First Snowfall

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Today we woke up to 8-10 inches of snow. Fortunately, it worked out well for me that I didn't have any early morning (6:30 am!) church meetings this Sunday. In fact, the first church meeting I needed to attend was my own ward at 11:00 am. (My wife, Dawn Ann, was wistful this morning that we only had 4 more Sundays until our ward would go to the dreaded 9:00 am block schedule -- "Pretty soon we won't be able to sleep-in any more on Sundays." I jokingly harrumphed, "Speak for yourself my dear!)

It had started snowing last night, so I knew what to expect this morning. I tromped out in the snow to our shed to retrieve the snow shovel. After taking a couple of swipes at the snow, I could tell that the type of snow we received would be prime snow for the snowblower! That's good news. A year ago last fall I had the snowblower serviced, and had it all ready to go. I never used it at all last year! In fact, after I removed a year's worth of stuff that had been piled on the snowblower, I found the service tags still attached.

About this time, Bryan came out in his new snow suit. I told asked him to get his snow shovel and start clearing off the porch, while I got the snowblower going. After filling up the bone-dry gas tank, it started right up. The snow was deep enough, and powdery enough so that it didn't plug up the chute very much. During the last few years, the snow we have received has been so heavy and wet (and only a couple of inches deep) that it rendered the snowblower practically useless. You would spend more time unplugging the chute than it would take just to shovel it! Hence last year's lack of use. Last year we got a lot of moisture, but it was mostly in rain or slush. In fact, I haven't used the snowblower much over the last several years because we've been experiencing warmer and drier winters in general.

Not today however. We had prime snowblowing conditions! And Bryan just couldn't wait to get his hands on it either! After I cleared the driveway, I let Bryan tackle the sidewalk. We live on a corner lot, so we have lots of sidewalk to shovel. Bryan started out OK on the snowblower, but the snow stuck to the wheels which prevented them from turning (Our snowblower is not self propelled-- so if the wheels stick, you end up "sledding" the snowblower along its way.) It turned out to be a little harder work that Bryan had anticipated. He did alright when it was going downhill, but I needed to take over for going uphill.

Bryan has really been getting more and more helpful these days. During the summer, he mowed at least half of the lawn each time we cut the grass. He has been helpful with shoveling snow, and now he's learning to run the snowblower. It's great to see him grow and progress.

After doing our yard, we loaded the snowblower and shovels into our truck and went over to an elderly widow's house nearby to do her walks and driveway. We fired up the snowblower, and got her taken care of pretty quickly too. Then we drove back home, and carved out a track in the snow to the chapel (about 4 doors away from us) . It was nice to have a clean walkway to get to church.After we were done, there was just enough time for Bryan to make a snow angel, just before we had to dash in to get ready for church.

Even though Bryan is 12 years old now, its still nice to see the little boy in him too. Enough little boy that still paints a big grin on his face while playing in the snow!