Snow day

19 inches deep. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

I try to go to the Canandaigua YMCA Exercise-Gym three days a week; Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
It’s part of my feeble effort to remain viable despite advancing age (66).
Last Friday, February 26, 2010, was impossible.
Our driveway was under one-to-two feet of snow.
It would have to be removed first.
So Friday was a snow-day.
So far I’ve only used my snowblower one other time this season, about a month ago.
Both our cars are All-Wheel-Drive, so I don’t have to constantly clear the driveway.
Up to about eight inches deep the cars can handle it.
Beyond that they can’t.
So that’s my threshold; over eight inches, it has to be blown out.
First time it was only six inches, but I figured I better blow it out before it got higher. —Anyway, it was getting messy.
It was a drag.
I’m getting older, so blowing it out was no fun at all.
At that time, I wondered how I’d ever keep up with it.
But last Friday it needed to be cleared again.
What to do......
Call my friend Kenny to have him plow me out?
My neighbor does that, leaving him with a fairly clear driveway, and a surrounding mess.

Photo by BobbaLew.

So I put on my boots, got the snowblower key, and tramped out to my shed.
My garden-shed doesn’t have electricity, but I have a 100-foot outdoor extension-cord to it.
That extension-cord plugs into an outdoor socket at my house.
My snowblower, a big 28-inch Honda HS828, has electric-start; that is, powered by house current.
I plugged it in and cranked it about 30 times, and it lit.
Once lit it roars like a large farm tractor.
Hammer-and-tongs; nothing stops it.
Angle snowblower gingerly out of shed, and start snowblowing.
It went fairly easily.
Did the whole driveway in about an hour; that’s 75 feet to the road, plus a giant turnaround.
“That thing sure does a nice job,” my wife said.
Didn’t feel old this time.

• I work out in the Canandaigua YMCA exercise-gym. (“Canandaigua” [“cannon-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city to the east nearby where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 15 miles away.)
• “Our” is my wife of 42+ years (Linda) and I.