Ode To The Snow Blower

When we lived in Champaign, I always felt somewhat self-conscious when I pulled our snow blower out of the garage. It's not really a Central Illinois model, since we bought it when we lived in the mountains in Vermont, where it was requisite. You can certainly buy 8HP, 24in, dual-stage snow blowers here, not many people use them for personal use. I always enjoyed our neighbor's broom-sized Central Illinois snow blower.

However, since moving back to the rural life, our snow blower has continually proven to be my personal hero. Naturally, I'm too cheap to pay someone to plow and too stingy to buy my own plow. Despite the fact that our driveway is ~1/3 mile long, I can usually clear it in less than an hour, assuming there's more snow than I think the van can trudge through.

Yesterday was no exception. The recent 6" of snow, and a fierce wind had piled up a deep drift right in front of the garage. Despite having not been fired up since last April when I drained the gas, and recent near-zero temperatures, after a few pushes on the primer bulb, the AC-powered starter required just one short push to fire up the engine.

Yea!!!