The melt off was a lie.

Short update today.  It was supposed to be warm and rainy.  It did rain, but not enough to clear anything at all. 


I brought the wheeler in today for new tires and the choke cable.  It was interesting getting it out of the truck without it running in the pouring rain on top of a layer of ice, since most of last nights rain was freezing rain.  I decided to let the guy do a tune up and clean the carbs on it too since most of the labor already had to be done for the choke cable.  It should be done tomorrow or maybe the day after.

I probably won't have any more updates this week, since Rachel is coming over on Thursday.

Felt good to make progress again.

Today was nice and warm, I didn't even wear my coat most of the day. 

The first order of business was to fix the snowblower.  One thing I noticed the other day was that the Arian's one I had been using came lose on their own, so I put a MTD one on.  This isn't a screw, it is just a pin, so hopefully it will hold better.


I apparently didn't grab a picture, but I also put new bolts in the skids and set them appropriately.

I didn't bother to finish the driveway.  What I had done yesterday was completely cleared.  It is supposed to rain tomorrow and Tuesday, so it will all clear itself off. 


I also noted that the roof does slide off, though it doesn't slide off as well as the shed does. 


Next up was the wheeler.  It didn't give me too much trouble.  It stayed running on the second try.  Unfortunately, the plow had a structural failure pretty quickly.  Some redesign might be required.


So instead I just rode it around and packed down the trail to the shed.


I also went into the back yard.  There are some tracks in there, most of the way back.


I also got it put into the truck.  Since the front hinged part broke off, it now fits with the tailgate closed.  A plus I suppose. 


I also started the insulation.  I got three packs, which very much filled the backseat of the truck.  I put them in the backseat since the bags aren't very good and the back of the truck was very wet.


I put up the first bag.  It is a real pain to cut, though I found a system that seems to work using a utility knife and a utility knife.  On one side it was pretty easy.  I didn't do the ones with electrical boxes, since I didn't get the foam that goes behind the electrical boxes. 


I also started on the other side.  The corner was kind of obnoxious.  The California corner was obnoxious.  I peeled off the top couple of inches and tried to cut it off. 


While I am not sure I like how it came out, it is done. 


Unfortunately, I miss-stepped and slipped at one point.  I thankfully caught myself before I went through, but I will have to do some underbelly repair.


It was nice to actually make progress on the house again. I will be dropping off the wheeler tomorrow to get fixed.  I have completed most of the design for the chair redesign, I just need to complete the bill of materials and will start on that during the week.

Some of the snow cleared.

This is yesterday's update.  When I first got up to the property to start clearing, I found out that the snowblower was frozen up and died whenever you tried to run the auger. 


After spending a couple of hours chiseling it out, I got fed up and decided to brute force it.


I also got the charger on the wheeler.


I cleared the slab and the end of the driveway and a couple of passes up and down.  It was digging pretty bad since the last rain storm combined with driving my truck up in the mud made a lot of ruts.  So I decided to bump up the skids on the snowblower, and unfortunately the bolts weren't having it.  I ended up breaking two of them off.


I noticed on my way up that apparently they have been busy clear-cutting the hillside by the ski slope.


I will do another update later today.  I hope to start the insulation and whatnot today.

Smaller than expected update.

Turns out that Sullivan got less snow than Swanzey, so the snowblowing effort will be reasonably quick.


I will wait for daylight before hooking it up, but I got a charger for the wheeler that I will plug in tomorrow.  It is supposed to be warm this weekend, so I hope to get it running, and this will prevent me from having to jump it, which isn't always the best idea.  High output like you find in a car can sometimes fry the circuitry in a wheeler. 


I did walk up and see if my turkeys had been around.  They hadn't, but it looks like something else was.  The tracks are too degraded to see for sure, but deer would be my guess.


I also got the new key, and it works. 


On the other projects, I counted that I have 46 stud bays, so I will need probably around 40 insulation batts, since a couple of them are windows. 

On the chair front, I might have to abandon the pedestal style chair, and go with a slightly different design with individual legs in the corners.  The reason being that I can't seem to find solid oak dimensional lumber, which means I have to use pine and just stain it, but pine isn't strong enough for a pedestal design, since each leg needs to be able to withstand the complete weight of the chair and occupant.  A bit of a bummer, but should still work.

The rain was actually rain.

I was a little worried when I went up that all the rain the last day and a half wasn't going to be rain up in Sullivan.  That worry was for naught though.  I was able to pull all the way up.  I took the truck since it was supposed to finish off with a little freezing rain, which ended up as snow in Sullivan, but that was it.  For the first time since before Christmas, I was able to park up on the slab.  Not bad considering I never cleared the slab.  I never got that far when I was snowblowing. 


The driveway is cleared.  And muddy.  Very very muddy.  I also almost ran over one of the turkeys on my way up too, they were going into the woods on the hill over on the far side of the shed from the road.


Remember that snowbank I took a picture of that was almost as tall as the shovel?  It is just a wee thing now, barely a foot tall.


You can clearly see where it runs off on the other side.


Fun fact for hindsight:  if I had done absolutely nothing up there, it would have completely cleared itself.  The only place not cleared was where I was piling it up from the snowblower.


I got up to the shed for the first time since the holidays.  I need to fix the doors next year.  The right door was frozen closed, and I had to yank to get the left one open past it, since I don't have the edges cut down on the inside door framing.  That said, it looks like there were a few mice in there.  They went after the poison for a change.  The trap up there was sprung, but the food wasn't all eaten off it.


There was enough rain that I don't need to do anything about the snow piling up against the shed.


The slab completely cleared itself off, except for a small pile where I had raked the roof off.  This was pretty much solid ice, so I scraped off what I could with the shovel and salted it. 


