The last few days Bend, Oregon, has been the fortunate recipient of an abundance of snow. Our water reservoirs are only half full and this additional snow should ease our water usage for the coming year, and for my personal concern, reduce the fire hazard. I have spent months of work clearing flammable things away from my home and filled the 30-gallon refuse container with much more than I thought was available every week since spring. The can is currently filled and sledgehammered down, as usual, but the snowpocalypse hit us and there are no nonessential public services like garbage collection.
I have been working physically hard shoveling snow for several hours per day, clearing the two-plus feet of snow off of my driveway and roof. It’s a big job. Two years ago we had a similar event and several buildings collapsed from the weight of the snow. Also, I had put up a warm-wire along a valley where two roof sections come together, to prevent ice dams from forming and forcing water through the roof and into the house. That worked well, but it didn’t help one bit with the tons of snow on top of my house.
The nice thing about clearing snow is the progress can be seen with every shovelful cleared away. Whereas, the clearing of fire-prone trees, bushes, and other vegetation the only result is a clear natural-looking area with nothing much to look at except flat dirt. To repeat my sage advice of February 20, 2017:
Chop, chop — carry, carry — shovel, shovel, shovel.
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