Snow and WD-40

A neighbor commented that the storm that ended yesterday totaled 26 inches in our area; there was enough wind that I had some bare patches and some drifts, including door-blocking drifts, but the driveway was mostly 18 inches after things settled down (I had removed a couple of inches, twice, early on). There was no Monday paper, or Monday school -- Colgate shut down too, which is unusual. [Update: I see I was wrong, Colgate was delayed not closed, according to Radio Free Hamilton at Hamilton Buried; Colgate Opens Late

Because of the heavy snowfall and winds, HCS is closed today and Colgate has a late start.

Well, whatever.]

And it was wet, sticky snow. Heavy snow. Not fun to shovel, especially because I had to hit the snow shovel against something hard after carrying each load to the edge and tossing it. But another neighbor (Thanks, Ray) suggested cooking oil on the shovel, and I modified that: I dried it off and then sprayed WD-40. It worked beautifully. Everybody should know about the magical powers of WD-40.

Well, it worked as I went down from garage toward the street, until I got to the ultra-compact hard stuff left by the sidewalk plow and sidewalk snow-blower, each of which had been by several time. I couldn't make any impression on it with a snow shovel, and the regular dirt shovel was going very slowly. And Stub Baker, who put that driveway there (as well as digging various things for me over the years including the basement under me right now), was driving down the street in a John Deere 410G backhoe loader, which for him is a small machine, and my exercise was cut short. Aww, gee. I have a suspicion that Stub knows more about WD-40 than I ever will, too.