The Warmup

I dug out a pathway through the accumulated snow from the front door to the back door this morning.  I had hopes that allowing the snow to just melt this year instead of creating escape routes would work.  I did try to stay lazy.  Or as they .......wait a minute, someone or something is raising Hell in the kitchen..........................Stupid cats.  Buster's got a mouse and of course it is still alive.  Well, I hope he doesn't tear the house up playing with it.................................Anyway, where was I?  Oh yeah.

I did try to conserve my vital juices and stored energies for more important and self satisfying endeavors than picking snow up and moving it manually.   But I could not open the back door this morning.  Too much snow and too many fallen icicles had piled up in front of it.  Add in the fact that by tomorrow night there may be 2 more feet of new snow on top of what we have now, and suddenly what was less important yesterday is now at the front of the line.

As I finished the hour and a half's worth of shovel and grunt, it began to snow.  We aren't supposed to get more than .........wait a minute......now it's no more than 8 inches today.  A four hour break tonight and then tomorrow, the main event.  Up to another 18 inches tomorrow.  Yee Hah!

I only bring this up because should we get nailed tomorrow, according to the under achieving real estate folks,  another average year of snow fall will have fallen.  But based on the actual average for the last ten years, we will need another 15" to reach our true average.  At the pace we are setting in 2011, it's looking like another 90 plus inch season.

I broke a favorite snow shovel this morning also.  The plastic one with the steel edge.  Found some ice that overwhelmed it's ability to handle.  That makes three snow removal implements busted this year.  None of them owed me anything I guess.  Worn out is worn out.  But it sucks to drop $100 on new snow tools in the space of a few weeks.  Also ten years seems to be a damn short lifespan for a shovel.  Okay, so the snow scoop was probably fifteen years old, but well, it's only snow ferchrisakes.  Yeah, yeah, I guess the ice counts too.

The snow we are getting here this year is nothing out of the ordinary  for our area.  But it seems the national media has taken more interest in it than ever before.  Maybe it is because more snow has fallen in New York City this winter than has fallen here in Maine.  The East Coast snowfall is 83% above normal for this time of the year.  Central Park has usually gotten 10-11 inches by this time.  They are closing in on 60 inches.  I would guess that after this storm, they will be at or above 70 inches for the season.

Snow removal budgets up and down the eastern seaboard were over drawn awhile ago.  Residents of the coastal plain are tired of digging out their cars, their walks, their lives.  I sit here and wonder what the big deal is.  We dig out all the time.  And I guess that's the problem, the rest of the East south of Connecticut is not used to more than a few minor dumpings.  This year they got a Maine winter.  Maybe next year we'll get a Maryland winter.

See Ya.............................................................