So we got "The Sims -- Deluxe Edition" for Christmas, which is a terribly addictive video game. Rather than post interesting new content today, I'm going to recycle something that I wrote about a year ago and distributed privately. It follows below:
presents
-- one in an occasional series --
You may be wondering, why should I shovel my walk? After all, I got by without mowing my lawn for several months. Why shovel my walk? Actually, there are several good reasons to shovel your walk.
Although Canadians claim not to sue anybody, there do seem to be an awful lot of lawyers up here. And I if I do get sued, all the lawyers and judges will be wearing funny wigs, and I'll probably get put in jail for contempt of court for laughing at them.
First, you need tools: a snow shovel and a good outside broom. You can buy the outside broom in advance, but it's not possible to buy snow shovels in advance. Just try it! You'll be laughed out of Home Depot.
Traditionally, you wait until the first snow day, when all the traffic is tied up and the roads are extremely slippery, and then you drive (half off-road) to the nearest drugstore and buy the cheapo snow shovels they have there. These you use until they break. If you're lucky enough and it breaks in the middle of the season, you might be able to find an ergonomically designed shovels; otherwise, you just get lower back pain ("Canadian Soloflex").
Optionally, you can get an icebreaker. These very handy tools are best if you need to open a channel to an iced-up port. Some of the best icebreakers are made in Finland, home of sauna, Nokia telephones and attractively-priced 60% grain alcohol...
Sorry, just my Finnish tourism implant going off again. An icebreaker is kind of like a garden hoe, except the blade is attached directly to the pole (no bent part). You use it to chip at and shatter ice.
Don't bother getting salt. It's too cold for salt to work.
Really nice warm gloves. Boots with decent traction. Everything else is optional, though if you plan to do your front walk, there are decency laws you should follow. (A normal ski jacket, ordinary wool socks, jeans, a sweater is fine, even in -30 C, for as long as it takes to shovel. Haven't tried -30 and naked yet.)
Push the snow into a pile. Lift it with the shovel and throw it off of the walk. Throw it downhill.
After shoveling, sweep the snow off the shoveled surface with brisk back-and-forth strokes. Don't worry about where the snow goes.
Shovel early -- before lots of people walk by (and before you drive your car out of the driveway.) Snow that's packed down is hard to get off.
Wait until the sun has come out before starting to shovel. This way you can be sure that it's stopped snowing(*). As a bonus, the snow will be a little softer, and when you're done shoveling, a little bit of extra heat from the sun helps evaporate the last specks of snow (but see below).
But don't wait too long -- shovel before the snow half-melts and creates an enormous thin sheet of ice on the sidewalk in front of your house (*).
Shovel downslope, so that in three days when the temperature pops up above freezing, there's no snow that you shoveled upslope to melt and run down across the sidewalk creating an enormous thin sheet of ice on the sidewalk in front of your house (*).
Always sweep after shoveling. If you don't, the snow that's in the cracks of the sidewalk will be melted by the sun and will later refreeze, creating an enormous thin sheet of ice on the sidewalk in front of your house (*).
Items marked with a (*) were learned personally through experience. In case you hadn't guessed.
... and it doesn't even snow very much in Alberta.