A day late...

I meant to post this yesterday.  I left work early so I had some daylight and more time at the warmest part of the day. 

I noticed that where I had parked the other night was had melted off, because I had left the truck running for a chunk of my time there while the bed light was on.


I then fired up my kerosene heater, and let it get to work.


While I was waiting for things to warm up, I ran the roof rake on the house.  It looked good from the ground.


Less so standing in the back of my truck.


It made a mess on the slab though.


Once things got warmed up though, it started coming out in chunks.


I didn't get it all out, but I got enough out to get the tractor. 


The pile of dirt has gotten large.  It is not going to be fun to deal with in the spring.

Truck unloading has begun.

So as has been the norm pretty much all week, it snowed all day, there is another three inches up in Sullivan, but at this point I don't intend to clear it.  This means that it has been over a week since they got the weather report correct.  Hopefully tomorrow marks the end of that.  No precipitation, and above freezing for a change.

Despite the snow, I went up after work and started to clean out the bed of the truck.  Apparently I have become a wimp, I had forgotten how hard of work it is to chip things away with a pick.  I got over a quarter of it out.  I won't need to get it all out, but I still need to do a bit more. 


I am dumping it in a pile in the back yard, since that is where most of it will end up anyways.


I plan on taking a half day tomorrow and working on it during the day light.  I am hoping that it will be above freezing and with the assistance of my salamander, it will melt everything away and come right out, even though I know that is wishful thinking.  I intend to empty out the cab of the truck later tonight.  As usual, I am in a seemingly endless time crimp.

I'll be glad when I get the 4 wheeler.

The four wheeler will definitely be an upgrade.  I did get everything working again though.  I got the chain put on the wheel.  It is really easy to put chains on when the wheel is off.

Unfortunately it looks like the mound that I got stuck in has now turned completely to ice.  It wouldn't even budge it today.

I got around the mailbox cleaned out.

I fixed the snowblower and promptly broke another shear pin.  Didn't even make one pass down the driveway.  I could find no reason, it wasn't picking up dirt or anything, no rocks, nothing.

I then raised the skids on it to compensate, and it didn't help.  Broke another one.  I have now used three of the four shear pins I bought yesterday.  The last time was legit though, and is the reason that you don't put regular bolts in there.  That is a giant rock that is wedged in there.

Raising the skids proved to be more of a challenge than I thought. 

After the fiasco with the shear pins, I decided to finish it for better or worse with the tractor.  It ended up being closer to worse.  The chains do work well, but the hill is just too steep.  They dug in almost a half foot.  I got stuck again as you might imagine.

The driveway looks like crap, but most of it is cleared.  I will finish it when I get back with the 4 wheeler.  

A couple of notes: I will definitely need to pave the driveway.  Clearing this has been a real pain each of the last couple of winters (though it is worse this year for some reason, even after smoothing it out).  Even if I get a 4 wheeler with a legit plow on it for next year, it won't be easy.  I wasn't intending to pave it next year, but I need to at least do the apron, so I might just get the whole thing done.  

I have a pick so I can start working on clearing out the back of the truck.  That will be obnoxious, but I need to get enough out so I can put the tractor in the back.  I would rather not have to take the plow off it, but if I must than I must.  It should fit with the plow on.  

Everything broke.

Today was a wreck.  I broke damn near everything I touched today.  I went and borrowed Greg's snowblower, which has developed a giant flat spot in the tire that came off the rim last year (that Greg said he was going to fix last year...) which made it interesting to use.  I got the bottom part of the driveway done with it (breaking two shear pins in the process), and got the tractor unburied.  I then went to go up to the driveway all the way to the slab, and broke another shear pin.  I broke three all last winter.  I only had two spares (should have been nearly a whole season's worth) so it is up the driveway dead.


I then decided to at least finish the bottom with the tractor, and got stuck pushing one of the snowbanks back.  Turns out I got stuck because the tire that leaked a little bit decided it had enough and came apart. 




I ended up pulling the tractor out with my truck.


To add insult to injury, apparently if there is grime or rocks or anything in the crack between the bed and tailgate, it doesn't close.  It comes off.  Good to know I suppose.


I went and got the tire pulled off the tractor, and got a tube put in it. 


I hate these clips, but they surprisingly didn't come off too hard, nor did they go flying like normal. 


