Q: How do you eat an elephant?
A: One bite at a time.
It's an understatement to say we've had a lot of snow this winter. It has been the snowiest winter ever on record for DC. I'm a total snow-glutton, so it was heaven for me, especially since Peter got four days off. We shoveled night and day to dig out. I decided we should calculate how many pounds of snow we have moved in the past week. I suspect these are conservative estimates since we helped other people shovel. Here it goes:
Square Footage
Stoop and Sidewalk: 4ft wide x 60 ft length = 240 sq. ft
Two Parking Spots: 9ft wide x 20ft long x 2 (cars) = 360 sq. ft
Total square footage: 600 sq. ft
Weighing a bin of snow determined that the snow weighed 10.65 lbs/cubic foot
There were 24 inches of snow from the first storm and 8 inches from the second; 2 2/3 ft of total snow accumulation.
(600 sq. ft)*(2 2/3 ft)*(10.65 lbs/cubic foot) = 17,040 lbs of snow moved!
Pre-shoveling - cars, mailboxes, the road - none of them are very distinguishable.
Notice the height of the piles in comparison to the car and to the house windows.
An average adult elephant weighs around 12,000 lbs. I guess it's an understatement to say we know how to eat an elephant.
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2 comments:
And who says you don't need math in real life?
What a fun word problem!
I love reading your blog :)
Great pictures too.
I LOVE that you figured this out...I Was in DC briefly this weekend for a bridal shower and had to help shovel a parking spot out....and I was pondering this EXACT question!! How much snow did we move and how much did it weigh? Now, I have the answer!!
Your next challenge shoudl be to figure out how many calories you burned moving it all...
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