Perpetual Ruminations

Ice Ain't Nice!

It was another beautiful Minnesota day, sunny, light breeze, and warm temperatures; this time of year anything over thirty is nice, but we must have hit forty this afternoon. I spent the morning working in the house rearranging a few things and doing a tad of spring cleaning. Then it was a light lunch and outside for a while. We still have some snow that's melting and a lot of ice built up around the buildings.

I cleared the rest of the snow away from the house, which should cut back a little on the ice we keep getting over the sidewalks, but until the ice that built up over the winter melts, we are going to have slippery walks. If I had known how much ice was going to build up, I would have kept the snow cleared back from the house more, but even then, most of it is from snow melting on the roof, running onto the ground, and then freezing.

I did chip away a bit more of the ice, but most of it's too thick to bust loose. So, I ended up chipping a trench to channel some of the water to one area of the sidewalk instead of it melting and coating the majority of it. It should help a lot, but there's still quite a build-up on each side of the sidewalk between the house and garage that's going to continue to melt onto the walk. Hopefully, if the warm weather holds, most of it should melt off this weekend. If the sun was a bit higher, it would speed up the melting a lot, but unfortunately, it's on the north side of the house and pretty shaded.

Tomorrow is supposed to be a bit warmer yet, so I'd like to work on a project out in the garage. Anything but more shoveling snow and ice, and especially chipping it away. I can't believe how stiff and sore my arms are from working at this most of the week. I'm definitely out of shape!

That's another activity I want to start now that the weather is nicer, going for an afternoon walk. I need to take off a few (quite a few, plus a few more) pounds, and walking sounds like a good start. I've already cut back on how much I eat, but I'm not seeing much for results since I haven't been doing anything much for exercise. But, that's another topic for another day.