Last week, hardware stores began running low on snow removal supplies and by the time the last storm was over, they were pretty much out. There wasn't a roof rake, snow shovel, or box of hockey puck salt tabs to be found anywhere, not to mention snow blowers. When Home Depot is sold out of a big ticket seasonal staple like a snow blower, you know you're having a serious winter.
The good news is, I have found a way to reuse our sock singles! In a fit of DIY, I asked Raj to rummage through his sock drawer for singles and worn out socks while I bustled off to the hardware store for a bag of calcium chloride. Raj managed to produce 19 socks and I filled them each with a fist-sized portion of the stuff. We raked the roofs and flung the sock bombs strategically which means aiming for just behind the bigger icicles. The sock bombs are so much better than the hockey pucks in terms of placement; the downside is, in the spring we will have 19 filthy socks sitting on our roofs like dead things the cats might drag in to our bedroom.
Everyone, at this point, except those who have the great good fortune to live in a perfectly insulated home David & Monique has ice dams, ice cycles, and way too much snow on their roof. Roofs are collapsing all over New England, while I know of at least one poor man in Worcester who had a heart attack and died while clearing snow from his roof. Even stoic New Englanders are shaking their heads over this hard Wintah - though I still note latent pride beneath their complaints. This Wintah will go down in the record books in terms of snow fall if nothing else, and a legendary winter spawns legendary ...well... legends.
