, like Saturday, forecasts say it will snow and you don't want to get into an accident on the road. It sucks that your free time is dictated by the weather during the winter, and Mother Nature's oppressive barrage of snowstorm after snowstorm probably ginned up a lot of internal frustration in people. I continue to think Minnesotans are great people because the winters keep out the pussies and the stupid, but for a second consecutive winter, I have had enough.
So, even though the advent of spring means the advent of my allergies (let alone the return of my parents), I welcome it. I can do whatever the hell I want without needing to shovel, or rake the roof, or worry about ice dams, or check the weather report to see if it's smarter just to stay home.
This week, however, may not be the week where we bust out our spring clothes. It'll be above freezing starting tomorrow ... where we'll get rain, and lots of it, to the point that there are Flash Flood Warnings being issued for our area. At least I can drive in it -- well, assuming it's not flooded -- and at least that rain will eat into the snow that's on my roof and walkway and deck. But snow is supposed to come back in Thursday night, and with it temperatures back below freezing. So, for all I know, even though we're all done with this fucking winter, this fucking winter ain't completely done with us.
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