I watched the forecast yesterday online and the weather girl said we were in for a dusting to maybe 2 inches. I said to myself, "good, shoveling the roof can wait until I feel better and can breathe." So I went about my business. This morning started off with a bang and went down hill from there, then mom calls, ugh, picking up steam as we roll downhill! I'll spare you the details. She informs me that the latest weather forecast is for about 1 foot of "roof buckling snow" to arrive in my neighborhood this afternoon. The weather station she watches was urging us to get out and shovel off the snow currently as we were going to get really heavy wet snow, and lots of it! In all fairness to mom she did offer to come down and help me. Read:: have the ambulance on speed dial in case I fell off the roof again:: I declined as it's not mom's job to help me clear the snow off my roof, and I didn't want her to feel trapped here in case the storm magically descended upon us. Mom is claustrophobic... So she went on her merry way and I headed into town to get dog food. I paid through the nose for it as I went to a convenience store instead of where I usually get it but I knew I had a long day ahead of me so I needed to get home and get to work. I ate a bowl of pasta for lunch and headed out.
I grabbed the roof rake and got what I could from the ground, then hoisted a step ladder onto the top of the snowbank and wiggled it around to get it secure. *I'm not a professional, do not try this at home, someone could get hurt!* Away I went. I'd thrown the roof rake up onto the roof as well as the shovel, but couldn't manage to get the snow scoop up there. After I'd climbed up I asked Ron to hand it to me while he was letting the dogs out. The shovel works well for some aspects of it, the scoop works really well for some, if it's a sticky snow, but not in the powder, only because it's slippery when you get close to the edge in the powdery snow. As long as the roof rake stays together it works great! I bought it for myself as a present to make my life easier last year, yes, I know it was a selfish thing, and it would have been great if it had had the replacement nuts and bolts come with it. I cannot tell you how many nuts and bolts I've replaced on that thing! (the price for my selfishness I guess.) So I've gotten to the point now when I replace a nut/bolt combo I duct tape the damn thing in place, because this was to make life easier and if I'm constantly running up and down the basement stairs, how does that make it easier?! Anyway, you should see it, all duct taped up, it's real purty!
Well I spent over 5 hours clearing the roof today! As I was coming down off the ladder Ron came out with a mug of hot chocolate, and I mean HOT, I took a sip burned my tongue and he says "It was just boiling, so it's hot!" It was hot, but oh so chocolaty, YUM! After I was done pulling the snow off the roof I needed to fire up the snow blower and remove it from in front of the garage door. Thankfully this time I had the snow blower to use. So I hear that Maine is 'Vacationland' Lord only knows why, it certainly didn't feel that way to me today, which makes me ask the question, who came up with that and vacationland? seriously? for who?! I'm in a bad mood in case you cannot tell. I think I'll make a new slogan for this state, 'Taxed to death and still has to deal with winter!" I will say though, in my bad attitude afternoon I was gently reminded of why I was up on the roof working my butt off. My children came back out after having gone inside to warm up a bit, looked up at me and said, "Keep up the good work Mommy!" "You're doing a great job!" And that my dear readers is why I do what I do.
Ok, so obviously this is the before picture, and the snow is thigh high, granted I'm not super tall, but still, thigh high is thigh high and hard to walk through...on a rooftop! 
And here we have the after shot, this is just one of the 7 sections of rooftop I did. I'm pretty sure between the aching body, the day outside in the cold and fighting a head cold that I'll sleep pretty well tonight and if you hear a rumbling off in the distance, no worries, it's just me, snoring! Night all! Sleep well!
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So what's the view from your world about that? I'd enjoy hearing it.