Fifth Grade Math on a Stormy Sunday in February

February is a fickle month in New England.  It can rain, it can snow, it can sleet. Sometimes it can do all three within a few hours. Today happens to be one of those days.

The TV stations had it all laid out

Last evening at 10 p.m. it was beginning to snow. The forecast for southwest suburban Boston was for four to five inches of snow overnight, changing over to sleet and freezing rain around 4 a.m., and then to all rain at 7 a.m. with a likely accumulation of about an inch of water total.

Though having been born and raised in Florida, I have learned a few things about winter. One of them is that rain does not melt snow, especially when the rain falling is about 35 degrees. Instead, the snow becomes waterlogged. You are essentially shoveling water, which is not an especially healthy thing to do. And, if you don't shovel it, the waterlogged snow turns to concrete overnight.

If I waited until the system moved
out, the snow would be waterlogged

As I watched that forecast, I wondered how much water I would have to shovel if I stayed inside, snug and warm, and waited until the rain passed? That’s the kind of math problem I used to enjoy solving back in fifth grade: area (or volume) multiplied by weight.

The area: I have a two-car garage roughly 20 feet wide, and the depth of the parking/turning area is also about 20 feet. OK, 400 square feet. The driveway is ten feet wide and 60 feet long. That’s another 600 square feet. Plus, there’s a sidewalk that’s four feet wide and 50 feet long. Two hundred square feet. Add them up and you get 1200 square feet as the area to be shoveled.

At this point, you’re wondering to yourself, why isn’t this guy using a snow blower? 

Good only for light,
powdery snow

That’s a good question with a complicated answer. I do, in fact, have a snow blower; and it works. But, for very sound environmental reasons, I have a crushed stone driveway rather than asphalt. So as not to scoop up and throw stones from the driveway into the garden, I mounted the maw of the snowblower mounted on skis. It works wonderfully well on light, powdery snow. It does not work at all on wet, heavy snow (and neither do most snow blowers going over asphalt).

Back to the math problem. There are two numbers that have stuck in my head for almost seven decades. The first the mnemonic, “a pint’s a pound the world around”. The other is that a cubic foot of water weighs 62.4 pounds.

The sidewalk

I could solve the math with the pint/pound thing, but it’s easier with the cubic foot method. If I have 1200 square feet of driveway and it was covered to a depth of one foot, I would have 1200 gallons of water which would weigh 74,880 pounds. But I have one inch, which is one-twelfth of that or 6,240 pounds of water… just over three tons. Three tons. That is a monumental amount of water to pick up and move one shovelful at a time.

It even has a hood! 

I do not want to shovel three tons of water. So, I awakened at 5:30 a.m. and dressed for sleet. Twelve years ago, Betty took me to Niagara Falls; a place she had been to numerous times as a child. We went in mid-summer and, as a special treat, we took the Maid of the Mist boat right up to the American Falls. Because there is lots of spray involved in going to the business end of a waterfall, your passage on the boat includes a thin plastic rain slicker. Most people leave them behind; I thought it was a fun memento and brought it home.  Well, this morning I found it and decided it was the ideal complement to my ratty jeans and duct-taped snow boots.

Down to the stone driveway

I started at 5:45 a.m.; got the sidewalk and lower part of the driveway done, then came in and had breakfast, The snow was dense, but not nearly as heavy as it would be later in the morning. I worked for two hours on the first shift, then another two shoveling the parking pad. Both sessions involved either sleet or rain.

I would guess I moved just over a ton of water. That’s pretty good exercise for a 75-year-old body. Do I want to do it again anytime soon?  

Hell, no.

Spring Training - Community Garden Style

In baseball, teams take a winter break. Then, in early February, busses ferry supplies to Florida or Arizona. Pitchers and catchers come back. Then, the team reunites and the old guard gets to look over the crop of rookies. In late March, the regular season begins.

Amazingly, much the same happens in community vegetable gardens, or at least at the Medfield Community Garden I have overseen for the (gulp) past 15 years in Boston’s southwest suburbs.

