It was mid-morning and I heard our gas furnace rumble to life. My smart phone told me it was 2 below and it felt like 19 below. Normally I kindle a fire in our wood-fired boiler to ease the gas pains but several sieges of the arctic vortex have left me with maybe two cords of hard maple in reserve. I'll save that for when the wind chill is minus forty or lower. It is fortunate that it doesn't take much wood to heat the house but it adds up with each severe arctic vortex.
"Bah!" I said when I saw what Old Man Winter left overnight. In addition the city snowplow socked in my driveway and the entire length of sidewalk.
Lois and I sat down for toasted homemade bread and the deliciousness of the bread, topped with peanut butter and raspberry jam along with hot coffee comforted me for a while. I shut my mind against the inevitable task of snow removal. The beagle and the Scottish terrier each got a crust of bread. When Lois had taken the two out earlier the beagle did her duty and bolted for the front door, dragging Lois behind. The terrier was adventurous, cavorting in the deep snow, oblivious to the cold.
The two cups of coffee, along with earlier coffee necessitated a bathroom break and that's when I steeled myself for a long work session outdoors.
"I s'pose I ain't gonna get nothing done if I stay inside," I sighed. I pulled on my ski bibs and another layer of socks, my heavy "Michigan" hoodie, Sorel boots and topped it off with my Kromer cap. Then came the Air Force snorkel parka and choppers with double liners. Dressing was already a day's work and the clock sneaked up to 11:00. How does time sneak past me like that? (Lois says that I fart around too much, a sign of aging.)
The gust from the northwest almost tore the storm door out of my hand. I braced against the wind, snorkeled and buttoned down and reached for my trusty steel snow shovel, with wooden handle and cleared the front porch steps and the rear porch steps. My snow blower, a brand-new Ariens was in repose near the rear steps, the engine covered with a plastic tub.
I plugged in the electric starter and primed the engine three times, set the choke and pressed the starter button. Didn't start. (Ariens recommends priming the Polar Force engine only twice, so I didn't know if I had flooded the engine or if it wanted yet another push on the primer button.) I went for broke then punched the starter button and it started. Praise the Lord! Four primes did it!
I cleared the neighbor's front walk and their path through the backyard to their garage, then their garage and our garage. I didn't even feel cold. Must be those electric warming handle grips on the Ariens. Next came the place where I park my truck.
I have parked my truck in the yard, close to the house since vandals broke both side mirrors to the tune of $1117.16 about a week before Christmas. Last September they keyed the truck from front to back and that cost $800.00. Thank God our insurance covered both instances. Six other cars in the neighborhood suffered similar vandalism. My friend, Dale had the human male phallus carved into his hood and his insurance doesn't cover that.
I cleared out my truck's parking space and the sidewalk and realized that I had spent three hours in 20 below wind chill but I wasn't chilled because I clothe myself with the real deal, Air Force parka, etc., with no concern as to fashion or coolness. I saw three young girls, fashionably attired, running, stiff as sticks from their car to the Uptown Cafe. There is probably a spiritual lesson in this somewhere.
I parked the Ariens, gassed it up for the next time and told it, "good job" as I replaced it's plastic tub.
Now it was time to try my Ford F-150. We are to walk by faith, but I was thinking of what I would do if it didn't start. It started but protested, emitting a sound like "bawl". I'd bawl too if I sat in the sub-zero wind for fifteen hours.
Late this afternoon I sat down to my keyboard to write and I noticed sunshine for the first time today. It was wan, but cheery and I gazed at the white landscape in the dusk. I looked out the other window and saw plenty of blue sky, actually a bad omen. A brief consultation with my smart phone confirmed this with a forecast for minus 20 tonight- thus the irony of sunshine. Yet it was a good day because I'm still physically able to do hard work.