At least all my consolation food came in yesterday.  Lots of cheese from Wisconsin.  Some of it will make it down to KY for Christmas, but some may not (the maple cheese fudge is delicious)

Dismal failure.

We got our first major snowfall the other day.  It is still early in the winter, so it is still in the pretty stage.


I went up to plow it today, and the signs were there immediately.  It took me several minutes to get the tractor to start and run and stay running.  I managed to get the slab cleared though.  I was having traction issues, but with the chains it never stopped moving.


Then I made the mistake of going down the hill.  I had plenty of power, even with the snow piled up over top of the plow it was pushing it in third gear no problem, but I quickly found out that I can't steer when it is this deep.  To boot, I wasn't able to back up either.  So the tractor is now sitting in the middle of the driveway.  I will have to borrow Greg's snowblower this weekend and dig it out.


After talking with dad and Aunt I think I am going to take the truck down for Christmas and swap my tractor for his 4 wheeler.  He has plowed a foot, and it is a 4 wheel drive.  His driveway is flat, the tractor will push whatever he puts in front it.  My biggest problems thus far have been traction on the hill.  The tractor is only a one wheel drive, it doesn't have a locking differential.  The tractor will do his driveway just fine no matter what they get.  On mine it is limited to a few inches because of the slope and getting stuck.  The hill won't bother the 4 wheeler though.  And if he gets gravel in the spring, it is a dozer blade, he can use it to spread it.

Tractor as ready as possible for snow storm tomorrow.

We are supposed to get another round of snow tomorrow, so I went up today and got the tractor ready.  When I went up to the shed to get the jack, I found one of the missing traps.  I forgot that I had put the lawn mower trap up in the shed.  I am not sure how he escaped it, but he was several feet from the trap, but you can clearly see where it hit him.


It was much easier to get the chains on with the tractor in the air.


All the zip ties are on.  The chains are a bit more snug than they were last time around, and I also zip tied all the hooks, since they came apart on both tires.




I have seen reports for 2-4 all the way to 6-10, so we shall see what reality is tomorrow.  I didn't have a chance to move the slides or fix the angle, but oh well.  I can make it work the way it is, I already did it once with the blade stuck.

Plowing went much faster today, until I got stuck.

I went up and finished the plowing today.  I tried fourth gear today and it went much better.  The extra speed helped it curl and roll.  Not sure I have enough power to run in 4th with a heavier load, but I was only plowing around 3 or so inches today.

The driveway only took a couple hours.  The plow took a beating, but it held up.




As I normally do, I cleared up to the power pole.


At no point did I not have enough power, not even pushing the banks into the ditches.  I did go too far a couple of times and the front end started to sink, but didn't get stuck, at least not down here.


I tried to clear the parking spot, but it was too rough.  I will have to finish it with the snowblower.


It is a good thing I don't have a sharp edge on the blade.  I got a little too close to the edge and found the extension cord.


I kinda expected it wouldn't do it, but I tried anyways, and no the tractor won't go up to the shed.


When I was going down to the creek, I got stuck.  This might have something to do with why.


I think those chains came off because they were put on with the wimpier zip ties from work.  I will put them back on with the beefy ones.  All in all, the plowing today was quite a bit faster, I got everything done including getting unstuck in a couple of hours.  Even with Tim's big snowblower I couldn't match that, so it is quicker.  I definitely think I will switch to a 4-wheeler next year though, the traction is that much better with a 4x4, and a few times today I was spinning a lot. 

First plowing complete. Not sure if success or failure yet.

Had a good trip to Wisonsin.  It was reasonably productive, and while I didn't get to see Lambeau Field (they closed early the day we went up for a holiday party) I still got to visit a cheese factory and get some cheese curds along with a bunch of cheese.  I had them ship the cheese so I didn't get flagged at TSA with it, and only brought home the cheese curds with me on the flight, so I could try cheese curds with everything (the people I was visiting got me three pounds of them).  They are quite tasty on a pizza.


My photos from Wisconsin can be found at:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/DIpa7T21rZt0mCSr2

Today was our first major snowfall of the year.  I got to check to see if all my tractor work was worth the time.  I started off on the slab.  It worked reasonably well.  I do need to fix the arm that holds the angle in place, the plow kept flopping to the left every time it encountered resistance.  I figured that would give me trouble, and now I found out what kind.  Other than that though, it cleared the slab off very swiftly and very well.


The headlights are actually aimed almost perfectly.  Not too high when the blade is up, and not straight down when the blade is down. 


