The last time I cleared any snow from our deck on the rear side of our house, which faces the woods, was inauguration day. I thought it would be a nice excuse for a little bit of day drinking.

And since that day, the snow continued to pile up. And pile up…and bury the snow shovel I’d used to clear a few inches on January 20. As we were watching the snow fall last night, my husband said that our plant pots were getting buried, which made them look like snowy garden gnomes. Speaking of buried, our snow shovel was also buried (define irony).

So this morning, I got dressed – which means I put on leggings lined with fleece, snow pants, wool socks, wool thermal undershirt, down coat, wool hat, snow boots and mittens – snowmobiling grade mittens I had to rummage to find in the closet. I also repurposed my leg warmers and put them on my arms, figuring they’d help protect my coat sleeves when I was rummaging in the snow for the snow shovel.

Perhaps giving me a little extra motivation for my task was seeing a bunny hop off from underneath my neighbor’s deck to the woods – plowing a path in the snow that was taller than it. Now – if that scared little bunny could do that, then certainly clearing 18 inches of snow off my deck would be no problem, right?

I was methodical, slow, careful – lift piles of snow with the legs, not the back, try not to have a heart attack, yada yada…