Coming just in time to spoil our plans to leave the state for the weekend, Winter wanted to show everybody that while Spring weather has begun to peek through every few days, it is not quite here yet. I am not sure exactly how much snow we got, since I was out shoveling 6 or 7 times and the wind left drifts everywhere. It was an interesting mix, though. Light powder, that then melted and became slush before freezing into ice, covered with more powder which then began to melt into slush. There was a great layering effect that happened.

I am very glad that we tried finding some snow shovels on clearance in the past few weeks. Our old plastic snow shovels were all torn up at the ends; one of them had lost about an inch and a half all told and the other was all curled and splitting. Our new shovels have a nice metal brace at the end of the shovel to help get the ice up and to keep the plastic from breaking. I also bought an ice pick for the driveway that has already shown us more value than the buck and a half it cost us.

All told, I think that I spent about 6 or 7 hours out shoveling. Thankfully, our neighbor has a snow blower and he did about a quarter of my driveway for me, which saved me about an hour and a half of work. The plows were able to clean up the streets and what was left melted off nicely, which meant that I got a couple of quality runs in this weekend without having to worry about footing.

Shoveling snow can be hard work. Shoveling 8 inches of snow is most likely hard work. Shoveling 8 inches of snow while it is still a blizzard condition is definately hard work. So what are the two best ways to make shoveling that snow easier? Other than lifting weights for months ahead of time in order to be physically fit enough to shovel your driveway, that is?

First, shovel the end of your driveway before the back side of it. While the shadows on your driveway and the time of day can certainly change this around, you will generally find that the snow at the end of your driveway is heavier than the snow at the back side. The dirt and grime that the snow plows shove into the snow, coupled with anybody pulling into or out of your driveway and packing it down, means that shoveling the end of the driveway is going to be more difficult than shoveling the lighter and cleaner snow that is away from the road. If you shovel the heavier snow first, then you will not be as tired when you are done because you will still have the energy to move that snow. If you save the heaviest snow for last, then you will have a much harder time as fatigue sets in and your workload increases.

Second, shovel the snow from left to right near the end of your driveway. I tend to push the snow that the plows have thrown into the driveway to the end and then with the direction of traffic, so that I am leaving it on the shoulder at the end of my driveway and off to the side. If you shovel half of the snow to the left and half of the snow to the right, then the plow trucks will just throw that snow right back onto your driveway. If you leave it on the shoulder to the right side, then the plows will carry it away from your driveway and you will have less to shovel the next day. Another advantage to this strategy is that more of the dirt and salt from the road is left closer to the road, so you will not be leaving that detriment in your yard for the spring. The street sweepers will come and pick up more of it. Unfortunately, the plow is probably going to send quite a bit into your yard anyway, but every little bit helps.

The true meaning of Christmas is always much more evident on trash day than on Christmas day.

This morning I put out twice as much trash as I usually do, and I normally only put trash out every other week. It is amazing how much more trash gets generated.

I do have to admit, however, that a part of that trash is related to our house getting broken into and having to replace a door. But that only accounts for about half of one of the bags.

Yesterday, my house was broken into. The thieves broke my glass door in the basement and stole my piggy bank. This left a lot of broken glass littering my basement and whereever it happened to be tracked through the house by people walking through it.

To clean the glass up, I used a combination of a plastic cup, a dust bin, a piece of wood (that used to wedge the sliding glass door shut but does not prevent people from coming through the door) and a bunch of paper bags. I double bagged the paper bags and filled them about a quarter to a third of the way before moving onto the next one. I also used a broom a few times, but for the most part it was easier scooping with the cup and the dust bin.

After almost hitting my head on the remaining glass in the door, I decided to get the rest of it out of the frame, which left a bit more to clean up. At least I didn’t have to worry about where I stood anymore.

Once I got the majority of the glass picked up, I got out the shop-vac. My boss let me borrow the shop-vac from work, and it made picking up much easier. It worked out quite well for getting things out of the corners and for the little bits strewn about everywhere. I still need to go outside and get the piles that are outside the door, but at least the vast majority of what was inside is picked up. We will be able to get in there and safely measure the door frame now to determine what we have available for a door replacement.

One thing I really do not understand is why people feel it is necessary to use my yard as their garbage dump. I can sort of understand (well, not really, but can at least fathom) why trash winds up in the road when folk throw their crap in the back of a pickup truck. This is Maine; ²/₃ of us do have one. Why they can’t secure their trash is beyond me, but at least it might sometimes be accidental.

I don’t think that is where the trash in my yard comes from, though. The trash in my yard is at least 60-70% fast food containers. Why should I have to dispose of it? If you don’t want to throw it in your own trash, then just bring it in with you to throw out the next time you eat fast food!

My idea of fun is not slodging around in my yard after dark in the rain with a head lamp looking for somebody’s latest paper cup and plastic bag.

I have not yet purchased the insulation for my attic. It was raining too hard this weekend, and I am supposed to be tapering for a marathon, so I decided to wait for a few weeks before I purchased it. One of my concerns about buying a lot of insulation at once was that there was no way I would get it home in one trip. I have a pickup truck, but insulation can take up a lot of space (hence the point of having it) and a small Ranger just will not cut it. There is a solution, though!
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This evening when I got home from work, I raked the leaves. I have no idea how well of a job I did, but we had two days of sunshine so I had to get out there. I did promise that I would, after all. It was pitch black by the time I finished. I was wearing a small head lamp, but I’ll see how well I did tomorrow after the sun comes up.
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There are a lot of trees on my property. This time of year, that means that there are a lot of leaves in my yard. I started raking a few weeks ago, but if you look out there now you would not be able to tell. The problem is that the first snowfall is not far off, and the leaves have still not been raked.

There has not been more than two days of sunshine running for a couple weeks now. I do not really have any desire to rake wet leaves; I’d prefer that they be dry or at least damp. Every time that I get two days of sun in a row, storm clouds come up and we get three days of rain. I am starting to wonder if I am going to have a chance to rake the leaves before I leave on vacation for my next marathon.

My thinking is that I will not wait for the third day of sun to start raking next time. If I can get two days, I will be out there even if it means going out there at 10:00 at night.

Having a few runners in the family, we can sometimes wind up with a clogged toilet. It seems to happen more frequently now that we have our own house than it did when we were in the apartment, but that is probably a function of the toilet being pink. I’m not really sure though.

Tonight, I could not get the toilet unclogged. Normally, I just take the plunger to it, and in 5 minutes to a half hour I will usually have everything working normally. Plungers are very easy tools to use. You cover the hold at the bottom of the tank with the bottom of the plunger, and then you just push it in and let it pop back out until you unclog it or until the water level in your toilet gets so low that that it does not create a seal around the plunger. In that case, you can dump more water in or try flushing to see whether it will work or not (and fill your bowl up with water to try some more if it did not work.)

Tonight, that just was not enough. A trip to Home Depot and we now have a toilet auger. Basically, it a plastic tube shaped so that you can get the cable up into your sewage line. You just push the cable through the tube and rotate the handle to dislodge whatever is clogging up the works. Then you carefully pull it back out and everything works the way it is supposed to. Just be careful not to scratch your toilet bowl.

When I moved into my house, my uncle gave me some advice.

Do at least one job on the house that needs doing every day. It doesn’t matter if it takes 10 minutes or 10 hours, but if you get at least one thing done every day then you will never get overwhelmed.

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