They are bright enough, but there isn't excess.  In pitch black, I will want my headband too.  Perhaps next year should the tractor survive I will upgrade the internal headlights to LED and run those in addition to the plow blade.


The only problem I had up at the slab was that snow tended to collect on the blade.  It isn't curved enough for snow since it is a dozer blade.  The tractor is also too slow (even though I was actually plowing in 3rd gear) to make it roll off to the side, it only pushes.  Since there was only a couple of inches it wasn't a big deal, but I think it will be a big problem if I try to plow significant quantities.  There are waxes and stuff (some even say Pam works) you can put on it to try and help, I might give one a shot.


Part of it was my fault, so I won't judge it based on speed (at least not yet) but for light snowfalls it would not appear to be faster than a snowblower (maybe faster than Greg's itty bitty dying one, but not a decent sized one).  With deeper snow, I am not sure if it will work unless the pam works wonders.  When doing the driveway though, it didn't work nearly as well.  The driveway isn't flat enough even after the repair work I did, the blade was bouncing and digging a bit more than I like, and the tabs were set perfect for the slab, but too low for the driveway.  They aren't a quick change either, so I will have to decide how I want them set.  I can't fairly judge the speed since I had to plow it awkwardly because the blade wouldn't stay at the angle I wanted, but it was promising that 3rd gear seemed to be good, even pushing piles uphill.  I had absolutely no problem with horsepower, and while a locking differential would be nice, I had no problems with traction either.

The short version is that the plow worked great on the slab, poorly on the driveway, but because of the state of the driveway not because of the rig, power and traction were not an issue.  The jury is still out on whether it is faster.

Winterization nearly complete.

I got a late start today, sleeping in a bit.  I did go up and get some work done though.  The first thing I did was investigate dad's theory about the fuzz.  I couldn't actually find any cat tails in the back yard, but I did find things like this that are likely the culprit:


I primarily worked on clearing off the slab.  I found a few tools that have been missing for a while, like my carpenter square, which was buried in the tar paper.  Not too usable anymore.


It turns out the only problem with the table was that the legs unclipped from the frame.  I popped the legs back onto the clips and it is good to go.


I found a use for the board I made for the power.  I will have to run the cord whenever I want to use it and take it down when I am done, but that isn't a big deal.  I don't imagine I will be doing too much work during the week anyways.  It is screwed into the tree stump so it doesn't move.


I also went and covered the remaining stuff on the slab.  I put the pushmower under there too.


There is still some random nails and stuff lying around that I will want to pick up, but the slab is cleared off. 


The only thing preventing me from marking the slab done on the checklist is that the roll of metal is still under the house, and I want to put it in the shed.  I will try to get that done tomorrow at lunch where I can bring some help.

The checklist is nearing the point where I start working on the actual house again.  I won't get anything done during the week because I will be in Wisconsin Tuesday through Friday.  I am thinking I might not do anything about the shed this year.  I will have to shovel it out if it gets too bad, or light up my salamander and melt it all away, and deal with it next year.  I need to do some work on the shed next year anyways, I never did the finishing, the trim, the pilings, and so on.  Likewise, the underbelly will likely wait for next year.  I am thinking I might just hit it with a layer of resin or urethane.  Likewise the skirting might have to wait for next year as well.  None of these are absolutely critical for before winter though.  It does mean that I will be in a crimp in the spring when it warms up and I haven't installed the flooring yet though. 

1. Fix ruts in driveway.
2. Put lights on the plow.
3. Get the oil changed in the tractor.
4. Get the tire chains installed and a weight installed on the back.
5. Get the plastic installed
6. Get the truck oil undercoated.
7. Fix leaky underbelly.
8. Get skirting installed.
9. Find a way to run power that won't be damaged by snow/plow/snowblower.
10. Find a way to prevent the snow pushing on the shed.
11. Finish clearing off the slab.
12. Run the rough plumbing. (includes gas line for stove)
1. Venting and Drainage
2. Water supply
3. Gas lines
13. Install insulation.
14. *Install flooring.  *12
15. Install light fixtures.
16. Install ceiling and attic insulation. *19
17. *Install paneling  *13, 14
18. *Install interior wall *14
19. *Complete electrical and plumbing.  *17, 18
20. *Install final flooring (carpet/linoleum).  *18, 19
21. Install interior fixtures.  When I get here, I will likely create a new list for the interior work.