Snapshot Muse #15 - Winter Ade

We've seen many months of winter in all its glory - cold, wind and tons of snow. While I didn't get to move mounds every single day, I do somehow feel I developed a strong bond with our shovel. Thus, this is sort of an ode the shovel post. We have the 'easy on your back' variety - its curved handle supposedly makes things easier on your back. That's probably true when there's only three inches of light snow on a tiny porch. However, removing four feet of wet snow (and we got lots of that this year) from a big deck with rails, (also our reality) there is no 'easy' - one practically gets back spasms just looking at the stuff.

Nevertheless, I love our bent handle shovel and can't hold it against it, that it's not a real wonder tool. It's such a big part of my life for months on end, I can't help but be attached. It stands beside the door waiting, always ready for the next snowfall, beckoning me and every other person who passes by, to pick it up and heave some snow. OK, fine, it does make shoveling a tad less bad breaking... or maybe it forces people to lift and pitch snow in a manner that's not so strenuous - if there's such a thing as perfect posture snow pitching. And in that case, perhaps this latest model of the lowly shovel is a wonderful invention.

Still, I'm quite happy to tuck this steel and plastic apparatus away in the garden shed. Rest you weary wonder, and I won't miss you at all till the next snow season falls upon us. And I am extremely grateful to see warm temperatures remove our snow.

Interestingly enough, while working on this post, I found an article: Science of Scooping Snow 
Don't you just love the title? - Next thing we'll know it will be part of the curriculum here in Manitoba.

The song I chose for this posts brings memories from my childhood. It's on the first page of the Witter's Zweite Lesebuch. Although, back then, I was probably not aware that it's a song: Winter Ade