Apparently at 1:08 a.m., autumn officially ended and winter officially began. I say it doesn’t take a solstice: with all the snow Ottawa has been getting, it already felt like winter. It has snowed every day from Dec 16 to 20. I can’t tell you the number of people who have shared with me that last year Ottawans experienced a green Christmas Eve. Since we weren’t here at that time, these confidences have not been the great consolation that these individuals might have supposed. Sunday, Dec 16 was the worst: James was going to borrow Dave’s snow blower, but the guys couldn’t fit the machine into the back of our vehicle (I’d had my doubts about that, anyway). The two of them cleared the driveway of the knee-deep white stuff, and then watched a movie; by the time the movie ended, they had to give the driveway another once-over. The stretch of lawn between our driveway and that of our neighbors to the north is heaped high—it’s well over my head, which made it quite a challenge yesterday to shovel out the hardening chunks left at the end of the driveway by the city’s plow. It’s also making it extremely difficult to see the street as we back out of our driveway: it’s not just the vehicles going by we have to watch for, but the cars parked along the street. You see, they send the little plow to clear the sidewalks, but it, too, leaves piles of snow. Essentially, walking down the sidewalk is now like picking one’s way through a mountain pass, foothills on one side, Rockies on the other.
All the shovelling condensed into such a short time frame was enough to make me wish that I had signed up for Tony’s grammatically incorrect services when I had the chance…until I read today’s Ottawa Citizen. The “City” section, Section E, p. 1, ran the headline, “Bylaw order stops snow contractor cold” with the cross heading, “Owner of Tony’s Snow Blowing ordered to appear at Jan. 21 hearing as officers look at yanking suspended licence for good.” According to journalist Kate Scroggins, Tony’s “left more than 14,000 driveways unplowed following last weekend’s record snowfall.” She quotes Tony as “citing brake problems on 13 of his 17 tractors,” blaming the equipment manufacturers, and claiming, “’It’s not my fault the brakes don’t work.’” Thirteen out of seventeen is not a great track record. I feel sorry for all those people who “payed” in advance. Faulty brakes would increase the likelihood of the “possibility of sliding into the house with our equipment,” one would presume.
Update:
I did not have a chance to read the Dec 21 issue of our community paper, the Barrhaven Independent (published every Friday), until today, Dec 24. The second story on the front page appears under the headline, “Snow blower leaves residents in the cold,” and begins with the sentence, “Another year, another excuse.” Steph Willems reports that last January, Tony “failed to show up at clients’ houses after the first three snowfalls of the year,” as a result of the equipment having been “damaged by vandals” (so said Tony). The year before that, the company “had its membership revoked after similar complaints.” The Ottawa Police Service is now investigating. I wonder if Tony has asked Santa for new equipment—or maybe a new job.
A note of thanks to Steph Willems, who specified that Ottawa received “a record-breaking” 37 cm of snow Dec 16. (I remember hearing it was to be between 30-40 cm, but wasn’t sure of the exact amount.)
No comments:
Post a Comment