A Winter's Day, in Spring

I am so done with the snow.

And I know: I live in Ottawa, the coldest capital city in the world, where the weather at this time of year is unpredictable. But enough's enough.

A couple of winters ago, I thought it would be interesting to count the number of times that I would have to go out and shovel my driveway. Now, I'm a stickler for a clear driveway, so I would head out with my shovel whenever there was enough snow to cover the driveway and leave an impression with a footstep.

Anything more than a fine dusting, and I was out there. In the 2022–23 season, I shovelled my driveway 55 times.

The next year, I thought I would do a comparison so I counted again. It was a gentler season, so in 2023–24, I only went out with the shovel 26 times.

So far, in the 2024–25 season, I've been out 44 times: most recently, I went out twice, on Tuesday.

On Monday, looking out onto my street, there was almost no snow in the neighbourhood. There will little piles on some lawns, including mine, where there was a little pile that held on because during most of the day, the snow was shaded from the sun's rays. Even the mountain of snow that had built up in our circle, in the cul-de-sac, was largely gone.

I was getting excited to take my drone out for some practice flights. In exactly three weeks, we leave for a vacation and I hope to get some good aerial video footage, and I want to be comfortable piloting the drone (although, it can perform some manoeuvres on its own).

But then, on Tuesday, I woke up to more than 10 centimetres on the ground and more continuing to fall.

Of course, the snow was heavy. It was raining when I went to bed and it was only a few degrees below the freezing mark, but I was out, clearing the driveway.

At one point, looking northward, the clouds were quite dark and made a dramatic contrast to the white that was sticking to the branches of the trees, so I took a break from shovelling to capture this photo with my smartphone.

Snow. Lots of it. On April 8.

I had to go out again, later in the afternoon, to shovel about another 10 cm, but it was colder outside so at least it wasn't as heavy.

Hopefully, there won't be any more snow this season. I've just swapped my winter tires for summer ones.

But this is Ottawa: the weather at this time of year is unpredictable.

Happy Friday!