March Sadness

Enough already.

While the calendar admittedly says winter runs from December 22 (the winter solstice and shortest day of the year) to March 21 (the spring equinox when you can purportedly stand an egg on its end); the weather folks have a much more agreeable idea: ‘meteorological winter’ is the months of December, January and February. Meteorological spring begins March 1. Let the crocuses bloom!

For the past two years, New England has abided by the ‘meteorological’ calendar. In fact, winter – at least precipitation-wise – was almost a no-show. My snow blower was dutifully hauled out and placed its ‘ready for duty’ position at the front of the garage where it gathered cobwebs for three months. We never had enough snow to matter; and what fell, invariable melted in a few days. We had worse winters in Virginia.

The view, of lack of it, from the
screened porch during the blizzard.

While it isn’t the winter of 2014-2015 (120 inches of the white stuff; the last of which didn’t melt until mid-April), this winter has produced about 60 inches of snow. And, the temperatures in February were much below-average 20 out of 28 days. I was greeted on the first day of meteorological spring by two inches of fresh snow. I was welcomed this morning by temperatures in the low teens. As this is written, the outside mid-afternoon temperature is all the way up to 28, and the little weather widget in my computer says to expect one-to-two inches of snow tomorrow.

The snowblower on skis.

Admittedly, we did get some melting over the weekend. As readers of this blog know, for environmental reasons, we do not have an asphalt driveway. We want the precipitation that falls on the property to stay on the property; not go down a storm drain. The asterisk to this otherwise agreeable declaration of eco-friendly awareness is that snow blowers are designed for asphalt and concrete. Put one to work on a surface covered with pea gravel, oyster shells, or stone dust, and you will be rewarded with a spray out the chute of, yes, snow; but also, the aforementioned gravel, shells and dust. Which you will be picking out of your garden for the next four months.

Down to bare slate

My snowblower is mounted on short lengths of skis, elevating the machine’s maw about two inches above the surface. As a result, it leaves the gravel in place. It also leaves two inches of packed snow. On Sunday, it was warm enough to (almost) completely melt the snow on the driveway. This morning, the driveway was again coated in white. I shoveled the sidewalk down to bare slate. I just grumbled at the idea of hand-shoveling the driveway.

Medfield, which is southwest of Boston, had two big storms last month: 16 inches at the beginning of February and 24 inches in the Blizzard of ’26 on February 22 to 24. The snow from both storms is still there. If I go out the front door (I say ‘if’ because apparently it is against the law to use your front door in New England, though it is tacitly agreed you must shovel the sidewalk), I walk through a two-foot-wide trench that still has two feet on snow on either side – and this is after compaction.

The trench to the feeders

In fact, I have multiple trenches on the property; suitable for my own private re-enactment of the Battle of the Somme. There is one from the side door of the garage to the bird feeders 20 feet away. And, of course, the snow has to be dug away from the feeders so as to thwart our high-IQ squirrels that would otherwise leap from the top of the snowbank onto sunflower-seed heaven. There is a side spur that leads ten feet to our home’s generator because, if the power goes out and the generator goes on and finds its outlet vent is packed in snow, it will promptly shut itself down, negating the purpose of having spent $11,000 to have uninterrupted power during a storm.

Yet another trench leads from a corner of the driveway down four steps and ten feet to get to our composter bins (which also had to be dug out).  And a final trench leads from the garage side door twenty feet to the driveway because, if I am taking a bag of kitchen scraps to the composter, I don’t want to have to unnecessarily put up the garage door; allowing frigid air to further freeze the pot-bound shrubs and perennials huddled in a corner of the garage against the quasi-warm wall of the house.

Did I mention digging out the mailbox?

I am all too aware I am grousing about what are politely known as ‘first-world problems’. On Cape Cod, there are still 50,000 people without electricity more than a week after the last flakes fell. World Central Kitchen has set up food wagons in Yarmouth and Hyannis. I should count myself lucky and shut up.

But this is the winter of my discontent. It has gone on too long and was too ferocious to appreciate. My Wednesday walking group cancelled several weeks because of the cold or excess of snow (and on one memorable week, we walked through thigh-deep snow for 90 minutes before admitting defeat). And the seven-day forecast? Snow, rain, and overnight lows below freezing.

Basketball fans are getting amped for March Madness. Me?  It’s March sadness.

  

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.

Heart Attack Snow

This post was supposed to be titled, ‘Winter Wonderland’. It was envisioned as a full-throated, self-congratulatory, thousand-word essay about being environmentally conscious even as you deal with the reality of snow-swept New England winter landscapes.

