Rise and shovel!

St. John's is a pretty quiet city, for the most part. And we live in a neighborhood that is also pretty quiet. But you would not have known it at 7:30 A.M. this morning. We got about eight inches of snow overnight, and by 7:30 this morning, the sun not even up yet, there was a flurry (get it? flurry? hah!) of activity outside our windows.

It started around 5 a.m. with our snow guy clearing the end of our driveway so that we could get out of the driveway. By 6:30 a.m. the city snow plow had been through and cleared the road, blocking our vehicles in the driveway again. Oh well. Neighbors on all sides then began shoveling, snowblowing, and warming up their cars. Shaun went out to brush off the cars and clear a path between them. The neighbor across the street even brought his snowblower over to clear then end of our driveway so we could get out again. Thank you, neighbor-guy!

Don't ask me why most of the houses here don't have garages. I have no clue. We have a one-car garage, but our cars don't actually fit in the garage. Don't ask me about that either--the conversation will quickly go downhill, I'll get irritated, and the Jersey will start coming out in my accent. If there's anywhere on Earth where every house should have a garage large enough to fit two large cars, a snowblower, and two sets of regular tires (because the cars themselves are actually sporting their snow tires) it's here. But I digress.

I've never seen more morning activity in my quiet neighborhood than I did this morning. I think these Newfoundlanders are energized by snow. It's in their blood. And I have to admit, I almost wanted to be out there shoveling, too. (Almost. Someone had to stay inside supervising the kids and putting cereal and milk in bowls for their breakfast. Very important Mom stuff.) I think we've all been waiting so long for this first decent snow that everyone was anxious to get outside and get down to the business of a Newfoundland winter--snow removal! I can't wait to see what kind of activity Wednesday brings. We're supposed to get 15 inches of snow Tuesday night!