It’s just a simple tool but the right one does matter. Choose the right tool for every job!

I was looking at a good friends Facebook post today and some of the beautiful pictures of fresh snow at his guest ranch he posted.  His ranch is an awesome place located in a pristine part of California and the pictures of snow on the ground and in the trees were worthy of a postcard.  As I scrolled through the photographs what I saw was work.  Now you have to realize I was currently in the Hood (my cabin located at 7,000 ft in the heart of the Sierra Nevada mountains) and in the middle of a winter storm in which we got 3 ft of wet snow in a day and a half and it’s still snowing.  Now I love the snow, I love to ski and snowshoe, but snow is work.  Roads need to be blown and walks need to be shoveled.  Cars need to be cleared and just moving around outside can be slippery, cold, and falling snow off the roof dangerous.  So in the beauty, what I saw was work and the tools to make the choir easier.

One of the most basic and probably the oldest tool for snow maintenance is the shovel.  It is a simple enough tool used to scoop a pile of frozen water from one spot and place it in a more desirable location.  You don’t have to touch it with hands and you have the advantage of leverage to give it a toss.  Now most any shovel is better that your hands but some shovels are better than others.  In the past I have always had a simple aluminum, short handle, square tip, large scoop, feed shovel.  It is the type you would find at your local feed store and I would avoid using at my grandfather’s house because it held too much material which made the load too heavy.  The only problem I have had with that type of shovel has been my kids.  Now for me, this type of shovel would last several years, but give it to my kids and you hope it last the day.  The problem is the lightweight design and the big scoop.  It is great for scooping fresh snow off the ground but not so good for building igloos or snow caves.  Bury the scoop deed in old snow, crank on the handle, and crack there goes the shovel.  My last one made it 3 days- 3 days!  So I needed a new shovel once again and off to the store I went.

Just like so many things in my life, I went to the hardware store knowing exactly what I wanted but they did stock the shovel I was looking for. Now they did have a “snow” shovel and it was aluminum, had a short handle and a big scoop, but it was different.  The handle was curvy and was supposed to be ergonomic.  The scoop was concave on the sides, I think for strength. and the scoop had indentations in it probably for the same reason.  And it was more than twice the costs of the shovels I was used to buying.  What I noticed most was the weight.  The dam thing was heavy, but it did seem to be well-built.  Maybe my kids could not break this one as they had the others?  So that was that, I bought me a new shovel that cost way too much but you get what you pay for-right and off to the Hood I go.

Well after 3 ft of snow in a day and a half and another foot or two on the way me and my new snow shovel have become very intimate.  Guess what, Mr. Shovel sucks.  This thing is supposed to be a snow shovel right.  Well it likes the snow so much it does not want to let it go.  All those reinforcing curves and indentations used to strengthen the scoop work really well to keep the snow attached to the scoop.  You try to give the snow a toss and place it where you want it to be and half the snow is still attached to the shovel.  When you give it a good toss you just hope you don’t go with it.  Then you have to beat it on something to release the snow and do it all over again for the next scoop.  I was able to clear my steps,deck, and landings, but my posts, decking and trees suffered from all the beatings of getting the stuck snow off the scoop.  And the extra weight of the fancy well build snow shovel defiantly put a strain on my back.  Then to top it off, the two #10 crappy screws holding the handle to the scoop kept coming loose and are now stripped.  I think this shovel was designed by some kid with an IQ of 130 but has never even seen snow.  Then engineered by another who has never held a shovel in his life.  And this is the new world we live in- Marketing

I did get my snow cleared and with the help of aspirin I will be OK.  My only hope now is with the people who got me here in the first place.  Kids, please break this shovel!

The World According to Jeff