We share this snowblower with our neighbor.
We flew into Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport this afternoon and discovered the city had been plunged back into the 19th century. Pre-internal combustion days.
Nearly a foot of snow had fallen, some of it plastered to the western surface of everything above ground. The streets had been “plowed,” but not in a way that suggested a large, truck-mounted blade had done it. More like wheels cutting a furrow through the frozen surface, something like a horse-drawn moldboard. I don’t think I saw 100 square feet of bare pavement today.
There was a thigh-high drift across our front sidewalk, left by the storm this morning. This is already the coldest winter in 35 years, and heading for a top 10 coldest on record.
When we first moved into the house here, I took some pride in shoveling everything myself. But this winter has utterly defeated me. When we got home from the airport and saw the snow in the alley had been plowed more than a foot deep in front of our garage door, this Toro snowblower was the most welcome sight I can remember coming home to.
Tim Nelson 