Back at the end of October, the garden shut down for the winter. On November 1, I sent an email to all ‘gardeners in good standing’ asking if they wanted to return for the 2025 season. Once I had those results in hand, I put my feet up for a few months. Except I didn’t. That November email also asked gardeners what went right and what went wrong over the course of the season. I mostly focused on the ‘where we screwed up’ responses and figured out ways to address them, just like any good team manager.

Public enemy Number One

This past season, what was on everyone’s mind were “critters” digging under or chewing through fences, and the stronger fences everyone was putting up to keep the critters out. The complaint, though, was the hard work of taking down those fences in the fall, only to have to re-install them five months later. To save the three days of work at the beginning and end of the season, could the fences stay up?

Putting up and taking down fences every
season was the chief complaint

That’s what I did over the winter break: devised a rationale that would get the approval of the Baseball Commission – er, the Medfield Conservation Commission. Last evening, the Commission voted to try a ‘fences-stay-up’ experiment for the winter of 2025-2026. I don’t expect anyone to offer to carry me into the garden on their shoulders. More like I’ll get a bucket of Gatorade dumped over me,

I try to make everyone happy. It isn't easy.

On January 1, I emailed returning gardeners asking if they really plan to come back and, if so, do they want to stay in the same size plot and same location. A surprising number of respondents wanted a change. Seven gardeners with half plots were ready to move up to full ones (from 300 to 600 square feet). One gardener elected to downsize. Them I sent around the plot plan to those returning gardeners showing the plots that would be available to new gardeners. Half a dozen gardeners ask to be switched to greener pastures (or richer soil, maybe). After three weeks, everyone was happy with their location.

On February 1, I asked returning gardeners to pony up for their plots. At the same time, I reminded everyone that the best seeds aren’t found on the shelves of big box stores. The gardening equivalent of those team busses began collecting and disgorging seed orders as gardeners began going through the Johnny’s of Maine and Pine Tree Seed catalogs and web sites.

The wheelbarrows need to work
to make food cupboard 
pickups possible

At the same time, the management roster was pulled into shape. Yes, community gardens have committees. The most important one deals with food cupboard collections. We now have two dedicated 600 square foot plots where volunteers grow food specifically to deliver to food pantries in Medfield and nearby Medway. In advance of every distribution date, wheelbarrows need to be set up at the front of the garden and ‘sweeps’ made to collect the produce contributed by gardeners from their own plots. In weeks where both pantries are having distributions, there will be twice-a-day sweeps four days a week. It takes a lot of coordination.

Two people are required to mow the perimeter of the garden using lawn mowers either donated or salvaged from the town’s transfer station. Another person is needed to keep the lawn mowers running and yet another volunteer has the inglorious task of keeping a fleet of 12 wheelbarrows upright. Did I miss anyone? Probably.

I collected lots of names

On March 1, I will throw open the garden to new registrants. I have 18 spots on the roster (OK, gardens) to fill. Fortunately, I collected 22 names at Discover Medfield Day. How many of those people will want to sign up? I have no earthly idea. That’s why I do a full-court press (sorry, that’s basketball) to get as many interested gardeners as possible. Ideally, I’ll even have a wait list.

Staking the garden for the new season

In the last week of March, two events take place that tell everyone the new season has started. There’s a talk on vegetable gardening at the town library on Saturday morning which usually draws a standing-room-only crowd (new gardeners are “strongly encouraged” to go). The nice part is old hands also show up and introduce themselves to the rookies. The offers to help are genuine. Friendships are born.

And, the next day, a team of a dozen volunteers marks out the garden and puts down 240 stakes to show the corners of each full plot. It is usually a comedy of errors, but it gets done. Eventually.

As soon as that’s finished, I throw the garden for everyone to start doing their thing. Except, just like those painful-to-watch early season baseball games where the snow has to be shoveled out of the stands, it’s really too cold to start planting in New England. But, it’s all part of the tradition, and who am I to question it?