Easy Trick to Avoid Scraping Your Windshield in Montana’s Harsh Winter

With snow in the forecast, it's the time of year when the summer accessories have been put away but it's time to take out the winter accouterments.

Before we share this neat trick, if you're dreading winter, here are a few ways to make winter a bit less brutal.

Listener Offers Great Tip to Avoid Scraping Your Windshield

We joked this morning about looking for our windshield scrapers because that's one of the most popular winter accessories a Montanan can carry with them. But shortly after making the joke, one of our favorite listeners dropped one of her famous tips.

You might remember Josie who called in once to tell us about a trick she learned from an 'old timer' in the Bitterroot. They told her how to drive in white-out conditions.

READ MORE: Try This 'Old Timer' Montana Hack for Whiteout Conditions

Well, Josie knows that Montana winters are no joke, and she had another tip for us this morning.

She said you can use a piece of cardboard on your windshield and you won't have to scrape the ice off.

Get some cardboard and put over your windshield on the outside and stick it over your wiper blades down that little groove and then get a piece big enough where you can just barely stick it in the corner of your shut doors and you just take that off in the morning and go. - Josie

How about that!

The interwebs have similar suggestions. You can use a towel or shower curtain, too.

I'm using cardboard for a different reason this winter. I learned this hack from someone at Caras Nursery in Missoula. I plan to do some gardening but I don't want the weeds to grow in the bare dirt until I'm ready to plant next spring. The Caras employee recommended I lay down cardboard and mulch until I was ready to plant. The cardboard will break down, but it's also easy to move around as you revise your garden.

Do you have other interesting cardboard hacks for common tasks in Montana?