So yesterday I was browsing at Menards when I spied a snow rake. Then, right in the same section I found a bucket of something called “Roof Melt”. I snatched up both and headed for the checkout. For those of you living in Florida who are now donning a light sweater, let me explain.

I didn’t “retire” to Wisconsin. I left New York and came here as a young, single man*. I once heard that there are more New Yorkers living in Florida than there are native Floridians. Based on the accents I heard while visiting the Sunshine State, I think there might be some truth in that. Why I even have two sisters who live there.

Then there are the Wisconsinites who flee to the South at the first hint of the white stuff which falls from the sky. Wimps!

The rest of us use the pretty falling leaves in Autumn as a sign that we should tune up the snow blowers and check our gear for the battle ahead. And a battle it is. Last winter, the snow on our roof measured more than eighteen inches, then it froze at the roof’s edge, and caused water to back up under the singles. This is called an “ice dam”. Hence, the roof rake, which is really more like a scraper. With its long extension handle, you can reach up to the roof and remove the snow along the edges before it freezes. Of course then you have snow at you feet which also has to be removed.

The “Roof Melt” is something new. It’s just hockey puck-sized chunks of calcium chloride that you toss up on the roof, where they sink down into the snow and cause it to melt. This may become my favorite winter sport.

In January, when you Floridians are sipping tea to keep warm while trying to book a tee time at the overcrowded golf course nearby, we Wisconsinites will be enjoying some real exercise outdoors moving mounds of white stuff off the driveway and sidewalks. We also get to play our favorite game: beat the snowplow driver. It’s a timing thing. You don’t want to begin shoveling the driveway until the snowplow has been past your house, otherwise, you get to do the end of the driveway twice. In an evil twist to the game, sometimes the driver makes two passes to widen the roadway. Then you get to visit the end of the driveway a third time.

I know by now you’re jealous of all the fun we Wisconsinites have in the winter. Don’t be; it’s not all fun and games. After all, the joy of a clean, dry driveway, quickly fades as we hop in the car and actually have to drive somewhere in that stuff.

*You can read all about how I wound up in this winter paradise in my book, “Aimless Life, Awesome God”. (http://amzn.to/2aokmNV)

Me? I’m going to sip a cup of hot cocoa and browse the snow shovel catalog.

Jeremiah 29:11 (ESV) For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.