Your letter to Santa?

[Habast]

Your family makes a girl do the shoveling? Well that hardly seems right.

Do you want to know something silly... maybe really stupid?

I've lived in southern california all my life. I have never seen it snow. When I was like eight my family went up to the mountains to try to catch it. There was snow on the ground but it never snowed while we were there. When I was like 20, a friend took me up there to catch it but it didn't snow then either.

So I've never seen it snow, and since it doesn't snow around my house I kinda wonder what it's like to shovel snow at that. I know it must suck to do it because everybody complains about it but... I actually want to shovel snow for somebody.

Pretty much my exact story, except replace California with Arizona, lol.

It usually never gets below 50 degrees Fahrenheit (in the day) and most of the year is in the neighborhood of 90-120. Bleh.

We'll take that Canada snow down here! haha

 

[Lasercakes]

So I've never seen it snow, and since it doesn't snow around my house I kinda wonder what it's like to shovel snow at that. I know it must suck to do it because everybody complains about it but... I actually want to shovel snow for somebody.

It depends on the "kind" of snow. The colder it is the lighter it is. When it's colder the snow is more like powder and it feels pretty effortless to move, but it can also pile up faster because it's less dense. It can pretty much dissolve in the wind as you fling it out of the way with your shovel, but it will still suck to shovel since you're likely getting more (in volume) of it. This snow doesn't stick and you can't make snowballs or snowmen with it.


Then there's wetter heavier snow. This sucks a lot worse per cubic inch than the lighter stuff. As it gets warmer it gets heavier and also sticks better. This shit makes my back ache every single time. I suppose I have a pretty big driveway though. No garage either. What's worse than this though, is when it's exactly cold enough not to be snow, but to be slush. It's the heaviest it can possibly be and if you don't get rid of it immediately you risk it turning into solid ice which is a problem of its own especially if your driveway is on a slant like mine.

There's also the snow that the plow has pushed into the bottom of your driveway. It gets compacted into much denser snow and gets mixed with mud and is taller than the rest of the snow in your driveway. It's like shoveling rocks.

Also if you come home and it has already snowed two or three inches, the pressure from your tires gives the snow you drive over in your driveway a likeness to ice and if you don't scrape it up or have salt it will become ice.

And fresh snow is different from snow that's been around a night for a temperature drop. The snow that's been around will form a shell or a sheet of harder snow over it. If you put off shoveling for a day this is probably the worst thing you can deal with. The issue isn't really the weight by itself, but also pushing the shovel through the snow in order to scoop it up.