Contending With Snow And Its Load.

I thought you might like to See What I See today.

It’s been snowing on and off for days on end.

In the part of Canada (where @knarly327 and I live) we actually don’t get that much snow compared to other areas.

Most folks would tease us and say that we’re living in the banana belt section of Ontario, Canada. Specifically, that we have no leg to stand on, while we bemoan the volume of snow that we must manage.

It’s just a light dusting, if you can still open your front door without greeting a wall of snow that you have to dig through.

Truth be told, that’s what Ontarians generally think about the folks who live on Canada’s west coast (which is basically anyone living in the Province of British Columbia, a 2,850 km distance away).

At any rate, dealing with snow adds more time requirements to everything we do outside. This includes traveling from A to B and then being able to park safely wherever you end up at your destination.

After using a snow blower to blow the snow from our driveway and warming the car up (which takes approximately 30 minutes in our case because we don’t have a long driveway) you can then proceed.

If you don’t take the time to shovel yourself out properly , it is highly probable that you will get stuck and it will take you twice as long or even longer to be on your way.

Once on the road, we joined a convoy of 6 vehicles following a huge snow plow. These heavy machines run around the clock trying to keep our roads passable when it’s snowing.

Being a Snow Plow Operator is a thankless job.

No one really wants to slow down, but you must if you don’t want to be in or be the cause of an accident.

This generally means that driving speeds are reduced by half and your traveling time doubles.

All of which requires planning if you have any hope of arriving anywhere on time.

Once at our place of business, we then set out to manage the snow there, too.

It adds about 2 hours of extra work to the average day and isn’t limited to roads, parking lots and driveways.

The snow-load on roofs is a real thing.

In the photo (above) you can see what a snow roof rake looks like.

In our area, we are expecting rain through the evening and night, tonight. It is critical to get the snow off the roof before it becomes saturated with rain and freezes into a solid mass of snow and ice.

Roof structures collapse when the weight is too heavy for the roof trusses to bear.

You just have to shovel the snow away from everything and that means huge snow banks because you need to put the snow somewhere.

Managing snow in Canada, in February.

~ Rebecca