We finally had what could be liberally called a snow storm last night. From where I come from (and from where some people I know now live), it was more like a moderate flurry.
Nonetheless, the blowing wind blew most of the snow into our driveway this morning. Leaving it virtually impossible to ram the cars out of the garage without something unusual likely to occur.
So, faced with that realization, I donned my armour and wielded my only weapon available to me: the Canadian Tire Special Manual Snow Push ( CTS-MSP ).
The snow had drifted in several spots on the driveway upwards to about 3-1/2 feet so previous experience told me that to complete the entire task would take at least an hr. Much more time than I had to spare. So I mapped out the areas I needed to shave down in order to get the cars out and onto the road. Cleanup the rest later when/if I get around to it.
About 10 minutes into the job with only about 6 square feet cleared out, to my relief I noticed Ray making his way over with his blower. Ray has come over to save me on several occasions when we had a snowfall that is more than usual.
Thanks to Ray, I am again postponed from having to go out and buy a snowblower myself for yet another year. Something that I debate over each and every start of winter. But logic has always prevailed. In this neck of the woods, this type of snowfall only happens about 3 times a year, 1/2 a dozen in ‘bad’ winters. Any snowfall less than today’s is quite manageable by manual labour in both effort and time.
Although it is somewhat disheartening to see somebody blow your driveway in about 5 minutes with ease as opposed to the 1 1/2 hr of backbreaking effort (especially when the snow banks get higher and higher making it harder to move the snow off the driveway), it’s not enough for me to sway towards to the simple life.
Let’s say a typical blower that would suit my needs costs about $1200 with taxes. That’s a little on the cheap side but it’ll do for the point I’m about to make. Assuming it lasts about 20 years and we get about 4 snowfalls a year that truly requires its usage (I’m going to assume that global warming will not be enough to impact my 100 ft x 25 ft driveway over that span of time), that’s about 80 legitimate uses. 1200/80 = $15.00 per usage plus gas and maintenance fees puts it up to around, say, $16 a usage. That’s about $3 a minute. My snow shovel cost me about $15 which makes that about 18 cents over the same amount of usages which in the end is going to be about a penny a minute.
True, if I get a blower it will probably be used more than the 4 times out of sheer laziness. But to counter this, I have generally become more lazy anyway when it comes to clearing the driveway such that nowadays I will only shovel the driveway when it’s clear that it would be somewhat cumbersome to get the Jetta out onto the road (the CR-V has a much higher tolerance). And even then, I tend to only shovel the parts that would impede the car on its journey down the driveway.
This is a dramatic shift to how I used to maintain my driveway. And the shift can be directly related to the birth of OG. In the winters preceding her, I was diligent in keeping the driveway as clear as possible from snow — cleaning it right down to the pavement. Boy was I proud whenever I looked out onto the vast expanse of snow covered land *except* for my little area of black gold.   Often, I would gaze out fondly from the opening of my garage while enjoying a much deserved frosty beer after a hard hr’s work. So much spare time back then. Now, my standards have dipped excessively to a level where the bare minimum of effort is all that I’m looking for. I now pride myself on how many weeks in the winter I can go without ever having to touch my shovel. I do not attribute this to laziness. I attribute it to wanting/needing to spend my time on more important and more valuable efforts: aka L’il OG.
So, to get a blower requires overcoming a few obstacles:
- The cost per usage is quite high
- The # of required usages is quite low
- I have neighbours on both sides and across the road that up until now have always willingly come to the rescue. I personally believe these guys actually want, nay, need to do my driveway in order to justify their purchase of a blower.
Thus, the question: What year will it be when I have enough $$$ that I don’t care about the cost, the price on my time saved by a blower is high enough and I’ve pissed off all my neighbours? The question is moot for by the time that would ever occur we’d have set up shop in Phoenix as per Sonia’s wishes.