Let it Snow

This has certainly been a real Canadian winter. We had a white Christmas, which was verys nice, then an even whiter Boxing Day, which was not so nice. By the end of the second day we had had more snow than we received all last year. Another snowfall on the weekend and a little on New Year's Eve was just too much of a good thing.

It wasn't quite as bad as this, but there was a drift about 2 feet high when I opened the front door.

Ron also has to shovel paths in the back yard for our dogs, who won't venture out if the snow touches their chests. Then there's the roof, which adds to the shoveling chore. No, we don't shovel snow off the roof of our house, but because it is made of metal (looks exactly like asphalt shingles but lasts 10 times longer), when the metal heats up from the sun or a rise in temperature, the snow slides off in great slabs with a rumble that sounds like the Mounties performing their musical ride over our heads, crashing down onto newly-cleared surfaces.

The first time this happened was shortly after the dogs had been out patrolling the patio. Ron had cleared it completely and Fang had stopped to mark his territory quite close to the back door. Less than five minutes later we heard the sound of thundering hooves overhead, and when we looked out the kitchen window, the patio was completely covered with snow. If it had descended only a few minutes earlier, Fang would have been buried. From then on, Ron has left the snow on the patio, except for a narrow path from the door, so that when the snow slides off it is unlikely that anyone would be directly underneath.

To take a break from shoveling, we tested the repair job Ron did on the broken hairbrush. He left the cable tie on as a safety measure, but cut the end off flush with the edge of the brush so it wouldn't get in the way of a good, solid stroke. I didn't notice the tie wrapped across the width of the hairbrush; I guess my bottom isn't that discerning. I am happy to report that it did the job nicely and I can cross "hairbrush" off my shopping list for next week.