I’m just in from a shoveling session. Having spent Sunday and Monday in a snow-induced, soup-making fog, I woke up Tuesday to a weather report that showed single-digit lows the rest of the week. This frozen world won’t be thawing anytime soon. It was time to join the shoveling crew.

I started with the snow shovel and quickly realized that using it alone was like raking leaves with a fork. A regular shovel was required, a tool with a sharp edge that could chip away at the several inches of frozen stuff on top of the fluffier white precipitation underneath.

The funny thing about this top layer, though, is how I finally removed it. I used my shovel as a fulcrum and pried it up. Chunks loosened and cracked, like tectonic plates. I tried to use my best form as I crouched low to pick up each ice floe and toss it into the yard.

In this way, ever-so-slowly, the dark macadam began to emerge. Expose enough of it and there’s traction.

(From a long-ago, fluffier snow. The car’s the same, though.)