We’re getting to that part of the year. The part of the year when the snow starts flying. We had enough snow fall this past week, that we were actually wistfully discussing the merits of small snowblowers. No, we’re not planning on getting one, but a girl can dream, right? Though, knowing our luck, we’d make the investment and Calgary would become a tropical zone. That’s the perverse nature of this city. I can remember winters in the past 15 years with little to no snow. The chances of that have become slimmer in the past 5 years, but hope almost always springs eternal.
That said, we had quite the snowfall this past weekend, and the first time…Robin dug out the shovel and dutifully trudged out to the front yard to shovel out the drive. Having proven his manly duty, he came back in for the requisite tea and grumbling. The second time it happened, we both bundled up and dug out the walks. We’re on the side of the street that not only gets the least amount of sun (the snow sticks around longer), but also gets drifting the wind currents in our cul-de-sac.
This prompted a chat (during the weather-related aerobic exercise) about how nice (and utterly pointless) it would be to have a small snowblower, and how it’s been proven that snow shovelling can lead to heart attacks. I suspect that the latter can be attributable to the fact that as folks age, they still think they can shovel the walks even though they’ve spent most of the rest of the year being sedentary. I’m beginning to think that instead of getting ready for “bikini season”, more magazines need to promote training schedules for “shovelling season” here in Canada.
Personally, I’m thinking what we might need isn’t a snowblower, but possibly a Wovel. No, you weren’t misreading that. I said Wovel. With a W. A Wovel is a wheeled shovel, and apparently the magic of the device has to do with the power of leverage. It’s like a wheel barrow, only with one large wheel and a standard sized shovel on the end. You don’t have to do any kind of back-straining bending and lifting, and you just wheel your snow over to wherever you’re depositing it instead of having to carry it.
Now, the drawback I can see to this is that the wheel, while large, looks a little thin. Around here, I can see the thing slipping and sliding on ice. I’d love to hear from any westerners whether they’ve actually tried a wovel, and how effective it was. The other thing I notice is that the demo appears to be shot in Eastern Canada *, likely Ontario, where the humidity causes snow that sticks together. While that is heavy stuff to have to haul, it makes it easier to gather. Here, the snow overflows quite quickly, and if you’re not careful, you’ll slip on whatever is left over. In fact, our driveway requires at least one metal-edged shovel to get up as much of the denser packed down snow as possible.
Still…it looks cool (and FUN!), and it might actually speed up the shovelling process around here. Anything that allows me more knitting time is a bonus. It is definitely on my list of cool things that I’d like to check out!
* of course, I had to go back afterwards to see whether or not this is actually a Canadian invention, and it appears that it is actually American. Is it bad of me that I equate anything that tries to deal with snow effectively and easily as a Canadian thing? I mean, we Canadians display our patriotism so little that I guess I figure that when it comes to snow, we have the market covered…
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