Weird snow
Feb. 14th, 2007 04:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jducoeurToday proved to be one of those days when I'm glad I invested in the snowthrower last year. Not because the snow was so very deep or heavy, but because it was strangely hard to shovel.
Most snow comes in one of two forms. There's the dry, light fluffy stuff, which doesn't stay on the shovel very well, but which you can just kind of push in the right direction. And there's the wet, heavy stuff, which is back-breaking but at least packs nicely so you can pick up and toss very precise amounts.
Today's snow was neither of those. At least around here, we got several hours of primarily sleet (in the American sense of the word): little ice niggets, like teeny clear ball bearings. The result was about 3-4 inches of something that wasn't quite as heavy as wet snow, but is vastly harder to shovel because it basically has the texture of sand. You pick up a scoop of the stuff, and it just flows off the shovel.
So it was off to start up the noisybox. Pain in the ass to get it started for the first time of the year, and I had forgotten the unique joy of the ear-shattering din. But it did make short work of the sleet...
Most snow comes in one of two forms. There's the dry, light fluffy stuff, which doesn't stay on the shovel very well, but which you can just kind of push in the right direction. And there's the wet, heavy stuff, which is back-breaking but at least packs nicely so you can pick up and toss very precise amounts.
Today's snow was neither of those. At least around here, we got several hours of primarily sleet (in the American sense of the word): little ice niggets, like teeny clear ball bearings. The result was about 3-4 inches of something that wasn't quite as heavy as wet snow, but is vastly harder to shovel because it basically has the texture of sand. You pick up a scoop of the stuff, and it just flows off the shovel.
So it was off to start up the noisybox. Pain in the ass to get it started for the first time of the year, and I had forgotten the unique joy of the ear-shattering din. But it did make short work of the sleet...