Shoveling Snow at Sunset

Why would anyone be shoveling snow at sunset? Wouldn't it be better to be doing your shoveling when the light is better? Of course it would. And I did, early this morning, shovel a path up the steep driveway to the mailbox so I could retrieve the morning newspaper for my dad. I also shoveled a path to and around my car so it wouldn't get blocked in when the hired help came to plow the driveway. (Dad's car is safely parked in the garage.) And then, around midday, the hired help came, with snow plow attached to the front of the pickup truck, and plowed the rest of the drive. I was able to get out of the driveway and join my sister for lunch at the local diner. But, the hired help left a few spots to be touched up. Like the crest of the driveway that had turned to mush and will be very icy in the morning. And the drainspout, which was now covered with about two feet of snow from the six inch snowstorm. And my dad wanted me to create an opening in the snowbank the plow had created so that the runoff from the roof doesn't pool and turn the bottom of the driveway into a skating rink. (Which it will anyway, does every year. That's why God invented salt.) I'm exhausted from at least two hours of shoveling snow. But the shoveling was good exercise. I have that warm-glowing-tired feeling you get from a nice workout outside. And, I saw the best sunset -- tall, leafbare black tree shapes silouetted against an orange sky that rimmed the southwestern horizon. A great reward for a job well done.