On a snow night, the city plow comes down our street somewhere around 4:50 in the morning, and Moose always knows before I do. He gets up off his bed, goes to the front window and barks at it the entire length of our block. That's our alarm clock from December to March. By the time I'm awake enough to look outside, I already know whether it's a shovel morning or a snowblower morning.
This is our second winter in the Cape and our first one with a plan. Grand Rapids averages around 75 inches of snow a season, and lake-effect bands make it uneven. One part of town gets an inch and another gets eight. We have a single-lane asphalt driveway, about 70 feet long, running down the side of the house to the detached garage. Last winter I shoveled all of it by hand. This winter I have a used Toro.
The routine
Two inches is the line. Under two, I shovel. Two or more, the snowblower comes out. On weekdays, when I work on site, I start it at 6:15, which is late enough that I don't feel like the neighborhood villain and early enough to be done before I leave. If it's a heavy, all-day snow, I'll do a pass the night before too, so the morning job isn't twice as deep.
Tessa's Civic lives in the garage in winter and the Tacoma stays in the driveway, so the order matters. I start at the garage door, clear a path wide enough for the Civic, work down both sides of the Tacoma and then head for the street. I throw snow onto our own front lawn and the strip along the house, never toward Gary's side, and never toward the side door steps I just shoveled. The single-stage throws about 25 feet when the snow is light and a lot less when it's wet.
The whole driveway takes about 35 minutes with the snowblower. Last winter by hand it was over an hour, and my back let me know about it every time.
The windrow at the end of the drive
The hard part is the pile the plow leaves across the end of the driveway. It's heavy, packed, full of chunks of ice and sometimes two feet tall. A single-stage machine doesn't love it. What works for me is taking it in small bites: half-width passes, pushing in a few inches at a time and letting the paddles chew rather than ramming it. The biggest chunks I break up with the shovel first.
Gary taught me the other trick, which is to clear a pocket on the side of the driveway apron the plow comes from, so there's somewhere for the snow to go before it reaches us. It doesn't stop the windrow, but it makes it smaller. He's been doing it since before I was born.
The paddles I noticed were worn when I bought the snowblower in November finally stopped clearing down to the pavement after the storm between Christmas and New Year's. I swapped them last Sunday for $48. It took about an hour with a socket set, most of which was figuring out which bolt I'd dropped into the snow.
Steps, ice melt and Moose's paws
The side door steps and the back stoop get shoveled by hand every time. The back stoop matters most because it's Moose's route to the yard. He loves snow. He'll bound into a fresh drift up to his chest and come back looking like a powdered donut.
Last winter I used plain rock salt on the steps, and Moose would come inside and lick his paws for ten minutes. This year we switched to an ice melt labeled as easier on pets. It costs more per bag, so I use it only on the steps and the stoop, not the driveway. When I asked our vet about it at his checkup, she said either way, wipe his paws when he comes in. So there's an old towel on a hook at the side door landing, and he now sits for it without being asked, mostly because a treat comes after.
Gary has his own snowblower, a two-stage from the early 2000s that he maintains like a race car. I run ours down his front walk anyway when I'm done with ours. He comes out every time to tell me I don't need to. Then he waves from the porch.
Tessa's part of the system is clearing the path from the garage door to the Civic's tires with a shovel, every time, without being asked. Then she tells me which parts of the driveway I missed. She is usually right.
