Snowblower - R.I.P.

We got a real blizzard today. Not just the typical over-reported panic inducing few flurries that we usually get, but a cold, blustery snow storm that hit fast and hard. At 6:30am it was calm. There had been a light snowfall overnight and the trees looked pretty. By 7:15 the wind had picked up to 60km/h, snow was falling and being driven into drifts a foot deep. We couldn't see to the end of the drive. But we are hardy Canadian folk, and the other one went off to work, crossing three exposed dykes in white out conditions while I took the truck to get the MVI as planned.
It is a strange human phenomenon that if you are faced with treacherous driving, you automatically turn on the radio to listen to the road report/school closure announcements just to make sure it really is as bad as it seems. It was.
It pretty much kept up all day, and when the other one got home from work, he couldn't get the car up the drive because there was a 3 foot high snowdrift running down the middle of it. Dutifully he started up the snowblower. The snowblower is old, and cranky. It stalls repeatedly and needs gentle coaxing with the throttle to keep it running. Anytime I have tried to use it I make it half way down the drive, it stalls and I end up lugging it back uphill to the garage, or just leaving it there to rot until the other one gets home.
There is a division of labour in this house that is drawn along gender lines and snowblowing is definitely on his side of that line.
He did manage to remove most of the drift impeding the car before the machine conked out. At first he thought it was gunk in the fuel line. Once that was removed he discovered a different problem; the drive wasn't driving. The wheels would go round, but they didn't have enough umph to propel the machine forward. He took it all apart and found that squirrels had made a nest inside it. He also found that the bits that drive it* were so worn they were unrepairable. We knew this day would come, but like the grasshoppers we are, we hoped it wouldn't be during the one true blizzard of winter. Tomorrow we need to call the snowplow guy and hope he can fit us into his schedule before Monday.

*I don't pretend to know what they all are, I just nodded and smiled while he talked: it's better that way.