Happy Groundhog's Day

When I was a kid, I remember telling my dad that I loved snow. He said, "You won't after you learn to drive." End of conversation.

Well, now I know how to drive and I still love snow. I don't even mind driving in it as long as there's not much risk I'll get stuck in a snowbank and have to depend on neighbors and passersby to push me out. That's the pits! Ice is another story. Nobody should have to drive on ice, except the truck driver whose job it is to make the ice go away. My street is a permanent sheet of ice from December to April. Two blocks in any direction and you've got smooth sailing on dry pavement. But my street is a death corridor lined by 100 year old oaks. The plow went down the street last night with it's yellow lights dancing on our living room walls. We were about to burst into song when we saw that its the blade was up. The truck was just passing through on its way to more important streets.

There's lots of stuff to love about winter. New white snow hides all the ugly places in the yard. Grass doesn't grow, hedges don't need trimmed. Frozen dog poop doesn't smell, so there's not such a need to run out there and clean the yard. Besides, it's all buried in snow so you can't find it anyway! And frozen trash rarely gets hit by nighttime visitors. And there's no bugs. Very big plus!

I hear you out there. What about the snow shoveling?

We deal with that around in here in our own way. It's called the Pack Down Method, but we prefer to call it "Spring is going to happen eventually, so why knock myself out" method. That's right- we don't shovel. I hate to shovel and I only do it if I'm mad about something else and need to throw stuff around. The farthest I'll go at snow removal is sweeping off the front and back stoops. Ice on steps is dangerous. But that's it. The driveway, the front walk, the sidewalk, it's all deep snow with paths packed in from tires or feet. The cars take care of the driveway. Our feet handle the walk to the backdoor. The mailman and anyone else walking down the street help tramp down the front walk. The neighbors on both sides of us thoroughly shovel and salt their sidewalks right up to our line and then it's like you hit a glacier for our walk.

When we were kids walking to school, we would flip off houses that didn't have their sidewalks shoveled. ( Yeah, we were tough guys.) We would flip the house the bird inside our big mittens and yell stuff like "Why don't you get off your fat ass and shovel your damn sidewalk?" (I'm not kidding. You didn't want to mess with us!) Are kids out there sneering and hating at our house? I wouldn't be surprised. I know we've got it coming, but honest, spring is going to come!

Today is all about the need for spring. We need spring so bad that we are willing to bother some poor, fat, super cute (Sorry, I have a soft spot for groundhogs!) animal from it's slumber just to prove it to ourselves. But no matter what his prediction, whether it's winter for 6 more weeks or 12 (which is more likely), spring will come and melt all the snow away. In the meantime, while our snow shovel hibernates, I'll enjoy winter while it's here.