Ten inches fell on his driveway and everywhere around it.
The snow is downy and the air stiff with temperatures well below freezing. This he knows to be the best time for clearing.
His shovel hangs ready in the garage beside the spade, leaf rake, and garden fork. All these will now rest for the winter while the snow shovel carries on from here.
The mailman refuses to drive up his long, steep driveway with snow. This bothers him none. He prefers to be left alone.
Shoveling starts with the walkways. They are then swept clean. His footprint forms packed, hardened tracks on the paths, so he scrapes these away with the sharp edge of the shovel. If the snow melts and again freezes, he knows his paths will be ice.
He plows lines and throws loads ahead of himself as the shovel fills. A pain in his lower back pulses. He is sure not to look ahead at the covered driveway as he notices light flakes beginning to fall again.
Tomorrow another ten inches is in the forecast.

Blessed are we who are able to witness seasons. Hide if you must, snow birds, but this bird prefers to weather the change. Truth be told that winter is often snowy, just as summer is likely hot. News programs fill time with inconvenience reports of airports and roads closing due to snowfall. Small talk fills with conversations about a weather pattern so often predictable by its accompanying season.
We, creatures of habit, have evolved over the centuries to adjust our activities to the annual ebb and flow of changing temperatures, vegetation and sunlight. Only now has rain and snow become bad weather.
Winter comes from a Germanic word, wentrez, meaning “time of water.” Snow, with its slow thawing, will bring growth come Spring just as those late summer drops bring reprieve to a drying landscape.