The last ten yards.

.
.
My neighbor had called, to let me know he was coming over.  Shoveling by hand.  Unpossible!  I didn't get the memo.  I wasn't expecting a call, so had carelessly set my phone... somewhere.  While getting ready to go out, I saw the call.  I didn't know what all it was about.  So I called back.  After a minute or two, I realized... he was talking to me from my driveway!  Even then, I kept talking.  Just knowing something doesn't mean the mind had come around to a full understanding, or a means of dealing, with a strange notion.  Finally I suggested I'd hang up and be right out.

Oh my.  I felt like a total heel.  So I started in.  Now I feel like a worse heel, as I think he was going to stop where he was, but my coming out... caused him to stay longer and help with that end bit.  Can't win for losing or winning or... Yeah.  I'll tell you though, that last ten was a bear, even with help.  It's what comes in off the road.  Salt, slush, grime, muck.  Thankfully it hadn't frozen into a solid mass.  That is brutal.

I may not have a frontage, again, but I do have a way out.  Even in 4x4 low, low, low, with all the bells and whistles going, could I have driven through that last bit though.  It was soft set concrete, and would have been worse by morning.  They say, probably, that the snow is mostly finished.  As such, after I helped with the finish, I did just a bit more cleanup.  It had been snowing, a bit, and blowing, behind the work.  Impossible to keep up.  But at the end, it looked to have stopped, so I figured it couldn't hurt.  The snow blower is fine, for the first two thirds of the drive, useless in the last ten yards and on the frontage.  If there is a next time, I will keep that in mind, and simply change my routine.  Use the machine out to the twenty yard line, then shovel three scoop widths, split at that point, and used the machine for those areas... then hand shovel the rest.  Brutal lot of work.

While shock took me out of the game, how many people can go into shock, then get back to work on the same day?  I might not have done all that much, one either side, but it... was some serious work, what I did.  I told neighbor we would be going for pizza next month, to celebrate work.  He said he doesn't do this for that, or pay.  I just told him I knew.  I couldn't afford that much work anyway.  Grateful.  For many things.  Later or good night.