UNITED STATES─Who would have guessed that shoveling a little bit of snow would have been such a mess. It hasn’t snowed in months in the Midwest, but when it snows it pours. We got a hefty 7-10 inches of snow during a winter blast. Last week it was near 3 inches of rain (yes, it rained for 24 hours straight), that was followed up by an ice storm.
For weeks, all people have complained about is the fact that it has not snowed yet, but in the back of my mind, who cares. For those not prone to snow, you don’t understand the headache that snow can bring. It is treacherous for driving, its heavy, and it can be taxing on the health. So I get up bright and early Saturday morning to tackle the snow and man was it a battle. When you have a corner property you have much more snow to shovel.
I personally started shoveling the street side because it’s the most difficult. Why? It’s large in terms of area. I thought the snow was going to be flat and fluffy, but this snow was wet and heavy. I know plenty of plenty who love a shovel with a curve, but I hate such a device. There is a reason: a shovel with a curve tends to hold more snow, but it’s difficult to discard the snow.
Shoveling snow is no easy task, it’s worse than cutting grass if you ask me. For starters your goal is to never lift abundant amounts of snow; you should want to push the snow out the way. Why? The more you lift the more stress you place on your arms, your body and ultimately your heart. Aim to keep the amount of snow that you lift and discard to a limit.
Don’t put yourself in a situation where you do more than what your body can handle. Trust me if you do so, your body will regret it later. I took around two breaks in the midst of shoveling snow. Normally, I don’t take a break, but in this situation I had no choice, the amount of snow was too much to complete in one shovel, plus I’m getting older, I cannot move as fast as I used to. There was so much snow that had fallen I was shoveling for over an hour, an hour people!
In the midst of shoveling the snow that had already fallen, it was still snowing outside. Yeah, I’m not a fan of waiting until the snow stops to begin shoveling because you place yourself in a situation where you’re shoveling it all at once. If you don’t have any help that is beyond taxing on the body people. Shoveling the snow over the weekend, felt like a massive workout, but I wasn’t done because I had to place salt out to prevent the snow from sticking and ice forming. Yes, ice people it is a killer of all killers when it comes to weather in my opinion because it’s hard to see, and no vehicle is immune from being a victim of ice.
So in short, I had my workout outdoors over the weekend. Was it strenuous on the body, yes, but I look at it this way, I was active, and who doesn’t like playing in the snow, even if it means you have to do a bit of heavy lifting along the way.
