I have always loved snow. We have 15 and 14 year old boys and they love it too so it's hard not to get psyched whenever the words "accumulating snow" are in the forecast. Snow is the best thing about winter! When we lived in Dallas it hardly ever snowed but it still got cold. Same thing in Nashville. It got cold but not really cold enough to snow so, what's the point of the cold? The cold, in case you haven't noticed, is the WORST thing about winter. Snow = good. Cold = not good. Anyways, Mrs. Shotgun, the kittens and I are ready for whatever blows across Cleveland because we have a 14 horsepower, 26 inch snow thrower I refer to lovingly as, "Big Red".

With this bad boy I can clear out our driveway of more than a foot of snow in about 20 minutes.  If I really step on it less than 15! Most times I'm just getting warmed up by the time I'm done so I do our neighbor's walkways too. One time last winter I was having so much fun with this beast I did the whole block! Folks next door thought I was so nice they dropped off a case of Girl Scout Cookies for us.

Back on Long Island I had the (stupid) idea to put a snow plow blade on my ride on lawnmower. For about half the cost of what Big Red cost us I got hooked up with a plow blade, weights and tire chains. Huh? Yeah. Ya see, with all that weight in the front it actually picked up the back of the mower reducing traction to zilch. The weights counter balanced the whole thing and the tire chains gave me precious traction. Quite the production number to set up too. Worse yet, I never prepped the thing at the end of the mowing season; you'd always find me flat on back doing the conversion just as the snow flakes started flying. Good times. Between the stinging cold, the endless minutia of the conversion from mower to plower, the chains falling off in the midst of snow removal combat and the steering mechanism freezing I was meaner than the abombinable snow man. When we moved to Dallas we promptly said buh-bye to the snow plow. And the ride on mower for that matter. 

That's why when we moved "back North" one of the first things we did last year was get "Big Red". Now, Red is a snow thrower not be confused with a snow blower. A snow thrower sucks the snow in, chops it up and then literally throws it. It's so cool. In the case of my over powered baddie here as far as 30 feet! Woo-hoo! A snow blower just blows snow. Fine for some people but not for me. I need to THROW my snow far, far away. This thing IS A BLAST! 

Well, honestly, it's pretty easy. With a light, fluffy, dry snow fall the incidences of choppage of fingers, hands, toes, (feet?) are minimal. However, when the snow is wet (moist) and dense, snowthrowers can get clogged. Rather than shut the engine off, folks will stick there hands down there and attempt to free the snow/ice clog. Fa-wing! There's goes a finger. I found that most snows last winter here were pretty light and fluffy so Big Red never got clogged. That was until a heavy, dense snow fall in MID-APRIL!! All of a sudden Big Red stopped throwing snow. Huh?? Sure enough. Clogged. Clogged with an ice berg that could resink the Titantic. It was then that I realized how easy it could be to lose an appendage. I was tired and at the end of my run and pulling the chord to fire it back up would make me even more tired. But I did it anyway and still have all my fingers. Good boy. Take the half second of time and shut the engine off if you got a clog. And be sure to use the handy little shovel that comes with these things.

Give us your best shot, Mom Nature. We're ready for ya. Bring it!