Medfield was supposed to be squarely in the 'jackpot zone'

Instead, I’m reduced to distantly remembering I used to gladly pay a dime at my local 7-11 on hot days to slurp a cupful of the stuff I’m now shoveling; except, back then, it was enhanced by a squirt of sickly-sweet fruit syrup.

We had been promised this snow
for three days

You see, we had a nor’easter last evening and today.  The same winter storm (they have names now, this one was Octavia) that drenched California and fouled travel across the Midwest, re-formed itself as a low-pressure system off the East Coast and dumped a foot and a half of snow on unsuspecting Queens.  Octavia then sets its sights on New England.  As late as 5 p.m., as flakes were starting to fall at the Connecticut-Massachusetts border, the National Weather Service still showed Medfield as squarely in the center of the ‘jackpot’ zone of 12” to 18” of snow.

Abigail jumping at snowflakes

I am ready for that kind of a snowfall.  For somebody who did not see snow until he was twenty years old, I have adapted rather well to the notion that precipitation can come frozen.  I topped off the gas in our snow blower, positioned it at the front of the garage door, and settled in for an evening of the kind of satisfied anticipation that comes with being well-prepared.  The snow arrived along with gale-force winds, turning trees into works of art.  Our ten-month-old, Florida-born cat, Abigail, jumped excitedly at the snowflakes falling on the outside of the living room window, unable to comprehend what was going on outside.

At about 9 p.m., Betty tilted her head and said, “that sounds like rain.”

“Nonsense,” I replied, with the confidence of someone who believes an army of forecasters armed with the infallible European Weather Model cannot possibly get things even a little wrong.

But I, too, heard the tinkling sound of raindrops against the windows.  I went to the Weather Channel website and saw the three-hour 'up-until-now' loop of solid snow overwhelming southern New England; getting darker blue by the second.  But I also saw something disturbing: the rain-snow line that was supposed to be solidly anchored on Cape Cod was, instead, stealthily advancing ever further into the mainland.

I tapped the ‘future’ button.  Sure enough, we were turning green. The loop showed Medfield had nothing but rain in its future. Somewhere, 30,000 feet over our heads, the gremlins controlling the storm's steering currents had decided to have a joke at my expense. Except, to me, it wasn’t going to be one bit funny.

No asphalt, just a stone driveway

At this point, you are probably wondering to yourself, What’s the big deal? Be happy it isn’t all that snow!

The first problem is, our property isn’t equipped to deal with wet, heavy snow.

Six years ago, when we were planning our ‘dream retirement house’, we went all-in on creating a home that would be one with nature.  No grass lawn, no invasive plants or trees, and nothing that would cause excess water to roll off our property and into the town’s storm drains. To meet that last requirement, we eschewed the idea of your standard asphalt driveway in favor of one made of crushed stone, held in place by decorative granite curbing. Rain water, rather than rolling down the gentle slope of the driveway to the street, would instead pass through the stone and soak into the subsoil, recharging the reservoir of moisture for our garden.

I mounted our snow 
blower on skis

And, if it snowed, I was ready: I retro-fitted a pair of Rossignol skis onto our hardy snow blower so the maw of the machine coasted half an inch above the driveway and sidewalk surface.  It is, if I can allow myself a moment of immodesty, a stroke of genius. I may even patent it one of these days.

The second problem is, there hasn’t been a snow blower made that can deal with water-soaked snow.  Put any model out on a driveway, fire it up, and watch as the icy residue dribbles out of the blower like an 18-month-old disgorging unwanted Gerber’s Squash Delight. 

An asphalt driveway can be
scraped clean in minutes

A homeowner with an asphalt driveway can pick up the phone, call some Guy with a Snow Plow on His Pickup Truck, and pay whatever extortion is demanded. I don’t have that option: a conventional snow plow will simply take off a cubic yard or two of crushed stone along with the snow, and deposit it either out on the street or in our perennial beds. (And don’t give me that ‘Oh, the snow plow operator can keep the blade up a couple of inches’ stuff. The Guy with a Snow Plow on His Pickup Truck has a laser-like focus on the goal of being in and out of your driveway in three minutes, with his pockets stuffed with enough cash to take the family to Disney World.)

The snow was water-soaked

This morning at 6:30 a.m., I went outside in drizzling rain to survey the scene.  The gremlins controlling the steering currents were slapping their knees with laughter.  While safely-inland Wilmington, Massachusetts recorded twenty inches of white, powdery snow; Medfield had six inches of snow permeated with at least an inch of water.  

A gift from the town

And, of course, down at the intersection of the driveway and the street, the Medfield Highway Department had thoughtfully deposited a ten-foot-wide, three-foot deep, and two-foot-high plug of pure ice. All of it had to be moved... by hand.

