Ice Bashing

Wow, I was actually pretty sore this morning when I jumped up out of bed to start my day. Yesterday afternoon I deduced that I needed to go outside and try to rid the driveway, sidewalk and concrete around the shed of the massive buildup of ice.

It has been getting just warm enough to melt the snow in the gutters and on the roof but by the time it gets down to the concrete it only makes it a short distance. The sun begins to fade away and the cold concrete helps the water to quickly freeze again. This can make for a really eventful walk out to the trashcan or to the cars in the morning.

I have this really cool new scraper tool that I bought a week or 2 back from Sears that is made just for this purpose. It has a long handle and a 6" or so metal scraper on the end where broom bristles or a shovel scoop would normally be located.

It worked pretty good considering the amount of ice and the thickness of it although there is still a long way to go before it is all gone. I should have worked on it earlier in the day yesterday while it was a little warmer out I guess. To be honest I sorta forgot about it while kicking back in the nice warm house.

I am generally not a fan of any type of snow and ice melt products. Mostly because they are so hard on the concrete and grass. Kid it gets tracked into the house as well and can stain the carpets or get on the fuzzy kids paws which ends up in the fuzzy kids system after he cleans himself - not good!

Unfortunately the ice is just too much this season and I am breaking down and getting some help. I bought a brand that is non toxic and safe for pets, kids, lawns and concrete so we will see how it works out. I don't intend to use much, only enough to get the ice melting so I can manually break it up and then sweep up the remaining ice melt product.

With family coming this next week and us in and out of the house the last thing I want is someone to fall down, especially if that someone is my pregnant wife!

More On The Way

According to the weather guessers there is more winter weather on the way this week. From what they said on the radio today we will have another storm upon us around Thursday. Yep, just in time for the holidays and people traveling to visit family and friends.

We don't have a lot of plans at this point. But we do have Cicely's mom coming into town which will mean I want it to be halfway clear and nice so we are not all stuck in the house staring at each other for several days.

Not much anyone can do except sit and wait and see what Mother Nature has in store for us. At least Cicely and I are off several days around Christmas. This means if it does snow or get nasty we really don't have to do anything if we don't want to. That is always a bonus and makes the bad weather a little more welcoming. My guess though is that it will be nice and the shxtty weather will come just in time for us to have to go back to work, it always does.

Try to have a good Monday whatever you are doing. If you get bored feel free to come over and scrape some of this ice off of my driveway and side patio, thanks!

Photo: Little bit of this mornings ice. Just the basic stuff, not the 5+ inch thick stuff.