Shovel Snow From a Walk - PEP BB nest.straw.shovelsnow

Apr 28, 2019 07:58:25

This is a badge bit (BB) that is part of the PEP curriculum. Completing this BB is part of getting the straw badge in Nest.

In this Badge Bit, you will shovel snow from a walk.

Some related articles
- How to Shovel Snow
- Tips and Tricks for Safe Snow Shoveling
- Snow Shoveling Techniques to Avoid Low Back Injuries

To complete this BB, the minimum requirements are:
- shovel snow from a walk
- at least an inch deep and 60 feet long

To show you've completed this Badge Bit, you must provide:
- a before picture of snowy walk
- an action shot of you shoveling snow from the walk that is obviously an inch deep
- an after picture of the shoveled walk that is obviously 60 feet or longer
- OR a 2-minute video of you doing this

paul wheaton · Jun 23, 2019 08:55:07

I didn't manage to take a self-e but I hope this will be enough as it shows the work in progress. Also, the mailbox is several miles down the road so I focused on the areas where the car goes.

first submitted in oddball

An excessive amount of unseasonably late, wet snow

My trusty shovel. The snow was fairly shallow when I started, but it kept on snowing.

The starter path

more snow moved. The pile on the side is getting pretty high. The snow appears to be letting up and the sun going down, so I quit for the night. this was a mistake as there was another four inches overnight.

Job done

What's really sad is we had the same again over the next few days. Since I'm the only one at home that can do this kind of labour, and we were out of hot cocoa, it made for some interesting days.

Mike Haasl · Oct 29, 2019 11:10:19

It snowed there!

My driveway is a bit over 50' long, and then I shoveled the sidewalk, front walk, and some of the street, too (the city here can't afford to plow very often).

paul wheaton · Nov 13, 2019 15:04:35

Had enough snow to deal with but not quite enough to get out the snowblower (2" of light stuff). Shoveled the driveway which is fairly big.

gir bot · Jan 25, 2021 11:08:56

I help one of my friends with his snow removal business so I do a lot of shovelling. Today I went out solo to clear about 4-5cm of snow off of all the driveways he's got contracts for which is seven. Here are pics of one I did. All in all I think it took about 6 minutes as it was light snow and I have learned how to shovel pretty efficiently. I would say it is definitely over 60 ft long but I can measure to be sure next time I do it if the person checking this BB is unsure.

gir bot · Feb 02, 2021 22:54:09

First snow over an inch I've seen in four years... good to be home.

gir bot · Feb 07, 2021 00:33:20

Wow! I needed snow, to shovel it for the BB ... And there it was! February 7 started with plenty of snow, fallen in the night.
First thing in the morning I did:

Made a photo of the snow in the front yard (before shoveling)

Same view, now a path is shoveled

And shoveled further down the walkway, to get my 60 feet
I wanted to do more, in the other direction, but it started snowing again ...

Seen from the other side, towards my front yard
It is difficult to see, but at some points the snow is really an inch high

Me, trying to get it all on the photo, including myself

gir bot · Feb 09, 2021 10:43:04

This commercial building in my neighborhood houses a volunteer organization which provides resources to the elderly and disabled in the area. My apartment gets shoveled and salted by the management but I saw the snow outside and I figured I could lend a hand and maybe start on this PEP while I’m at it.

gir bot · Feb 13, 2021 11:34:53

Finally, it snowed! It has been snowing here since before midnight last night. Very fine snow coming down sideways and drifting. Covered porches are covered in snow. I did some snow shoveling. Where the wind isn't blowing the snow, it is about 4 inches deep.

gir bot · Jan 17, 2022 07:36:30

While staying at Cooper Cabin for the 2022 Garden Master course, I shoveled a pathway from Cooper to shut solar power station. I continued shoveling the pathway until I got to the top of the hill so that I could enjoying the view from there.

gir bot · Jan 31, 2022 10:08:50

Snow! Shoveled!

gir bot · Jan 31, 2022 17:36:35

Walkway from the Abby

Jan 31, 2022 18:15:58

Poor cell service at the Abby, I had to upload each individually.
Should be there now.