We call it ‘heart attack snow’.  Every shovelful weighs about thirty pounds. You move it for an hour and then your right arm goes numb. Cue the EMTs.

Betty took the sidewalk and an area immediately in front of the garage.  I first removed the plug of ice and then started up the 90-foot-long driveway, being careful to leave a skim of ice/snow on top of the

The finished driveway, a crust of snow

crushed rock. Two hours later, we had a clean sidewalk and a wide-enough passage that we can get our cars out into the world if needed.

As Kermit the Frog once reminded us, ‘It isn’t easy being green’. 

I would add it is definitely hard work sometimes.  And maybe even good exercise.

S'no Fun at the Old Homestead

In this unusual winter of 2018-2019, it took until Winter Storm Quiana to finally bring the Boston area enough snow to make it necessary to fire up our snowblower.  That event also began the annual nature-versus-nurture ritual in our family of arguing that Neal Cannot Possibly Know Anything About Snow Removal Because He Was Born in Florida.

I grew up in a snow-free environment

Yes, it is true.  I am a native of Miami.  I did not experience snow until I was 20 years old, and then only because I drove two hundred miles for the specific purpose of personally witnessing actual flakes of snow falling out of the sky (it seemed like a good idea at the time).

But that was in 1969.  Since 1971 I have lived exclusively in snowy locales.  I once lived in Schenectady, NY, where it is rumored the snow never melts.  I dwelled in Chicago where it begins snowing on Halloween and does not stop until late April, if then.  And I have spent 30 of the past 38 years in New England; sixteen of them with a 220-foot-long driveway that most decidedly would not clear itself without my intervention (Betty's rebuttal is that for seven of those years, I managed to be away on business every time it snowed).

For 16 years, we lived in a home
with a 220-foot-long driveway

Surely my adult tenure as a ‘northerner’ counts for something.  But not according to my wife, who was raised in the Finger Lakes region of New York; the anointed Snow Capital of America.  While I was busy tending the family mango and avocado plantation in January, February and March, Betty was working shoulder-to-shoulder with her father to clear six-foot-high drifts of the white stuff.  I freely admit she had a head start on me; but I’ve had nearly five decades to catch up.

I am not allowed to use the snowblower because I ‘don’t do it right’.  What, exactly, is the ‘right’ way?  You point the snowblower down the driveway and put it in gear.  You turn the crank on the gizmo that throws it left or right.  What could be easier? 

I invented a snowblower on
skis for our gravel driveway,
but I still 'do it wrong'

Well, our driveway is not macadam.  It is loose stone (to allow precipitation to percolate down into the water table rather than into storm drains).  Three years ago, I invented – and may yet decide to patent – a means of mounting the ‘maw’ of our snowblower onto a pair of skis so the business end of the machine rides an inch above the stone.  It is a sight to behold and it works wonderfully well.  But I am not allowed to be its wrangler because (it is alleged) I picked up too many stones on the lone pass of the driveway I was allowed to make.

Because of all the plants along it,
even shoveling the sidewalk requires
spousal supervision

I am instead consigned to the hand-shoveling of the sidewalk.  But even that requires close spousal supervision.  You see, we have no grass.  If we did, we could pile snow on it from now until Memorial Day.  Instead, we have trees, shrubs of many sizes, and perennials.  It’s never OK to put snow on a shrub (duh), but snow must also be spread out within perennial beds, never allowing snow to become too deep.  Also, to prevent accidentally covering small shrubs, snow should preferably be transported to the moss pathways that divide our garden into planting beds.

If I sound like I’m griping, it’s only because I think I’ve earned another shot at the back end of our Ariens Deluxe 22” machine when Winter Storm Ryan comes around.  I’ll even keep shoveling the sidewalk.  And besides, the family mango plantation has long since been bulldozed to make way for a shopping center.

S'no Fun Getting Rid of the White Stuff

This has been a bitterly cold winter though, until now, not especially snowy.  That appears to be changing.  We had eight inches of snow over the weekend, an inch yesterday morning, and there is a prediction for a 'major storm' for Thursday and Friday.  The problem for us is, what do you do when there's too much snow?

Planning for snow removal is part of
planning for a New England garden

This weather report is part of a garden blog because snow is a reality in New England and where to put snow is a continuing problem for any serious gardener in this region. Our particular issues are twofold: first, where the town puts the snow from the street and, second, where we put the snow from our driveway.

