See, up here in the North in the wintertime, if we forget/weather happens while we're at work/don't have time or tools/don't get around to shoveling, chipping, salting, sanding, clearing away, or doing any other form of keeping our mailboxes from being easily accessed, we get a nice little polite mass-produced note from the Post Office basically telling us we need to shape up and become a better contributing member of society.
Today I came home to find the notice in my mailbox declaring me a health and safety hazard to my mailperson and they'd appreciate my immediate action in making it safe for them to deliver my mail directly to me.
I would if that was AT ALL possible. We had some drizzle the night before and since I'd done such a painstaking job of clearing all the snow off the driveway this weekend, the driveway turned into a sheet of ice when the temperatures dropped overnight. This morning I boot-skated to my garage.
Now when your driveway is a smooth, shiny, solid (meaning impossible to chip away unless you want to damage the chipper or your arm), half to 3/4 inch thick, sheet of ice with single to low teen digits forecast for the rest of the day and the wind gusting like nobody's business causing major windchill factors and you've left yourself just enough time to leave for work and clock in on time IF you leave right now, the driveway is not going to be put into any sort of slip-proof shape. As it is, my little car shimmied to Eddie Money singing "she was shakin'... movin' round and round, just ashakin'..." Truly, any car was gonna shimmy on my driveway. Chains wouldn't have helped. Spikes, maybe.
So I came home and admired the slickness that is my driveway and found my notice and made sure I laughed after I'd entered the house. No sense in me falling on my ass.
I got some left over play sand (what? it's cheaper than salt and better for the environment) from a summer project and sprinkled a path right down the middle of my driveway and next to my stoop where the mailbox is. Hopefully that will satisfy the "contributing community member" requirement.
2 comments:
Sorry, but that explanation wouldn't stand up in court! LOL.....where I live, the law says there should be at least a 1m wide clearing along your property line ie along the roadway, so 2 people are able to pass each other as well as on the path leading up to your house. This has to be done by 7am on weekdays and 9am on weekends ie Saturday and Sunday.
Salting is not only environmentally damaging but it is a PITA because it melts the snow, and freezes over if there is new snow.
After shovelling, you could use sand or some gritty material(pebble-like material) to strew along your pathways.
Failing all that, you could hire a cleaning company to come along and get the job done while you are sleeping or at work.
Here they are not so nice to leave a little note, they just go ahead and fine you.
I hope you can appreciate the humor...we had a "snow day" in Hawaii on Friday. The "snow" being forecasted winds strong enough for the Department of Education and all state and county offices to shut down! So we all dutifully stayed home and had a jammie day. The expected winds of 60-70mph didn't materialize (only 49 mph max), so our elected officials are trying to scrape the egg off their faces, but for those of us who had the day off...YIPPPEE! BTW, it was a frosty 52 degrees when I left for work this morning! :-) I won't tell you what the high was today.
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