As I have mentioned before, I am spending this winter in Vancouver. I wanted to stay at Monkey Valley, to enjoy the incredible stillness that comes when the entire landscape is blanketed in white. But it was not to be; the snow plow company was unable to commit to plowing my roads to keep them open for the winter. I was unable to risk getting snowed in for several months, given my commitments to my people here in Vancouver; teaching yoga to the youths in prison in Burnaby, and assisting my chapter of the Society for Technical Communication as its president. Both of these require my presence in Vancouver occasionally, though ironically my technical writing work does not, as it is conducted entirely by phone and internet.
Yesterday morning I found a light dusting of snow in the backyard of my place in Vancouver, and at Christmas time there was actually over a foot of snow! Very unusual weather for Vancouver, but it was a nice compensation for missing out on the snow at Monkey Valley.
I didn’t give up easily on spending the winter in Monkey Valley. I looked into what would be involved in plowing the roads myself this winter, and came up with several options:
- 4-wheeler with blade attachment or blower attachment
- hand-held and pushed/walked powered snow blower
- custom-built blower attachment for my Tracker
- tractor with blade or blower attachment
As well as costing anywhere from $1,000 to over $10,000, these options would also require me to do the work, which is to plow 7 KM of road. The time this takes varies depending on the type of equipment, but would be a minimum of 1-2 hours for that length of road each time a few inches of snow falls. Given the 8 inches of snow that fell in early December, I was glad I made the decision to leave when I did. I just did not want to spend my whole winter plowing the road, as much fun as that might be! Maybe next year.
Of the options I mentioned, I think mounting a snowblower on my Tracker would be the best way to go. It would involve permanently altering the vehicle’s front bumper, and attaching to a point higher on the front of the car as well, so it would definitely alter the appearance of the car. But why buy a 4-wheeler or tractor when the Tracker has more power and can do the job!? MORE POWER!!!! As Tim Allen used to say on Home Improvement.
So I have been enjoying serving my people in Vancouver this winter. I recently taught a class I developed, called Yoga for the Office, at the STC’s January program meeting. It went really well. It was a thrill to teach to many people who had never tried yoga before, to help them feel the benefits of it for themselves. The treasurer of the chapter told me it made her headache go away, and the public relations person said her shoulder ache disappeared. Plus people had various interesting experiences of changed mental states due to the breathing we did. So I was very pleased with how the class turned out. I am considering offering this one-hour workshop to offices in the Lower Mainland. Please let me know if you’re interested!