Pants Party, Part I

Needless to say, shoveling has dominated our lives over the past few days. Sidewalk, check. Steps, check. Basement, check. Cars, check. But when our neighborhood listserv suggested shoveling the snow off our roof, the list needed to be revised.

The suggestion came across our path early enough in the day that I figured, yeah, sure, great idea. Not a problem. But you know what? This suggestion needed a footnote. Something along the lines of, "Warning: Muscles required." Instead, both I and my muscles found out the hard way.

So, fast forward and I've set up the ladder in the bathroom, ready to climb up on to the roof. I should have known what was in store for me as I struggled to even push open the hatch. Keep in mind, this was roughly 30 inches we're talking about. Now I'm not sure what the square footage of our roof is, but 30 multiplied by anything is a lot of snow.

Broom (I did not use this at all) and shovel in hand, I began with the edges and rear of the roof. Two hours later, perhaps 1/4 of the roof had been cleared. 4 hours later, perhaps half of the roof. Thankfully adrenaline kicked in and I forsaw no problem in finishing the job. That is, until I looked over the side of the house.

Something I never even considered was that all the snow from the roof has to go somewhere, right? As I wasn't about to kill any passing pedestrians, that somewhere was around the various sides of the house. So, when I looked down, it was to a mound of snow covering the entire front door and the entire basement rear exit (see the pictures above). Not only would I be required to shovel this snow again, but think about how compact that snow is. Our house is two and a half stories. A straight drop from that height equals a painful experience.

In the end I shoveled roughly 3/4 of the roof and spread the rest out evenly. I re-shoveled the entire front of the house (sorry, no pictures), and shoveled out the basement exit until I reached the drain. Tomorrow I'm contemplating shoveling even further to retrieve my spleen that I seem to have buried.

Editorial Note: I'm happy that we chose to clear the roof, despite all of the difficulty. In talking with neighbors and reading through blogs, it seems that a number of roofs have collapsed (including a fire station) and gutters have been ripped off of houses as melted ice turns into heavy icicles.