Ice Melt and Potting Soil
Ice in the Trees
My Montana friend Father Gary always says that February is the worst month for unhappiness. No money but plenty of bills. A blinding flash of the obvious that the New Year’s Resolution to (lose weight, stop smoking, change your life, whatever), is a joke. Lousy weather. Fr. Gary always finds that complaints, dissatisfaction and general malaise are at their peak in February. And being a priest, he would hear it all.
In Prince Edward Island, the month of malaise is March. Today is March 3 and this is the TENTH day of school cancellation this winter for inclement weather. TEN DAYS of kids in the house when they shouldn’t be. The entire world is a sheet of ice with scattered power outages all across the Island from ice bending branches on to transmission lines. No one wants to come out to lunch in this weather, so the café is empty. (Miraculously the mail gets delivered…bills can find you through anything.) I resist the urge to call or e-mail Fr. Gary to lodge my litany of complaints—it is the wrong month for him to listen.
Ice Melt…A Reason to Go to Town
Instead, I go off to the big box store in Summerside to pick up another bag of ice melt. I head straight to the ‘seasonal’ section. Something is wrong–the smell hit me before I got past the pharmacy. Liquid lawn herbicide…you know that peculiar acrid stench. Where last week there were snow shovels and ice melt I found a sea of bar-b-que grills and islands of potting soil.
My God, people.
I stomped up to the front and asked where I could find Saf-T-Salt.
Nope, I was told. All gone. Little scraps of Pepto-Bismol colored ‘Spring Fashions’ hang nearby.
Better Than Ice Melt
I ended up buying a bag of organic granulated fertilizer and a sack of cat litter. The fertilizer will melt the ice and the cat litter will provide traction. Effective, but messy. We’ll make it through this weather and next winter I will try to remember to stock up on ice melt early in the season.
We are still 2 months from spring in Prince Edward Island. I am just hoping for no more school cancellation days.
Wayne Wright's Editorial Cartoon, Journal Pioneer, Summerside, March 4, 2009
Tags: winter