Shovel that Snow!

I'm not sure how this happened over the past week or so...I watched all of the lovely flakes grace our landscape, getting excited about all of the great skiing and snowshoeing that this beautiful blanket of white offered. I made sure I was well prepared in advance for Winter driving conditions and am very careful to brush off all of the snow on my car and scrap the ice off of every single window and mirror before driving away in this weather.

What I forgot to notice was the amount of snow that had collected on our second floor decks. We have two decks that are on the second floor of our home, and they are very big decks. I happened to look at them as I was driving away from home this morning and was very alarmed by the amount of snow that had accumulated on them. Yikes. I immediately promised myself when I got home that I would take a stab a clearing off the snow because I was seriously worried about having a situation where our decks collapsed because of the weight of the snow (before you say...that's not realistic...I will have you know that I watched one of my neighbours decks absolutely get dessimated by a huge snowfall last year. It was an expensive repair bill for them for sure and a nasty surprise when them arrived on Friday night.

Anyways, I started out shovelling over 3 feet of snow from each deck. It not only took a huge amount of strength to scoop and then hurl the snow over the deck railings...it was a completely exhausting exercise.

Three hours later of heavy snow moving (the snow on the bottom is very very heavy because it has been pressed down by all of the newer snow) and I am no where near finished.

My advice to you...expecially if you are a weekender...get someone to do it for you, or when you get to your chalet this weekend, take notice of any areas that might require some snow removal.

This is a classic example of not seeing the forest through the trees for me and I can't believe that I didn't notice how bad the situation was before today.

So...get the shovel out...and remember to bend your knees and twist slowly and gently. It's much easier to tackle this job with a slow and patient approach because you will get tired out quickly.

Good luck!