Feb 01, 2022 07:47:29

Seriously? So if my deck was 60 feet long and I shoveled a more normal 18-24" path from the kitchen to the carport, that would count? But because I shoveled roughly 80 feet of 120" width that somehow that fails to be a path? What is the actual purpose of this badge bit, to demonstrate shoveling ability or to see how narrowly defined this whole project can be? I can go shovel 60' through the yard if that would get me approval, but does that actually serve a purpose?

I understand this is Paul's version and thus everything is geared towards the Lab, but what exactly are the skills Otis may be looking for? I want to do these bbs because they encourage me to do many of the activities I've thought about for years. I'm starting with (what I thought were) the simple ones to gain the credits necessary to come to the book signing and learn even more. I've already learned what I thought was a good dish soap isn't, that was useful feedback.

Honestly, I'm in the Otis camp. I have land, and in a few years I'll probably need help from younger backs. I'm even in Montana. If there's a group of folks developing a more generic PEX program, I would love to be involved! Please pm me.

Thanks, Alexa.

Feb 01, 2022 08:33:32

Hmmm, let's see what happened here... looking... looking....

Yeah, this is kind of in the "edge" department and I can see why our hard working certifiers rejected it.

Yes you clearly did more work than "shoveling a 60' walk". But I think the issue comes in with "job creep". All these BBs are written to have particular requirements. The program is new and some of them need to be fleshed out a bit. Your submission helped flesh this one out a bit more.

For instance, there's a BB for shoveling a driveway. If you had shoveled a driveway and said that you walk on the driveway so can't it count for this BB, we start to see how the submissions might creep and get excessively creative over time. The intent of this is to just show that you can shovel a simple walkway. Doing more is fine as long as the original requirements are also met.

So in summary, your work far exceeded that of the BB but since the BB clearly states the 60' length, that's where the problem arose.

Our certifiers are all volunteers so we try to keep things clear and easy for them so that they're willing to continue to certify. So I'm going to respect their work and agree with their rejection in this case. Sorry and I hope you understand!

Feb 01, 2022 09:14:30

Thanks Mike. I will try harder to follow the descriptions verbatim, instead of trying for equivalency or better.

Just curious: if I had shoveled a 24" path up one side of the deck and down the other, leaving snow in the center, 78' total, would that have counted? Or I could shovel a 60' path in a circle in the yard my dog would enjoy using. Frankly, I have no place to shovel a necessary narrow path to, our place is all set up for plowing. I did not see the shovel driveway bb, but I did see plow with a tractor and back blade, but our plow is a front blade on a side-by-side so even if I took the fun of plowing away from my husband I wouldn't get a bb for it! He sometimes uses the tractor bucket to widen an area, but still no back blade.

I'm just trying to get enough bbs to come to the signing, but I'm getting more demerits than credits, oops! Wry grin.

Thanks, Alexa.

Feb 01, 2022 09:48:41

Yes, shoveling a path in the yard would count. Shoveling a circuit around your deck would probably count too, I guess. It's kinda stretching the bounds of a "walkway" but it would probably pass depending on which certifier sees it.

Good luck and I'm sure we'll see you in the spring. Lots of BBs in Nest that can be done in the winter. And they don't have to be Sand level BBs for the BB20 event...

gir bot · Feb 16, 2022 10:35:47

One of our future landscaping plans is a meditation spiral. This morning's snow gave me the idea of a meditation oval? The snow in front of the house gets a bit built up, while the part of the deck past the house was blown clear today, so I took the measurement on the protected step to show actual snow depth. The big lesson was a meditation walk just outside the door is far more likely to get used than one further down the yard, suggesting the landscape planning may need to be tweaked.

gir bot · Feb 18, 2022 07:14:06

Hi! We got about 4 inches of snow last night, but I was shoveling one of our paths that isn’t regularly shoveled, so it was almost up to my knees. Mostly due to the wind. The length of this stretch was at least 30 meters.

gir bot · Dec 21, 2022 14:39:56

Okay let's do this!
I live on a 1/4 Acer lot. So I believe front door to driveway, driveway to street, and back deck down 18 ft of stairs is greater than 60 ft.

gir bot · Dec 26, 2022 19:47:09

I present my driveway and sidewalk. The driveway is 22 feet x 30 feet and the sidewalk I shovel is four feet by >60 feet. Cars were parked when it snowed, but that snow had to be removed from the cars to pull them out of the driveway. So, there may be bare spots where the cars were, but that doesn't mean that that snow never hit the ground and that I didn't have to move it!

