Throwing Snow

Today I got to operate my snow thrower for the first time. If you read yesterday's post (and goodness knows I'm not suggesting that anyone should have) you already know that one of our purchases this fall was a snow thrower (called a snow blower by people who live in warm-weather cities and have never used one). Specifically, it's a Craftsman 24-inch 2-stage snow-thrower from Sears, with six forward gears, two reverse gears, an electric starter (for those times when the pull-start just won't cut it), and an overhead-cam gasoline engine that sounds a lot like a chainsaw. Unless the port where the snow come out of gets clogged (which happens every few minutes with snow this wet), in which case it sounds like a chainsaw being strangled by a quilt...

No, I don't have any idea how that would happen, either. But if it ever did, it would sound exactly like the snow thrower getting clogged with snow and ice...

I'm not sure how to explain the sensation of guiding a self-propelled gas-powered machine through the snow and watching as snow cascades merrily out one side and a completely clean path appears underneath it, but I will try: It is cool. And it's only going to get cooler as I get used to adjusting the choke so that the engine doesn't stall out when you hit a really heavy patch of snow...

The only major downside of the morning, in fact, was trying to put fuel in the snow thrower. This is because our recently-acquired gas can is equipped with safety devices to prevent spillage and keep small children from pouring gasoline on themselves. Like most "child-proof" devices, this one works so well that it's extremely difficult even for a grown man (currently in grad school) to get any gas out of it, although I imagine a small child would have have no problems with it. But eventually, I got the idea of pushing the "spout" in as you try to pour, and the rest was easy...

Okay, so far this sounds like the story of a 44-year-old "noob" experiencing his first attempt to clear a driveway since roughly 1971, and his first attempt (ever!) to run a snow thrower. But imagine if I was working a job where I have to be at my desk by a specific hour, but I had to take 40 minutes to fuel the snow thrower, fire up the engine, clear my driveway and sidewalk, dry everything off and put it away before going to work. Imagine if everyone in the office had to do these things, too. Imagine if we also had to get a truck with a snowplow blade on the front to clear the parking lot before we could park in it, or the approach to the loading dock before we could get the trucks in...

Now, I realize that none of these things are novel, let alone surprising, to anyone who lives in a cold climate. I know that anyone who has ever lived in East Lansing longer than I have would have allocated the necessary time to get ready in the morning. My point here is that I DID allow for extra time to clear the driveway, extra time to drive to work very slowly and carefully, even extra time to get from the parking lot to my desk. But I hadn't counted on not being able to figure out how to operate a newfangled gas can...