Snow day

There may have been bigger and better snows when I was a kid, but I don't remember them.

Friday morning was when it started. Lots of people stayed home because while they could get to work getting home was another story. A neighbor went to work and didn't get home until about midnight. We caught him shoveling his way in to his house.

Saturday afternoon I got up on the roof with the bad ass snow shovel Yummy's parents gave me for Dougmas. Nice metal shovel with a sharp end. Gets even the packed footprints up off the sidewalk. Anyway, I had to go up and shovel the roof. It's a row house with a flat roof so the snow really piled up. Once I dug down to the roof the snow was over my knees.

This was a novel experience for me. In some areas they have to do this a couple of times per year. Where I grew up we had cold, but not a lot of snow. And when we had the snow everyone had sloped roofs. Flat roofs were just a TV thing. Although, there was a barn over at Neighbor Bob's that was knocked down by the snow. But hay was the only thing that had been holding it up for the last decade anyway.

The bulk of the snow was shoved off the front of the house and onto the sparrow filled tree. Yummy was out there trying to feed them crackers. Several landed in the tree and were greeted with white fluffy ice from above. The birdies left and Yummy went back inside. In a few weeks, when the mountain of snow melts down, I'll get to see how many branches the tree managed to keep.

Turns out I wasn't just being paranoid. Yummy was listening to the radio while I was up top. She heard stories about one house, one storage facility, and part of the convention center collapsed under the weight. While the snow may not have caused the place to collapse, if it rains anytime soon the snow will trap the water and that would definitely take out the roof.

Sunday I shoveled the front steps and sidewalk. Not at first. No, first I had to go out back, down the alley and around. The front door was snowed shut.

The snow out back wasn't as deep as on the roof, but it still came up below my knees. So lots of high leg lifts to get anywhere.

And the shovel got right down and scraped the concrete clear. What little was left melted in the sun and dried out before the sun went down. That's surrounded by 2ft walls of snow.

I write this Sunday night to post in the morning. The plow still hasn't come. Yummy very well may not be able to get her car out in the morning. I'm cleared because DC area offices are closed.

I'm sure our friendly neighborhood Canadian has absolutely no sympathy.