What a lot of shovelling. I enjoy shovelling, to a point, but this is a bit much for a great-great-granny. There came a day, however, when I was glad for the big banks of snow. I went upstairs to check the snow on the garage roof. The snow covered half the bedroom window. Since I'd neglected to have new caulking put on where the roof meets the house, I knew if we had a sudden melt it would run into the garage and things would get wet. I put on my long johns, my tallest boots, got the snow shovel, opened the window, pushed the snow back and stepped out onto the roof.
I shovelled the snow away from the house and was tempted to clear off some of the big piles, but I said no, leave it alone. My grandson is coming tomorrow, he'll do it gladly. I put the shovel back through the window, turned to brush the snow off of my clothes, bang, the window slammed shut. Oh boy, I'm in trouble now! You can't open the window from the outside. I looked to the street, nobody was outside. I could stand there and wave my arms and yell for help, but that would be embarrassing. I saw my neighbour's truck was home - for lunch? I thought I'd watch for him to come out.
I started clearing a path to the edge of the roof, with the over-hanging snow I couldn't tell exactly where the edge was. About half an hour had gone by, so I gave up waiting for my neighbour to come to my rescue and sat on the edge of the roof and eyed the approximately four-foot pile of snow from shovelling a walk for the meter man. I hesitated, with butterflies in my stomach, said, "Lord help me down," and jumped. I ended up in a half sitting position. I waited a few seconds, no, nothing was hurting but I couldn't move my legs with all that snow on them. So I pushed snow off until I could stand up and out of the bank. Then I started laughing. It was just too funny. An octogenarian jumping off the roof.
I waited three days before I told anybody, so my friends and family wouldn't chastise me, but there were no sore muscles. I'm fit and ready for the next snowfall, but I'll leave the roof for someone else.