We are at the end of a cul-de-sac with a broad turning circle as part of our streetscape. The upside is that this gives us a very dramatic arc around which to design a garden. The downside is that the town plows have to put the snow from the other end of the street somewhere, and that ‘somewhere’ includes the buffer zone between our sidewalk and the street. And, because the town lays down chemicals to keep the street passable prior to plowing, the snow that ends up on that buffer zone (variously called an ‘easement’ or a ‘hell strip’) is laden with salts that render the strip inhospitable to grass.

This xeric bed - shown in its
summer glory - was under
several feet of chemical-
laden snow today

We’ve adapted the strip – some 960 square feet – into a xeric garden that is planted with perennials that tolerate the chemical soup. That garden planting scheme was detailed in this blog entry. There is already a two-foot-high mound of snow on part of that xeric garden and the Valentine's Day Storm could add several feet to that total.

The second issue is where we put the snow from our own driveway. We are set back 220 feet from the street on a meandering driveway and, at the head of the driveway, the asphalt widens out to 35 feet to feed a three-car garage, plus provide an additional backing-out area for cars. The home’s architect was apparently from some southern clime because the driveway dead-ends into the garage.  As such, there is no ‘simple’ place to put snow.  The problem grows geometrically with the depth of the snow and new snowfalls follow ones already on the ground.  There is already a four-foot-high wall of snow on one wall of the backing-out area.  After this storm, it may be double that height.

Removing 18 inches of snow - carefully

We’ve adapted the gardens along the driveway to this reality. (Double-click on the plot plan at the top of this post to get a more detailed view of the descriptions that follow.)  Along the main stretch of access, there is a grass strip roughly eight to ten feet wide, the sole purpose of which is to provide a landing spot for the snow from the driveway.  The driveway is never treated, so the snow simply provides moisture for the spring growing season.

This burlap skirt for
Thuja occidentalis was
added in November

The gardens in front of the house adjacent to the wide part of the driveway are, with a few exceptions, spring and summer perennials. A thuja occidentalis has a protective burlap skirt to deflect snow and we carefully direct our snowblower away from a now-seven-year-old oxydendrum that occupies the center of that bed. The perennials in the bed are already under a blanket of up to three feet of snow.  Absent a prolonged thaw, this area may not be bare until mid-March.

The wisteria bed was planned to
support heavy snow cover
in winter

Three years ago, we created a new garden at a critical area for snow removal. The "wisteria" garden, about which I wrote in 2010, is roughly 200 square feet and is anchored by six woody shrubs – three ilex and three miniature kalmia. The balance of the bed is spring- and summer-blooming perennials that can take heavy snow cover. After the blizzard, the depth of snow thrown in this area is up to five feet and is heavily compacted. We made every effort to direct snow around the tender kalmias. We cross our fingers each season and, so far, the kalmias have bounced back without damage.

The back of the turnaround area has long been planted with Kirengeshoma (Japanese wax bells) and Hakonechola macra ‘Aureola’ (Golden Japanese forest grass), with miscellaneous rhododendron behind them. These perennials die back to the ground in late September; the several feet of snow that cover the area all winter seems to make the plants thrive in the growing season.

The Blizzard of 2010

Three weeks ago, I wrote about the first rite of winter – putting out the driveway markers. I wrote that they wouldn’t prove their worth for the first few snows, but gave myself some wiggle room by adding, "unless it’s a nor’easter".
Well, the great blizzard of December 26 and 27 is winding down as this is written. Medfield was one of the ‘jackpot’ communities with roughly 18 inches of snow on level ground. Of course, with 50-knot winds blowing almost continuously, undisturbed snow has been quite hard to find today. But the eighteen inches seems to be a reasonable guess.

Planning for snow removal is part of
planning for a New England garden

This weather report is part of a garden blog because snow is a reality in New England and where to put snow is a continuing problem for any serious gardener in this region. Our particular issues are twofold: first, where the town puts the snow from the street and, second, where we put the snow from our driveway.

We are at the end of a cul-de-sac with a broad turning circle as part of our streetscape. The upside is that this gives us a very dramatic arc around which to design a garden. The downside is that the town plows have to put the snow from the other end of the street somewhere, and that ‘somewhere’ includes the buffer zone between our sidewalk and the street. And, because the town lays down chemicals to keep the street passable prior to plowing, the snow that ends up on that buffer zone (variously called an ‘easement’ or a ‘hell strip’) is laden with salts that render the strip inhospitable to grass.

This xeric bed - shown in its
summer glory - was under
several feet of chemical-
laden snow today

We’ve adapted the strip – some 960 square feet – into a xeric garden that is planted with perennials that tolerate the chemical soup. That garden planting scheme was detailed in this blog entry. This afternoon, there is a seven-foot-high mound of snow on part of that xeric garden.

