the shovel

once more i made my acquaintance with the snow shovel sunday afternoon. yep, it's that time of year where the driveway and sidewalks get covered in snow. it must've snowed four to five inches saturday night. maybe a little more.

i spent an hour doing the job. i started in the area in front of the car and pushed the snow off to the back yard. then i worked on the areas around the car. then i divided the driveway in sections and drove the shovel into the snow in pieces. that how i usually do it. it makes the job seem smaller, less daunting.

the tough part are the areas where the car tires have gone over. the heat melts the snow or ice, but then freezes over and you see these long stripes of harder white lines leading to where the car is parked.

the drive, where you pull in from the street is tough, too. you get snow pushed in from the street by the plows and also from the sidewalk by the sidewalk plows. so there's a bunch of snow piled there. by mid winter both sides of the driveway are piled with a crapload of snow. i've stood on these piles, trying to flatten them because it gets hard to see as you're backing up. a pain in the ass.

it's weird, though, with the shovel. it takes a good couple of times to become accustomed to the shovel and get conditioned to doing the task. you know how to do it, you've done it the previous year, but it's like your body forgets. every muscle in your arms, legs and back cry inpain, "you sonf of a bitch, what are you doing?" but after awhile, it's all good and they don't complain too much.

also, having grown up in a hot climate in texas, it's still strange for me to sweat when it's 20 degrees out. i'm sure any northern-born lads and lasses are rolling their eyes about now, but i find it interesting to have a headful of hair under a hat drenched with sweat. i've come back indoors with an undershirt stuck to my back with sweat after shoveling the drive. it's an hour's worth of hard work. i enjoy it.

here's to the next shoveling.