Winter Safety

I've been thinking a lot about safety in the winter since an elderly friend of mine said she slipped on black ice walking to her mailbox. Idea #1 Volunteer to pick up an elderly neighbor's mail and walk it to their front step. They could put out a basket expressly for that. Idea #2 Buy an elderly friend (and yourself) a box of rock salt that is light weight and has a handle for shaking out the salt in front of you as you walk on your driveway.

Idea #3 The other thing I always do -- and encourage my father to do -- is to hold onto a railing whenever going down stairs. It has saved both of us!

I have wondered what I would do if I got stuck in a snow bank in the middle of nowhere. I drive a lot of country roads and while I have four studded snow tires, I never know when an accident could occur. I'm sure you can all relate to the fact that there is a lot of spotty cell coverage in Vermont. Rather than reinvent the wheel, I googled "survivor kit for cars" or something to that effect. I read several of the results and loved this one: Idea #4 http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/yago104.html His goal is to make people safe but he encourages buying the supplies at a store rather than a pre-made kit. The cost of his kit was $25. I am not sure the article mentioned a fold up shovel, but I think that should be one of the items.

Idea #5 If you have a direct vent furnace, make sure snow is not piled up and covering the vent. Idea #6 Make sure your carbon monoxide alarms have fresh batteries and your smoke alarms are of the Photo Electric type required in Vermont to be installed prior to closing -- why wait until you sell? We changed ours over to Photo Electric. We change our batteries at daylight savings and when the time comes off daylight savings. Idea #7 Have your furnace inspected and/or cleaned every year.

My motto -- better safe than sorry!