I Do Not Like Mondays

VROOOOOOM! Putt. VRROOOOOOOOOM! Putt, putt, putt. Stall. That was my snow blower Sunday morning.

I’d literally just finished the last strip of the driveway, when suddenly the machine quit blowing any snow and then quit running altogether.

But finish I did! From January 6-7, there had been maybe six or seven inches of snowfall in several bouts that came down. Initially, I thought I’d just shovel it, since when I opened the garage door there was only about four inches of accumulation.

CRRRUNCH! I had shoved a good, heap-grabbing shovel into the snow, only to find that what I was trying to lift was much heavier and denser stuff than it looked, like a huge coating of canned tuna. The precipitation had shifted a little from snow to drizzle, deepening that effect.

Nah, no thanks. “Let’s fire up the blower,” I thought, still feeling like I was maybe wimping out a little. But it’s a fairly big driveway, and the walkway out front was going to need to be done by hand-shoveling anyway, I reassured myself.

It was strange. Like I said, I finished the very last swipe at the driveway and the snow blower sort of crapped out. Now I’ll have to figure out what’s going on with that thing and get it in working order again; thankfully, there should be a little time until it’ll be needed again.

Or, at least, so I hope.

Ah well. Driveway and walkway done, it was time to turn to some family fun activities. That included building a snowman and a very big snowball/lump that had been intended to be part of the snowman — or perhaps a second snowman — but turned out to be staggeringly too heavy to lift.

And we kind of ran out of snow to roll in the area of the intended snowmen, so in the end what we had was our somewhat odd-looking snowman and the lump beside him. (I also learned we didn’t do a spectacular job with leaf removal last fall.)

But there was still plenty of snow for some snowball fighting. Being that the snow was so wet and heavy, I didn’t want to throw any huge snowballs at my young daughter, but I did pack a little ball and whack her on the back with it. She’s old enough for some mild snow play.

She started running away to avoid getting hit again, and I lobbed a snowball her way in some kind of “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” shot that puffed right onto the back of her coat again as she was retreating. “Dah-DEE!” she protested.

Later, I was to pay for those two snowballs with about 60 or 70 or so that got smacked into daddy from pretty short range. One of those landed in my pocket, so that’ll take a while to dry out, let me tell you.

We also, of course, did some sledding. Our back yard has a general but oddly step-graded slope to it, and the little one is still just a little too little to navigate it, so she rode with daddy (me). It’s not much of a sleigh-riding experience, our back yard, but it served the purpose and the experience was termed “the best thing EVER!!” (at least two exclamation points needed) by my daughter.

So that was it, the first snowfall of the 2023-2024 fall-winter season here in our part of Connecticut, and it happened January 6 and 7. There were some pretty photos to be had around the back yard as well!

I’ll count that as a bonus.

Meanwhile, the Turfmutt Foundation has some tips for enjoying your back yard during the snowy season:

—Lace up your winter boots and enjoy your yard with your family, including your dog, if you have one.

—“Create a welcoming ambience” by stringing lights in trees and shrubs or on your patio. Try adding lanterns and solar- or battery-powered candles and lights, too.

—Use firepits, patio heaters and other warming tools like hand and toe warmers to heat things up a little and help fight the cold.

—Create winter-themed activities like snowball fights, snowman-building sessions or freeze tag — but please be careful and safe out there!

—Add bird and squirrel feeders to attract seasonal wildlife.

—Dress appropriately, wearing warm-enough clothing and layers beneath.

Content © Aaron G. Marsh