This Means War

Monday, February 1st - day one of a mammoth snowstorm in Colorado Springs. The schools are closed. My company, which has closed due to weather once in its twenty-five year history, sends workers home early.

I planned ahead, bringing my computer home just in case. Good foresight. As I sit at my dining room table, watching out the window, several neighbors diligently shovel walks and driveways. More snow is predicted.

Tuesday, February 2nd - day two of a snowstorm that has shut down the city. During a respite in the falling flakes, it seems every man in the neighborhood, or his teenage son if so blessed, is outside shoveling. Not being sexist here, folks. I don't see any women outdoors.

My husband joins them. Three fellows have snowblowers. He is among them. The driveway and sidewalk have filled in from yesterday's battle. The shovelers are the foot soldiers, while the snowblowers sound like tanks driving over the frozen battlefield.

---

The young man next door shovels more than his own sidewalk, working his way uphill. His boxer is delighted with the activity. He trots along behind, stepping where the walk has been cleared. Only a foolish dog would leap into the snow, piled several feet high on front yards and in the street.

The three foot drop from our lawn to a gravel flower garden is invisible, buried under a drift. The flakes are still falling. The teenager across the street plows on. I watch, horrified, as his father shovels snow off their roof. Poor kid. All his hard work is being buried as he watches. Oh, there he goes, clearing the driveway from the rooftop assault.

The battle will be lost, until warmer temperatures in days to come. One lesson we have learned is that snow packs hard under tires. If we don't shovel the driveway, we suffer from mini-glaciers that refuse to melt until the temperatures reach the fifties. Impervious to shovels, these serve as badges of shame, a testament to laziness. There can be no negotiation with a driveway piled high with snow.

The snow continues. The battle rages. A hot cup of tea awaits the return of my tank commander.

The final tally for the storm - eighteen inches. A few more inches greeted us Thursday morning, as if to remind us winter is not over yet. The streets in our neighborhood were still nearly impassable four days after the storm. We are hopeful the heat wave of forty and fifty degree weather predicted for the next few days will thaw out the piles of snow remaining. Despite our best efforts, a glacier developed in the shady part of our driveway.

The arrival of gardening and seed catalogs remind me that it will be spring again, someday.

---