Snowbound

Posted On January 27, 2025

He awoke every morning at 5am, without fail. Through threescore north country winters, the old man had evolved his own ruggedly well regimented daily routine. Harsh was the price paid for deviation or lackadaisical lay about laziness. A lesson winter’s other old man had no qualm reminding him of, the hard way.

The old man “slept” (for lack of more accurate term, and for longstanding medical reasons bereft of any relevant need to be recounted here) in a big, overstuffed chair situated next to his woodstove. He would stoke up the fire each evening and read for a bit, before turning down the stove’s damper, closing that day’s chapter and relaxing his eyelids as his mind wandered slowly backward and forward betwixt days passed and the next.

The old man had no alarm clock, save that internal. He’d long since shed need of one. At the appointed time, he simply awoke. A skill ingrained during hard tenure in his nation’s service, honed through the course of an avid outdoorsman’s life since.

His wakening beat each day’s sunrise by over two hours. Once alert, stretched, upright, mobile and about, he opened the stove’s damper, stoked up its fire, checked inside and outside temperature readings on his chairside digital thermometer, then peered out the window to assess just what level of snow dump grumpiness old man winter had reached in the night.

Sometimes there was great measure of snow, other times, a mere dusting. Rare was the north country mid winter’s morn when snow season’s task master saw fit to take mercy and bequeath him nothing.

Alert and awake, his morning’s lot duly assessed, the old man dressed by the fire, where he kept a north woods man’s heavy socks and mittens, two pair each, as well as two hats, a warm jacket and vest, all hanging warm and dry over the gate that surrounded his fire. Both pair of mittens were hinged at the fingers, with the mitten tops folding back, leaving fingerless gloves. On extremely cold days, or those days with heavy, blowing or ongoing snow, when hat, sock or mitten got wet, the old man could simply come in, warm his extremities a moment, and swap out.

On those occasions when overnight accumulations were fluffy and light, the old man had recently taken to employing his little else used battery powered leaf blower. Even when the snow fell a bit heavier, he had discovered the leaf blower worked quite handily on clearing snow from decks, sidewalks, porches and cars, which saved him much time and effort, for of each he had several. The system worked quite well, so well in fact, that the old man had purchased his leaf blower a second battery and charger (no small expense!), which, when conditions were right, gave him enough juice to clear snow from everything, including his nicely paved driveway, without having to fire up the snowblower or even once lift a shovel.

Neighbors and passersby who observed the old man’s snow moving endeavors executed in such manner might have thought him mad, especially on when the old man repeated that routine several times through the course of a day. “Why get up so early?” “Why even bother with such fluff?” However, the old man had discovered that by doing so, once the sun did rise, even on the coldest of days, it’s rays would heat thusly cleared sidewalks, cars and pavement such that each and all were completely snow free by day’s end. Who says old dogs can’t learn new tricks.

On those days when winter’s generosity was overabounding, the old man would employ his snow pusher (which he much favored over a shovel, as he could push snow more quickly than shoveling without having to lift it) or fire up his trusty snowblower, often using them in tandem, based on how the day’s winds were blowing. Moving snow was an art the old man knew quite well. He used wind to his advantage. His home and driveway were on an east/west axis. Lake Ontario’s prevailing winds generally came in from north or west. When they did so, the old man moved snow north to south. When there was occasion for a more south to north wind trajectory, he simply reversed his snow moving course accordingly.

He didn’t mind if folks thought him a bit mad. (“Stay away from that guy. He’s nuts!”) That suited his raison d’etre just dandy and fine. In fact, the old man would occasionally go out and move snow in his pajamas, sometimes barefoot, in part just to further feed into that narrative. The invigorating feel of fresh snow on bare feet made him feel more alive.

The old man, for the most part, simply enjoyed being outside, working in harmony with wind and sun’s rays, moving winter, flake by flake, one step closer to spring. Ther was method in his madness. Once his work was finished and the sun warmed blacktop bare, the wind would simply blow snow across his driveway in swirling snow devils instead of creating drifts in it.

Such moments made the old man smile.

And feel just a little less snowbound.

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Until Our Trails Cross Again:

ADKO