Electric start

A brief synopsis of the day so far:

7 a.m. — rise, breakfast, etc.

8:45 a.m. — on the bike; two hours of steady zone 2 with little bits of zone 3 tossed in for good measure.

11:15 a.m. — headed outside to remove the snowbank at the end of the driveway. Snowblower gassed up and prepared, and on the first pull ... RIP! That puppy is fired up and roaring. But the handle and pull-cord are in my hand still, no longer attached.

Well, that's an issue.

Our snowblower is a fine machine, though it's a little persnickety upon startup. Too much — or too little — choke and it'll stall out and sputter to a stop ... which it did about a minute after I ripped the cord from the engine.

Great.

"Ah, just get out the shovel, you pansy." That's fine logic, but I'll direct you to this x-ray. The vertebra with the arrow is the linchpin — it holds the rest together. Barely. And dudes with things like that don't shovel. It's just the way things are.

As I was facing a week's worth of back pain, I remembered the electric start on the snowblower. Unlike my grandma's old Lawn Boy, it doesn't have a battery. I didn't know that. I just assumed it didn't work, and since the cord worked fine until a few minutes prior, I didn't worry about it.

But as I looked closer, I saw it had prongs for an extension cord. Huh. So I plugged it in and hit the button.

Jackpot.

The driveway is clear, my back feels good and the salad I had for lunch afterward was tasty.

12:33 p.m. — time to write.