Okay, I'm ready!

The ever-unreliable five-day weather forecast contains the possibility of snow. In fact, [insert ominous music here] there's the possibility of HEAVY SNOW. Uh huh. Maybe, but there's no one who really knows. They just make wild guesses.

Even so, it is December in the Northeast, so snow is likely to make an appearance soon enough. With that in mind, I went out tonight and dragged the snowblower out.

I've had many years of shoveling, and, since we invested in a snowblower a couple of years ago, I'm not taking a chance that I'll have to go back to the shovel again! So after fueling the beast (it uses a gas-oil mixture) and pressing the little priming button a zillion times, I got it to start. Actually, it was more like prime 3 times-pull start cord 3 times-prime 5 times-6 pulls on start cord-turn down choke in case it's flooded-pull 5 times-decide it's not flooded, reapply choke & prime 10 times-pull cord and finally be rewarded with the engine turning over.

The special moment of this beast's engine turning over comes with a cloud of smoke that may be visible in western Europe. It's such an acrid mess that I just took a shower so I could feel clean again! Fortunately, it's only this bad the first time in the season. Not that it's a pollution-free beast the rest of the year, but it's a lot better than this!

So it's a happy day in this house, and the ones around us, actually. You see, Marc and I have a long tradition of three-house snow-clearing.

On one side of us resides a couple in their late eighties. He's literally 50 years older than me, but he's the type who would try to clear his own walk if given the chance. So we make a point of beating him to it.

On the other side of us is a New York City Police Officer and his family. Whenever there's a storm, Joe (the officer) has to work. So his wife and kids are left to shovel. Not that they can't, but we like to be good neighbors.

So the snowblower is a vital piece of equipment. If it doesn't work, Marc and I are back to shoveling. That always was an onerous chore, but the passing years just make it look worse. Sore muscles from shoveling take a lot longer to recover nowadays! :)