Snow Spiral Works, Kinda, If Snow Isn’t Deep

I am just in from snow shoveling. I was using an ingenious old Yankee device that I saw on Facebook, then remembered I had one just like that in my garage gathering dust. I took the red snow spiraler machine and began to try to use it to clear about five inches of dry snow. It ‘sort of’ works, but the problem is it has a really specific kind of top level of snowfall before it gets overwhelmed and snow spills off to the side–the wrong side.  Well, to be fair, looking back I made quite a dent in less than 15 minutes of swiveling and shoveling.

Now I”m getting ready to drive out to Cumberland Farms for gas to power the snow thrower when the snow finally ends. I”m not going to try and handle it all with the spiral shovel.  Going back to when I was growing up in New Jersey, snow has always been something that’s exciting and gives me pleasure. I love the sound of the snow falling, it makes that noise and there are so few cars driving by, it’s a lovely silence.

I know these are quite quotidian and boring thoughts, but I have been reading my father’s journals and I find that I am fascinated by the little details he includes in his carefully handwritten journal entries. That bag full of journals provides me with an endlessly enjoyable exploration into my family history, when stuff happened, and how Dad felt about it all. He wasn’t particularly nice to me in the journals, only a few kind remarks with several cutting jabs. But he was always so nice to me in person. Oh well.

I’ve had a few accidents in the snow, one where I remember that slow motion feeling of crashing, I totaled my car back in 2000, I just slid right into a snowbank covering up a big guardrail. Ouch!

Now I look at the fire going, and I look out at the big stacks of wood, and I glance at the oil tank, and my fridge, and all is well. No reason to go anywhere. But tomorrow I’ll venture out to play music with the boys, it’s been a few weeks.  Nice to be back in the groove.