Every time it snows, I make sure that the path from the road to my heating fuel tank is clear. My neighbor was kind and cut a serious swath for me the first storm and I've kept it shoveled since then.
Let me say first that I love my local highway department. They're generally out at 5 AM, plowing and sanding first thing and multiple times after that to make sure that everybody who needs or wants to get out on the road can do so. I always try to wave and say hi when I'm out shoveling. They earn their salary this time of year, make no mistake.
One of the things they do, of course, is plow the snow off to the side of the road, creating a ridge of the stuff that is markedly higher, and usually heavier, than the original accumulation. If you had 6" of snow, you're pretty much guaranteed to have 18-24" of snow mountain range along the entire street edge, and that includes in front of driveways and any pathways shoveled to get to the street.
Yesterday, I watched in the afternoon while they took advantage of a quiet time between snowstorms to widen the driving area. For this, they use a specially angled plow blade that catches the snow at the street edge and forces it further back and away from the road. It's very efficient. Yes, indeedy. It created a brand new 2 1/2 foot high by 3 foot wide snow plateau which obstructed the hand-shoveled path I had just finished clearing the day before. The new ridge in front of my car was similar to that on one side, but decreased in size as it went up the hill. Either way, I was out there shoveling those mounds of snow back and away from the road, just like the plow was doing. The plow's back and arms weren't hurting afterward, though.
I'm sure we'll be doing this again in the near future and there's no way to avoid it. They'll plow, I'll shovel, they'll re-plow, I'll re-shovel. That's the way the game is played.
But they have bigger snow toys to play with. It's not fair!
Only 43 days until Spring.
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