Well, I had planned to start this post in the morning, but the winter storm Orson hitting the northeast sort of delayed everything. I hear it was and is much worse further east of us, but here in central New York State it snowed all day yesterday and all last night, and part of the morning, so this morning was given over to removing about a foot of snow from our walkway, steps, and driveway. I’m starting to get the hang of it, I think, but shoveling snow is a new skillset for me. Straight-handled shovel for pushing, bent-handle for lifting and carrying reduces the amount of bending necessary. I have a little electric snowblower that works surprisingly well, but even it can’t handle a foot of snow at a time unless you shovel a part for it first so you can split off the snow in manageable slices for the blower.

Yes, I know this is old hat for a lot of you, but consider—I’m a southerner, born and raised. We only saw snow very occasionally. In my entire childhood I can remember three good snows. Three. I never owned a snow shovel. I didn’t know anyone who did. Now I own two, and a snowblower. In Mississippi, 3-4 inches of snow would have shut down the entire state, with runs on the grocery shelves because the snowpocalypse had arrived. I know the state owned a snowplow, because I saw it. Once. Never saw it being used. A little sand on the bridges was about the most anyone could think to do. Here, naturally, 3-4 inches is barely worth mentioning. A foot or more, otoh, has to be dealt with.

It’s still a new experience for me, and that’s a good thing. Writers need new experiences, almost as much as they need to sit their butts in the chair and get writing. It was once said that a writer is a person who can watch a cat stalking a mouse and then write a scene capturing what it would be like to be stalked by a tiger. I dunno about that, but in the story I’m working on now there’s a scene where our heroes(?) are trudging through snow, freezing their butts off  to get a job done.

I don’t think I’ll have too much trouble with that scene.

P.S. In the picture above, that white fog? Yeah. That’s falling snow.