We are still in waiting mode, with roughly a week left until we get the keys to our new home.

The house is empty, and the driveway hasn’t been cleared all winter.

With time to spare and unseasonably warm weather, we decided to use our free time to clear the very long, icy, snowy crust-of-a-driveway even though we still had a week before we could take possession of the house.

We knew we were in for a long day of shoveling and snow-blowing, and, well, we were right.

For about six or seven hours (yes, six or seven hours, people!), I broke up various icy masses with our shovel, and Cameron pushed the snow-blower through thick and thin.

For the first few hours I grumbled to myself about how Cameron somehow ended up with the easy job–lightly pushing the snow-blower along my hard-worked snow.

When, a few hours later, we switched jobs I was happy to return to my dainty shovel-shovel-shoveling as opposed to ramming and hauling the snow-blower over icy mounds.

While we were working along the road’s edge, we met numerous neighbours, as well as our mail-man. So far we have been humbled by the kindness and positivity of our neighbours, particularly one kind neighbour who, near the end of the day when our muscles were on their last hoorah, kindly took up a shovel and stayed with us until the bitter end. Little did we know that our neighbours would become our advisors and care-takers over the next year: loaning us tools, offering advice, and just stopping by to make sure we were OK.

After the day’s work, the driveway was without a spec of snow, and we trundled back into our car, feeling like champions.

“We’re ready!” we cheered. “In a week, when we get the keys, we can just drive on in! We are Winter hardy! Snow can’t get us down, no Siree!”

Back into town we trucked, hungry and tired. We ate a glorious meal . We went to sleep early (in a grocery store parking lot), pleased as punch.

And so, the next morning, we woke up.

Smiling, we glanced out the window, and promptly stopped smiling. Looking outside, we saw snow. New snow. Flaky, fluffy sheets of snow in abundance.

We drove back to the property, noting that, indeed, the snow had blanketed our hard work. Whereas yesterday the driveway was clear, this morning large drifts of snow careened over the once clear driveway.

And so we unpacked the shovel and the snowblower, and started again.

Luckily, this second round of snow-blowing was a cinch.

We have now learned that there is a vast difference between new snow and three month old snow. We sped-walked the snow-blower up and down the driveway three times, and, in ten minutes flat, the driveway was back to how we left it.

Perhaps now would be a good time to start compiling a “lessons learned” page…

Unfortunately, we would later do battle with our driveway, but today had been a good day, anyway!