Snow Day Means Snow Shoveling

When I left work on Tuesday evening, it was raining. When I got off the light rail in Englewood, it was raining hard. I got immediately soaked. In the two minutes it took me to walk from the light rail station to my car, the rain had turned from water to ice and then to snow. Between 5pm on Tuesday and 8am on Wednesday, about 16 inches fell on Denver metro. I called in to the Auraria Campus Weather Alert Hot-line and found out that they had closed the entire campus due to inclement weather. Woohoo! Snow day! I tried to sleep in and couldn't. So, I enjoyed some time with my wife and we watched the newest episode of Lost for the second time (still trying to make sense of the whole thing). The boys woke up and we went downstairs for breakfast. While Joi did school with the kiddos, I decided to shovel our patio and the walkways leading to our house. The last time I left snow on our patio it melted, froze, and turned into 4 inches of solid ice. So, I was determined to be on top of it this time. The snow was heavy and very wet (common for a Spring snow). Here's what my patio looked like when I walked out.

 It's hard to tell from the photo, but that was a LOT of snow. So, I put on my iPod, put on some of my favorite tunes, and bundled up to begin to tedious task of shoveling snow. Actually, I don't mind it. It's good exercise, it gets me outside, and it's nice alone time. Immediately, I realized how heavy the snow was and figured out pretty quickly that this was going to be no easy task.

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. First I made a path from my front door to the gate. Again, it's hard to tell but if I was laying on the patio, the snow would completely cover me. It's that deep.

I'm making progress. I had finished one entire side of my patio by this time. I was working up a sweat...even though it was only in the mid-30's. Did I mention what great exercise this is? My arms were already starting to feel the burn.

The finished product. It's great to feel the accomplishment of a job well done. I was tried, pooped, worn out, exhausted, and tuckered out. So, where did all of that snow go to? Well,  I shovel it out to the grass outside of our gate. Here's where it all went.

Yep, that giant pile was all me. Whew! Also, I was a nice neighbor and shoveled the entire walkway from the neighbors house on our left to our neighbors house on our right...and all the way to the street...so that any visitors can get to us without trudging through knee high snow drifts. Today, my arms are a little bit sore. But, my patio was nice and dry this morning as I walked out. I love the snow and the chores it creates for me is enjoyable too. The funny part about this whole thing is that Wednesday was fairly warm and a lot of the snow melted on it's own accord. Oh well....it was still good exercise.