We had six inches of snow on the ground when I got up this morning. School was cancelled for Jonathan, so I wasn’t in much of a hurry. I cranked up the snowblower and began clearing the driveway. This was a very wet, heavy, and sticky snow. In spite of my having raised the lip of the snowblower off the ground by three quarters of an inch to avoid picking up gravel, the snowblower was gulping it down anyhow. The wet snow was sticking to it and hauling it in. As a result, I broke a shear pin.

This snowblower has four shear pins instead of two like my last on did. So I still had three quarters of the auger running. I decided to press on without changing it. Up near the garage, I managed to pick up a good sized rock, and it got wedged between the blower and the blower housing. Clunk. Engine died. I had to get a long screw driver and a hammer to knock it out of there. And while I was at it, I went ahead and changed the shear pin. It started right up, and I finished the job. Then I went to work.

I left for home a little early, but not as early as I had intended to. I wanted to take a bunch of recycling to the recycling center, and they close at 5:00, so I needed to hustle. I got home, tossed three bags of newspapers into the trunk and five sacks of milk bottles into the back seat. Beth went with me. When we got there they wouldn’t let us in. They don’t allow anyone to enter after 4:45, and it was 4:48. That supposedly gives the people who are already there time to get out before they close. I say… what a crock. I didn’t yell at the attendant or anything, as I’m sure he’s just doing what he’s been told. But that doesn’t mean I’m happy about it.

Northfield sure makes it hard to recycle. They are only open two days a week, and that’s during business hours. Plus we have to separate everything. Paper, metal, glass (by color), and plastic (by type). I don’t have room to sort four dozen kinds of recyclables as I collect them, and I don’t have time to sort them when I take them to the station. I do not recycle everything I could, because it is such an ordeal. Instead, I just do newspaper, PETE, LDPE, and soda cans. And now even doing that is hard.

I may or may not try again in the morning. They open at 8:00, but there will prolly be another foot of new snow on the ground then, and Jonathan may have class to get to by 9:00. We’ll see what happens.