There is a sweet and rare wintry sound you don't hear very often. It's the soothing, gentle rattle – much like large, dried grasses waved slowly – that you get when a light wind moves through the ice-coated twigs of small trees. This natural serenade has been my soundtrack today.
Overnight, though, that same ice had worked a far-less-appreciated miracle on the five or so inches of snow we'd already picked up: given us a nice half-foot of frozen slush. A persistent three minutes or so of kicking the storm door got it open this morning, allowing me, a pair of shovels, and a jug of rock salt to tackle the steps and sidewalk.
About a year ago, a thin and treacherously invisible coating of frictionless ice had me landing hard enough on those concrete steps to leave a large and spectacular gluteal bruise that I couldn't show anybody. This year, though, the snow and ice were so compacted I could stand on the snow, without slipping, and with little sinking. Trouble is, the shovels could only make it an inch or two into the hard stuff; a trudge out to the shed yielded the garden hoe, and the solution.
Maybe it's not a hoe; I have a brown thumb, and so know little of gardening. An actual hoe is bent ninety degrees at the business end, so you can pull it through the soil. What I'm talking about has a vertical blade, so that you can use the thing to chop straight through tough soil… or frozen slush.
This tool quickly made the rounds with three neighbor-women, while I continued chopping at the ice with the metal edge of Mother's ergonomic (i.e., twisted) shovel. With my walk cleared and salted most of an hour later, I went back inside… and got a call from Daughter One on the other end of town: she couldn't get out of her parking lot. So I retrieved the hoe, a shovel, and a bag of rock-salt, and headed out.
Our parking lot – which as of this evening had yet to be plowed – has a bit of a slope to it, so once you get your car moving through the slippery stuff, and there's an upward incline in front of you… don't stop! Thus I had fun doing some very impressive slaloming through the lot and up the quarter-mile of likewise-unplowed community-road. Let's hear it for front-wheel drive and a solid standard transmission!
On the highway, I found my car had a brand-new, shakin' shimmy at speeds over forty miles per hour. A lookover, when I could pull off the road, showed no flat tires, nothing hanging loose… so who knows?
Patient chopping, shoveling, and a hard push from her dad got Daughter's car out; then we shoveled out her spot, salted it, and she backed in again. The problem had been that her heftier car, with automatic transmission and six strong cylinders, had too little weight for its power… and had been parked front-in – so its front-wheel drive simply wasn't up to the challenge. Clearing the space and turning the car around should make tomorrow easier for her.
Have I mentioned that this dear – and spoiled – daughter of mine lives walking-distance from work?
I got to help a couple other cars get out of their spots, and one of those I'd helped came over and gave my daughter and me a great favor in wielding his own shovel to get Daughter's space clear. We both thanked him, and Daughter thanked me, too. I pointed out to her that delicate sound of rattling, frozen twigs (there was a tall, slender tree right behind where I'd parked)… but I think her mind was already in the hot bathtub she'd shortly be thawing out in. So I wished her well for the morning, and drove off, watching her head back upstairs (our kids always leave us, don't they?)
I swung by the dealership on the way home, and let them know about the whole-lotta shakin' my car had goin' on. They earned a Kudos bar – because the mechanic pointed out that the problem was no more than snow packed up into the wheels, throwing off the balance. He power-hosed the wheels (no charge, either!), and my car was good to go again.
Back home, I resumed helping the neighbors shovel out their cars. The wind had picked up, the temperature was dropping, and it started snowing again. It looks like we'll have a nice freeze overnight… and if Barney Gumbel's plow makes it through and treats our street and court, we'll have nice new mounds of frozen slush in front of our cars tomorrow.
Not to
worry; I now have a man's best friend: his ho'.
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