The Saga of the Snowblower

So when I got home tonight about 20 cms of snow had fallen and it was starting to get dark, I thought it was better to get the snowblower out of the shed...oh...good idea in thought. First I had to get by the ice at the bottom of the doors, I could not open the doors as there was ice holding them shut. So I took out the ice breaker in the McKinnon house...our hammer. There I was on my hands and knees after I had walked through the knee deep snow to get the hammer. I am pounding the ice away (yeah, I thought it was going away), shards are flying in my hair. I could not get the doors open, the ice was too thick, so then it was time for plan B. I came back into the house and got the power drill only to realize it was not plugged in and was dead. So I grabbed a screwdriver and went down and took the doors off the shed (not exactly a great security system). I discovered after I had the first door off that the front of the snowblower would not fit through so I had to remove the other door.

So now I have the snowblower out...I follow the instructions for a "cold" start, but I cannot make it start. So back up to the house I go to get the extension cords to try a "warm" start. The cords were outside so they were frozen in a tangled mess. I managed to get them untangled enough and plugged it, get back to the shed and then realize I do not have the removable cord that goes into the snowblower...I look all over the shed by flashlight, look in the house and cannot find it. I guess my rage at that point paid off as I was able to pull the cord hard enough at that point to get it started. So I now have to go back and get the extension cord out of the way...so I have to go back up the hill in the snow. Now I have to go back down the hill to get the snowblower so I can blow my way up the hill into the driveway, I cannot come up the side by the door because the well cover is under snow and the Christmas tree which has never made it's way down the back bank is somewhere under the snow and I don't want to try to turn the snowblower into a mulcher.

I had to come in and change out of my pants. I still had my jeans on from work and they were frozen solid from the knees down. Elysia helped me untie my boots because my hands were frozen from trying to get the screws out of the shed door. My legs were red from the cold. So now I put on snow pants and headed back out.

Snowblowing the driveway was easy once I remembered which handle made the snowblower move and which one threw the snow, takes a little coordination. I get it all blown out and now want to keep the snowblower up and locked to the deck. The locks are frozen from being left outside so I have to bring them back into the house. I also need the tarp which is back in the shed at the bottom of the hill. Back I go down through the knee deep snow. When I had changed my pants, I lost my socks in the exchange so now I have snow going into my boots under the snowpants. I manage to get the tarp but have to screw the doors back onto the shed. Well guess what? The snow that has been fallen has cemented itself to the ice where the doors were so I am unable to properly attach the doors so I put in enough screws to prevent the doors from flying away (I hope). I go back up the hill with the tarp and go up on the deck to get the extention cord out of the plug and put it in the basement so it can thaw. I then go up around the house with the tarp to cover the snowblower...we do this with a bungee cord...well, to add injury to insult, the cord is frozen to the cement by the deck. Guess where the ice breaker/hammer is...in the shed that has just had the doors screwed back on. Well, I am not going back down the hill and unscrewing the doors to get the ice breaker/hammer out. So I use the next best thing...a can of Manwich sauce...that's right, Manwich sauce. I ended up on the hands and knees by the side deck with a can of Manwich sauce, pounding the ice so I can get the bungee cord out.

At this point, I am fairly frustrated and pooped but feeling slightly accomplished. I come in the house and strip off my coat and snow pants and run up the stairs in my underwear (not a pretty picture). I cannot get the head band I wear to keep my ears warm off because it is frozen in my lovely beast of a hairdo...well at least that would melt.

All in all, if I had been smart I would have recorded the events of the evening and made one of those time lapse photography videos and posted it on Youtube and I would have had millions of hits--40 Yr old vs Snowblower.