The second issue is where we put the snow from our own driveway. We are set back 220 feet from the street on a meandering driveway and, at the head of the driveway, the asphalt widens out to 35 feet to feed a three-car garage, plus provide an additional backing-out area for cars. The home’s architect was apparently from some southern clime because the driveway dead-ends into the garage.  As such, there is no ‘simple’ place to put snow.  The problem grows geometrically with the depth of the snow and new snowfalls follow ones already on the ground.

Removing 18 inches of snow - carefully

We’ve adapted the gardens along the driveway to this reality. (Double-ckick on the plot plan at the top of this post to get a more detailed view of the descriptions that follow.)  Along the main stretch of access, there is a grass strip roughly eight to ten feet wide, the sole purpose of which is to provide a landing spot for the snow from the driveway.  The driveway is never treated, so the snow simply provides moisture for the spring growing season.

This burlap skirt for
Thuja occidentalis was
added in November

The gardens in front of the house adjacent to the wide part of the driveway are, with a few exceptions, spring and summer perennials. A thuja occidentalis has a protective burlap skirt to deflect snow and we carefully direct our snowblower away from a now-four-year-old oxydendrum that occupies the center of that bed. After this blizzard, the perennials in the bed are under a blanket of up to three feet of snow.  Absent a prolonged thaw, this area may not be bare until mid-March.

The wisteria bed was planned to
support heavy snow cover
in winter

This year, we created a new garden at a critical area for snow removal. The "wisteria" garden, about which I wrote in August, is roughly 200 square feet and is anchored by six woody shrubs – three ilex and three miniature kalmia. The balance of the bed is spring- and summer-blooming perennials that can take heavy snow cover. After the blizzard, the depth of snow thrown in this area is up to five feet and is heavily compacted. We made every effort to direct snow around the tender kalmias. We’ll know next spring if we succeeded.

The back of the turnaround area has long been planted with Kirengeshoma (Japanese wax bells) and Hakonechola macra ‘Aureola’ (Golden Japanese forest grass), with miscellaneous rhododendron behind them. These perennials die back to the ground in late September; the several feet of snow that cover the area all winter seems to make the plants thrive in the growing season.

Driveway markers

We observed one of our solemn, annual rituals the other day: we put out the driveway markers.

We have fairly well exhausted the end-of-fall checklist. The leaves have been mowed and re-mowed into the lawn until they are a fine, brown mulch. The perennial beds have been cut flat and, depending upon whether the spindly, desiccated stalks showed evidence of mildew or not, the detritus has been either composted or taken to the dump.

Those autumn chores remind us that, once upon a time, there was color and life in our garden. By contrast, putting out the driveway markers serves only the purpose of acknowledging that winter is imminent. The sun will set today at 4:15, the third of an eleven-day run featuring that horrendously early departure of daylight. It rose this morning at 7:01 and, incredibly, has still another ten minutes of daylight to lose before the solstice. With just nine hours of daylight and nighttime temperatures sinking into the low twenties, all it will take is a little bit of moisture coming up from the Gulf of Mexico and the snows of winter will arrive with a vengeance.

The markers look odd for now; circles of bright red atop white poles. Because our driveway meanders 220 feet from the street to the garage (good feng shui, I imagine) and has a curving turnaround area, it takes 20 markers to indicate the true outline of the course. It’s a necessary exercise: not for the first snow but, rather, for the fourth or fifth. The first one (unless it’s a nor’easter) will melt in a day. The second one may linger a little longer but the demarcation between asphalt and lawn will still be obvious even under a few inches of snow.

It’s when we get six inches of snow followed by eight inches more that the reason for the markers becomes clear. The person pushing the snow blower follows the line of markers, left and right, throwing snow between two feet and ten depending upon how much moisture is in it (if you are a snow-shoveling veteran, you can skip this part). In wide areas of a driveway or where the house or shrubs are immediately adjacent, snow is thrown elsewhere on the driveway, then re-blown off on a subsequent pass. Each pass deposits snow in a slightly different location with the result that after a short while there is no longer a clear line between driveway and non-driveway. Without those markers as a guide, a snow blower will inevitably veer off into grass. The blades of the snow blower grind up the grass, killing it, while also typically snapping a shear pin. By mid-January, those markers are worth their weight in hot chocolate.

We also are sticklers for cleaning right to the edge of the driveway. This is a matter of personal preference for some New Englanders (I have seen driveways plowed exactly the width of a car and not an inch more). Betty’s strongly held view is that snow or ice left on a driveway is bound to melt and re-freeze. Getting it all off as soon as it snows is the one way to keep the driveway clear all winter.

And, it all starts with those markers. And the markers start now, in early December.