Thank you, enjoy!

gir bot · Feb 06, 2023 21:10:16

I did this one a while back then realized I forgot to shoot the "before" shots! Well, snow is a recurring theme in my neck of the woods so before too long I had the opportunity to document this again.

I have many outbuildings I travel to regularly and thus shovel paths to walk out on. I also will generally park my car out closer to the road when snow season starts so I have very little wide driveway to shovel. Instead I just have to do a narrow foot path. Works great! I don't have measurements of how many feet of walkway I shovel but my home is a 55 foot trailer. Based on that I would say what I'm submitting is at least 200 feet or more. I did this after a decent storm that laid down about 6 inches.

I submit this for BB consideration.

gir bot · Feb 07, 2023 14:39:52

Neat; another thread alerted me to the fact that this exists -- I need to take a closer look at the nest BBs. And it's the first warm, sunny day of the year, so a great day to be out shoveling. A lot of my goal is to get some of the green exposed so that the sun will heat it up and help adjacent snow and ice to melt, but also to clear the way so we can enjoy our deck!

My situation is a little more complicated than a straight 60' path, but hopefully I have enough documentation for it to make sense. By pacing it off, I think I've done 70' if you don't count the side-streets and just over 80' if you do. (Don't pay too much attention to the image names, I got east and west reversed in one pair...)

gir bot · Feb 11, 2023 11:24:20

Here is my submission fo rthe badge bit shoveling snow. We have so much snow here that it is easier to compact it with snowshoes normally, but i made a special move for permies by shoveling it. 3 trails on the picture, from the house to the solar panels and from the house to the wood shed, they are each around 30feet. From the house to the coop and compost area i have more than 60feet. In the video i have pictures before the snow storm, after the snow and after the shoveling. I forgot the action shot so i add it afterwards in attachments.

gir bot · Jan 16, 2024 14:23:49

To complete this BB, the minimum requirements are:
- shovel snow from a walk
- at least an inch deep and 60 feet long

To show you've completed this Badge Bit, you must provide:
- a before picture of snowy walk
- an action shot of you shoveling snow from the walk that is obviously an inch deep
- an after picture of the shoveled walk that is obviously 60 feet or longer
- OR a 2-minute video of you doing this

The prior storm I had taken photos but realized I did not have the correct proof. I tacked those photos on calling them "2nd storm" in case footage was a question because I have recorded shoveling twice this season so far! I also fixed the flag after I took the second shot!

gir bot · Jun 07, 2024 21:13:55

This past January, the 10th specifically, was pretty snowy in Ada County.
I wanted to make sure Cassie could walk to her car and drive out safely, but the snow kept coming down after.

I made a “walkway” to and around her car, took a break, then came back once it stopped and finished from the front door, down the driveway and the sidewalk, to the mailbox.

gir bot · Jan 06, 2025 17:00:39

I cleared a pathway from our garage/back entrance to the street (needed to access the bins on the side of the house). Also cleared behind the vehicles by the street so we could venture out if need be. This was one of toughest BBs.

gir bot · Jan 11, 2025 05:58:41

This morning, I shoveled snow. Over 65 feet from my back door to the back gate and a bunch in the front.

gir bot · Feb 23, 2025 19:21:49

We definitely have had plenty of snow to shovel lately.The walk to the chicken coop was very uneven and hard to walk on so I shoveled off a few inches to flatten it.The sidewalk is about 20 or so feet, and the stretch going to the chicken coop is about 50 feet.

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