Shovelling Snow

This year in Edmonton we have been very lucky. There has been very little snowfall and even after it snows, a few back to back 10 degree days out there and the snow disappears....Global warming is clearly myth people! It has meant that we have had to do very little shovelling but to most people this is a good thing.

Shovelling is one activity in which many Canadians have a strong dislike for. It involves going out on the driveway in the cold/wind/snow and removing all of the snow off of the driveway onto front lawn or plants. Inevitably there are many obstacles to shovelling the snow. For example, at our house, my car sits on the driveway. This makes shovelling snow more difficult because you can only move snow in one direction. To compound this problem shrubs have grown over the driveway and made it more difficult to even get the snow away from the driveway. Next door neighbours also have to compete for available front lawn upon which snow can be removed to and this is especially seen in cul-de-sacs.

When it comes to shovelling snow at our house usually it is myself that does it. In the winter I figure that it's a great way to get a bit of an ab workout. As well, after being out in the cold for a little while it makes me thankful that I have a nice warm house to retreat to.

At any rate I've noticed that there are many ways that people shovel snow. Some people in the mornings shovel where the cars are going to drive. Doing it this way prevents tires from making snow tracks on the driveway visible only when the snow is finally shovelled after arriving home from work or school. To me this just lengthens the shovelling process. People like my mom shovel snow even if there is less than a millimeter for some strange reason. On the other hand, some people never shovel. They hope that there will be one hot day in he week after a snowfall to melt all of the snow away. This never happens so they are left with a very ugly driveway. There are some people who dislike having snow shoveled onto their front lawns. Instead, they are idiots and shovel onto the road. I have yet to figure out the logic behind this. It makes the road by your house more difficult to navigate and just looks plain stupid. I mean who wants to see a HUGE pyramid on the side of your driveway.

Probably the funniest thing about shovelling snow is when there is a massive snow storm in Eastern Canada. Over 1 metre of snow can fall in less than 48 hours. The snow is not simply the nice powder we get in Alberta but soppy wet snow that weighs as much as concrete. The thing that gets me is that when these storms happen I always see on the news that shovels are flying off the shelves in stores? What the hell? We live in Canada!! Why wouldn't you have a snow shovel!

So people, lets be reasonable when shovelling the next time that we need to!