and I did it with a shovel

This winter is our first incorporating all the domestic duties of a homeowner, and the novelty means I am tackling all the menial outdoor chores with keen enthusiasm. I take out the garbage like I'm delivering manna to the starving, rake my leaves with pride. So when our city was dumped with an ice storm and several inches of snow, out came the shovel (new!), and me. Now there's nothing fun about shoveling snow. It's hard work. Yet when I see my driveway scraped down to the pavement with nary a swatch of ice, I think "there's a driveway no one will slip on" and I feel good. I feel good that I have my own driveway, and that I am being so diligent in caring for my property. Will some poor old lady slip and break a hip while passing in front of our home? No way. And I'm not one of those seasoned homeowners invested with a snowblower. I did it the old fashioned way, with a shovel. Our neighbours? Well they've been here longer, the novelty is gone, they don't really care if the postal delivery person admires their diligence.  Frankly, they do a half-assed job. Some of them have snowblowers with which they reluctantly cut a 24" swath during a commercial break. Can someone push a wheelchair through a narrow ravine cut into the drifts by an uncaring lazy jerk? No! This is a typical Canadian sidewalk. Note the half-assed shovel job. This photo was taken standing on our property looking down the street. Now look at my sidewalk. That's 44 feet of ice-free joy, that is. You walk down that runway of lightly salted maintenance, and your feet feel the love. It's a beautiful stretch of non-slippery pedestrian comfort. Then it ends when you leave our property. See how the transition from our sidewalk to the neighbour's sidewalk is like stepping from a pristine golden path into a shitfest of slushy hip-breaking discomfort.