I’m getting too old for this. Perhaps I am too old, and I’m fooling myself. Anyway, this morning an able bodied young fellow trudged down the walk to inquire if my wife and I needed some help shoveling last night’s fourteen inch snowfall from the driveway. No, I told him, I’m planning to dig it out myself.

We have the shortest driveway in the neighborhood, which was part of the reason I selected this property with a short front and long backyard. There is more room and privacy in the rear garden, and a smaller area to shovel (not that I have plans to go anywhere for a few days). Perhaps I’m not so dumb as some might think, and today will pay a dividend on that decision twenty five years ago.

I suppose the short drive provided the possibility of the highest dollars per hour return, so the fellow was visibly disappointed as he left. My wife was skeptical, warning that I’m not as young as I used to be, which seems obvious, but hopefully will not foretell some tragedy this afternoon when I work up the motivation to venture out to begin the task.

I did slip on the boots to take a short, but laborious walk around the garden through the nearly knee deep snow to see if there was any damage. It’s been several years since we’ve had this much snow, and then, in consecutive years, evergreen cypresses, magnolias, and cryptomerias suffered considerable injury. But, thankfully, no damage was evident, just a few bent branches that will spring back when the snow melts in a few days.

Even with much warmer temperatures forecast for next week, I expect that this deep snow will not melt for another week. Whether this stunts the development of hellebore blooms or not is unclear, but they were heading to be late anyway, and I don’t believe this will be much of a disruption. When the late January snow several years ago did not melt until the first week of March, the hellebores flowered a few days afterwards, and I suspect this year the result could be the same.

For now, I’m content to lounge indoors for a few days, and certainly this provides an excellent excuse not to get started on any of the many chores that must begin before spring growth. Except, I can’t avoid shoveling the driveway, so if I don’t return you’ll know my wife was right.