We had a decent snowfall yesterday, about 15cm. It made for fairly heavy shoveling though, as it was not light fluffy snow, it was wet and mixed with ice pellets. The children and I tackled it twice and got it all cleared before Andrew came home. During the night the plow came through and cleared the street, leaving a mountain at the end of the driveway. This is all quite normal and manageable, except on the days when you leave the house to head to a violin lesson 15 minutes before the lesson is due to start and then find the mountain of snow at the end of the driveway which you know will take at least 20 minutes to clear and the lesson is 15 minutes away.

Today Andrew planned to clear it before I headed out. A10 went out first and was making a good start on it when a truck with plow attached came down the street. This was not a city plow just a contractor who clears people’s driveways. He saw our young ten year old digging away at the mountain and took pity on her. In a moment it was cleared away and she was smiling back at him. I have often been out shoveling the mountain when a truck with plow has gone by and never has one stopped for me.

So the new strategy is to send the young girl out with the shovel and if that stops working we have a younger, smaller child we can send out.

As the shoveling was done she was able to work on the real project, building forts. B6 came out, as did his friend across the road. This impressive castle now stands in the yard across the street. I believe most of the work was done by our neighbour, aided and abetted by the children.