The projections for snowfall in the Albany area on Wednesday night and Thursday, even on Tuesday, were for between nine and fifteen inches. It ended up being closer to nine PLUS fifteen inches in my city.
It started to fall at an inconvenient time for my usual snow removal strategy. Usually, I like to shovel often, after four or five inches have hit the ground. But at 10 pm when I went to bed, there was really only a dusting.
By the time I got up a little after 6, there was well over one foot. After my Bible study, I went out for about 40 minutes, fully prepared, including sunglasses to protect me from the snow glare. It took 10 minutes just to clear the porch and the steps. I got only half way down the walkway.
After breakfast, including some hot tea, I went out for round two. And it was wonderful. Seriously. I got to talk to my neighbors, who were all socially distant. We conversed about things such as the fact that my wife, a teacher, had a snow day in her district, but my daughter had to do the mindnumbing online school. A couple of the neighbors had snowplows, but one of the machines stubbornly refused to start.
Is that our vehicle? I can’t tell.
After clearing the sidewalk, it was time to start with our vehicle, parked on the street. This is more difficult to liberate because I feel restricted as to where to put the snow. I don’t want to put it in a place that will make it harder for my neighbors to dig their cars out. You’re not supposed to dump it in the road. So I end up schlepping it farther. By the time I went back inside, it’d been another two hours. The snow had finally stopped.
More tea. After lunch, I asked my wife to help with liberating the car because she’d be the one who had to drive it to work the next day. Already, it was already getting colder. We didn’t want to have to dig it out the next morning when it’d be 9 degrees Fahrenheit. And about an hour later, we had succeeded.
A couple of snowfall notes. The mail never came. Given the stories I’ve heard about the Postal Service, I want to attest that this was the FIRST time this had occurred in years. And we did get that day’s mail the following day. The newspaper arrived the next day as well.
Apparently, our daughter had gone out at 1 a.m. and had shoveled the walk. So she had removed three or four inches before I had started. Thanks, dear.
My wife appreciates the fact that I shovel the whole sidewalk, not a shovel-width of it. That’s the way I learned how to do it decades ago. And as I get older, I HATE walking through those narrow channels that some others call “shoveling.”
My hometown of Binghamton got over 40 inches from that storm. So we were lucky!
That day, we also took some pictures and recorded an Advent video. All in all, a great day. Well, except for my back. Where’s the Tylenol?