{"id":4775,"date":"2010-12-16T11:21:14","date_gmt":"2010-12-16T16:21:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/?p=4775"},"modified":"2010-12-16T11:34:57","modified_gmt":"2010-12-16T16:34:57","slug":"some-random-thoughts-on-snow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/2010\/12\/16\/some-random-thoughts-on-snow\/","title":{"rendered":"Some random thoughts on snow"},"content":{"rendered":"

I<\/span>‘ve been watching the reports of the snow that continues to pile up in and around London, Ontario. Last I checked, they’d had more than my height of snow fall since the beginning of the season. Yikes! I grew up in London, and while they’re in the so-called snow-belt, this is still pretty much unprecedented.<\/p>\n

We haven’t had a lot of the white stuff so far here in Ottawa this year. I figure that’s largely due to the fact that after much debate and angsting and wringing of hands, we decided to use a snow removal service for the first time this year. <\/p>\n

In the old house, I was the snow removal service and snow-blower all rolled up into one. Beloved would occasionally clear the driveway or help out during a particularly impressive dump (March of 2008 comes to mind!) but I have always enjoyed the job and the task largely fell to me. That was when our driveway was single width and just barely long enough to accommodate two cars nose-to-bumper.<\/p>\n

\"DSC_0599\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The new driveway is about, oh, five times that long. With a wicked slope to boot. We knew the old shovel (let alone the old shoveller’s back) just wouldn’t cut it this year. From late September through November, we educated ourselves on snowblowers. Single versus dual stage, horsepower, electric start — we studied them all, compared prices and features, and realized that we weren’t going to get away with anything less than a thousand dollar investment.<\/p>\n

On what was pretty much a lark, I wrote down the phone number on the stake delineating the edges of the neighbour’s drive for a local snow-removal service. When their quote came in at a surprisingly affordable $325 for the season, including a 20 per cent premium for early morning clearing, we were sold. We could pay for three years’ worth of snow removal for the cost of a single snow blower, fuel and tune-ups, and not have to worry about losing any limbs. (Confession: I am afraid of the snowblower, and a little bit afraid of gas lawnmowers, too. I plan to cut our 1\/2 acre of lawn this summer with a veeeeery long extension cord and our sweet little electric mower.) <\/p>\n

The best part of the whole experience has been standing in the toasty-warm living room, watching the snow pile up without having to worry about the hour (or two, or three) of time we’d need to clear it off. And the delight of coming home to a freshly cleaned driveway after a full day of blustery weather.<\/p>\n

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Mind you, it still takes me 15 minutes just to sweep the snow off the porch (who knew painted surface plus a few millimeters of snow equals skating rink? Beloved and Lucas have already found that one out the hard way) so I get just enough hands-on snow removal to feel like I’m enjoying the season, yanno?<\/p>\n

It feels very luxe, I have to tell you. This contracting out of services? Is something I could really get used to! It’s a slippery slope, though. Today’s snow removal service is tomorrow’s personal chef and house cleaner. I wonder what else I can contract out?<\/p>\n

How does it work in your house? Snowblower, snow removal, or back-breaking shovel work?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I‘ve been watching the reports of the snow that continues to pile up in and around London, Ontario. Last I checked, they’d had more than my height of snow fall since the beginning of the season. Yikes! I grew up in London, and while they’re in the so-called snow-belt, this is still pretty much unprecedented. … Continue reading “Some random thoughts on snow”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-in-ottawa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4775"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4775\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4777,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4775\/revisions\/4777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}