Digging The Snow

I drove the truck up to the grocery store this morning without my sunglasses on and had to squint the whole way. I did not squint just because the sun was too bright. I squinted because my eyelids refused to open up all the way. I had light hitting my eyeballs from every direction imaginable and they did not like it one bit. I forgot how bright a sunlit winter day is after a big snow storm. I remedied that problem on my next outing.

Later in the morning I took Kate with me on a walk up to the Post Office. I wasn't sure if there would be any mail today but knew that stretching my legs after being cooped up for two day would feel good. Kate enjoyed it too since we walked through a couple of alleys to get there. Better smells in the alleys. After we left the Post Office we walked up and down both sides of Main Street, stepping into the street whenever we came across a section of the sidewalk that had been cleared of ice by the use of salt. The streets are snow packed and icy in some spots so a few time we both had to do some careful stepping.

I spent part of the afternoon shovelling out the driveway. If you look at the photo in the post below you can see a chain link gate in the back of the picture. That area of snow in front of the gate clear up to the house is all concrete. Today it was warm enough for me to work without a coat on. I put my big sun hat on my head, my gloves on my hands, and the ear buds of my MP3 player in my ears and started shoving snow around. I like shoveling snow. It's one of those jobs that allows you to see the results right away. Shovelling snow is also one of those jobs that is so repetitive it becomes a walking meditation. All I focused on was the movement of shovel and weight of the snow. By the end of the job I was in a kind of trance and it took a few seconds to return to complete consciousness. It is kind of like sleep walking but not so deeply.

All in all, a good day.