Monday, February 8, 2010

Snow at Sixty-Four

Having just now come in from an hour’s dig and chop to relocate about 30 yards of snow over ice, I am filled with all sorts of not so genius questions and thoughts about the recent storm, snow, etc.


With the advance in super metals and plastics, how come the modern day snow shovel is about 3 to 4 pounds heavier than the shovels of the 1960s?

Six inches of powder is a pretty thing (see how I slipped right into the yuppieville lingo of the slopes?), but six inches of powder over 8 inches of ice is uglier than a wart on a baby’s ass.

Does Vancouver want my snow? It is hers for the asking.

Why are grackles such hogs and bullies? Are they Republican? Will the juncos, house finch, and chipping sparrows actually achieve a redistribution of sunflower-seed-wealth that I have provided as an entitlement, or will those sonsabitches, grackles and starlings, simply do as the free market allows?

I do not really resent the grackles, for they are a burst of obsidian and a slash of sliver when I rap on the window to startle them away from the feeders.

The squirrels must truly be the conservatives for they are up a pine, lying back, chuckling as they munch away at the seed that they have stolen and ferreted away, all year, cheek by jowl, bastards. I have no regard for squirrels unless in stew.


Snow geese are not handsome when waddling about a muddy cornfield; they are an absolute perfection of zinc oxide and jet when aloft in the blue of a Saskatchewan blast.

Why am I not enthused about building a snowwoman when there are scads of building materials available without pilfering a rib from a snowman.

Is there a better way to sweat like a three-legged, mule than digging at snow in 30 degree weather? Even women would sweat in those conditions.

How much bread swept clean from the grocery stores at the advent of this recent storm really goes to grackles?

Is there anything better than hot, bread-pudding with cream? OK, maybe with vanilla ice cream, it is.

Who among you made snow cream? I have forgotten how, but surely this white stuff must be as pure as it will ever be for making that concoction (evaporated milk, an egg, lots of sugar and some cinnamon, maybe?).


Where are those bands of kids who used to roam the streets latching onto bumpers to slide on the soles of their boots from one stop sign to another? I am not in town, but something tells me they are at the mall, on a video game, or working at McDonald’s. I will also guess they are not out making some bucks shoveling walks.

Where are my two high-school-aged grandchildren when I need shoveling-reinforcements.? Texting, watching TV, or at the mall?

Why, when I am snow-bound, does my personal hygiene slip to Elizabethan standards? Surely, it is the desire to conserve water and to have a few whiskers to battle the wind. I wish not for visitors until I improve my malodorous condition.

Do all poodles, when playing in the snow, collect golf-ball-sized snow balls under their leg pits and behind their paws or does that happen to only my mongrel? And what is the attraction for her out there, where the drifts are very over her head, that she is at me constantly to be amok in it?

My neighbor spent the day, a whole day, on two cups of coffee, atop his 52 Ford tractor pushing and shoving snow and slush out of the lane so that neighbors can get in and out. He sits up at night to breathe or his lungs fill. He was on the tractor for 9 hours; he is the finest neighbor.


Finally, snow is much like penises: no one has as much as he claims.






***I struggle with choosing appropriate colors especially when describing fowl (Bob Ross always went too fast for me although he was fascinating and, on camera, such a sweet man.) Here are some links that I used to bolster my inadequate vocabulary.

The best: http://www.webexhibits.org/pigments/intro/pigments.html
http://www.december.com/html/spec/colorshades.html
http://www.lynda.com/resources/hexpalette/hue.html
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa358800%28VS.85%29.aspx