Your Wren at Work

Rumor has it that there's another storm coming in tonight, with another 3-5 inches of snow. So I donned my trusty fleece jacket, my snow boots with the grippy soles, my gloves and a hat and set to work shoveling a path up to the road. I figured if we do get another good snow, I'll only have to shovel the new stuff.

The wood ring on the hearth is down to about half-full, too. So de-iced paths from the stacked wood to the door will also make life a little easier.

It took me about an hour and 15 minutes to make my path, and shovel the area in front of the mailbox up on the street so the mailperson can get to it. Did my neighbor's box too, since I was right there. And our other neighbor, J, was out on his little tractor with the snowplow on front, scraping the lane so that everyone living along it can get down to the main road.

I like J. He and his family have lived here almost as long as we have, and I've never seen him without a big smile on his face. A few winters back, when he first got his tractor and snowplow (he's one of those boys who loves his toys), I happened to be out shoveling the first time he used it. The sheer joy on his face as he scraped a half a foot of snow off the lane was contagious. When he saw me watching him, and saw the shovel in my hand, he offered to scrape off our entire, steep driveway.

I wasn't going to turn that down. I still had the steepest part to do, the snow was the wet kind -- very heavy -- and I was getting tired. So J got busy and just did it for me. That big smile of his never left his face.