On the snowblower front, I wasn't able to find a key for it, neither Sears nor Tractor Supply carries them anymore.  So I pulled a redneck special while the one I ordered online comes in.  It worked, kinda.  It fell out once, but I was able to use it today.


I started to complete the driveway, but quickly gave up on using the snowblower.  This stuff hasn't refrozen yet since it is in the runoff spot and the bottom was all slush.  That snowblower doesn't do slush.


I ended up finishing it by hand.


I had a little spare time for the first time in forever, so I also put the screen back in.  Turns out I was able to just put the existing spline back in, I didn't need to replace any of it.


As you might imagine, getting an inch of rain in January has been interesting.  Fortunately I don't have to worry about flooding, though my creek was high. 




Otter brook was raging so much that it looked like white water rapids out of a movie.  In addition, parts of Keene are underwater.  It is hard to tell since I was driving when I took it, but the water is dangerously high.  This is about 8 feet above normal.  I didn't go looking for it, but I bet several of the roads in Keene are underwater, Howards Mill style, with large blocks of ice tossed in for good measure.


That marks the end of the January thaw, as the temperature was dropping fast while I was up there.  I went up and it was near freezing, but had dropped into the teens before I left.  The cold is coming back in.  We aren't supposed to get above freezing until next weekend.

Since my snow clearing pretty much took care of itself, I might actually get a chance tomorrow to start working on one of my winter projects.  I just need to decide what to work on: the chair, the entertainment center, or getting insulation and the plumbing done.  It is nice to not be enslaved by the snow.

Yet more issues.

Apparently things had been going too smoothly the last couple of days, since today was miserable.  I woke up to no heat and a chilly apartment since the landlord apparently forgot to get a propane delivery.  Fortunately there was enough hot water left in the hot water heater to get a shower in, but I rapidly ran out of warm water.  Thankfully they got a delivery today, even with most of the places being backed up because of the obnoxiously cold weather.

I went up during lunch to put in yet another shear pin and continue snowblowing.  I had a problem I have never seen before.


I managed to get enough of the parking spot at the end of the driveway done to call it good enough.  It really is easier in daylight.


I also went up after work to finish the slab and the top part of the driveway, and I really do have a lot of turkeys.  They are apparently enjoying the cleared path to go from woods to woods. 


Up near the slab, it looks like a highway.


They are going up the hill on the other side of the shed.


I didn't actually get any snowblowing done tonight though.  Quiz time: there are two notable problems in this picture.  I mentioned one in the prior post, the recoil is busted.  What is the other?


If you answered that the fuel key was missing, you would be correct.  It is just a universal key that keeps the fuel line shut off valve from closing as a safety mechanism.  If you look at the pictures from the other night, it is missing in those too, so I lost it a while ago.  They usually don't fall out.  It was warm enough today that it finally started to work again, unfortunately for me.  I went over every square inch of the driveway and didn't see it.  If it got snowblowed though I won't find it until spring, if ever. 

I checked Home Depot, they only have newer versions, which don't fit.  I will check Sears tomorrow (old Craftsman snowblowers likely used the same Tecumseh engine) and if that fails, I will be taking a trip to Tractor Supply.

I did go inside the tiny home for the first time since before Christmas and everything is good, it is still dry with no signs of water damage.

It is supposed to rain all day tomorrow, so unfortunately I didn't get the snowblowing done.  It is supposed to get colder again for the weekend, so everything will freeze, which unfortunately means the remaining stuff might have to be cleared by hand.  It didn't like going through where I had snowshoed, after rain and freezing, I doubt the snowblower will go through it. 

I need more hours in a day.

I got more snowblowing done today.  I will try to finish it up tomorrow.  I can drive up and down the driveway, though the slab isn't cleared, the wider part at the top isn't done, and I haven't done anything up to the shed yet.


There are paths going to edges in both directions.  As you can see I drove my car most of the way up, but there isn't a turn around spot yet. 


The snowshoe trail I made was rather a pain to snowblow.  Because it was packed, the snowblower kept riding up on it instead of cutting through it.  Something to keep in mind going forward. 

Unfortunately the breakage of shear pins has resumed.  I busted 4 of them tonight.  The first two were legitimately my fault.  It was riding up, so I forcibly pushed it back down and pushed a little too hard, catching ground that didn't have a layer of ice because it hasn't been cleared yet this year, and both of them snapped.  I snapped two in once spot, not sure why, didn't see anything, maybe a block of ice or something.  The last one was a rock that got wedged in.  I still had a couple more spares, but was tired, hungry and it was after eight, so I went home. 

In good news, the leak in the roof has supposedly been repaired, and my kitchen was dry for the first time in almost a week.  I have a huge backlog of chores that it caused, since my washer was inoperable, and stuff like that, I need more hours in a day.

I intend to leave work a little early tomorrow to try to finish up the snowblowing, since it is the last day before the "rain" arrives.  I am a little skeptical that it will be rain in Sullivan, but I can hope so.  If it isn't, the whole snowblowing rigmarole will begin anew.  And if I don't complete it tomorrow and more arrives, it won't be doable with Greg's unit.  I have it running a little better, but it still runs poorly, and the snow is already at the maximum depth it could handle when it was new.  The spots that haven't been done yet are too deep for 1st gear. 

Sadly because of the snow, I haven't gotten to work on any of the winter projects that I had wanted to.  I had wanted to build a sample chair for mom and dad, and possibly start working on an entertainment center, since both will be needed for the tiny home.  Neither have been started beyond preliminary design, I just haven't had the time.

Snowblower tire fixed, the clearing has begun.

The main thing I achieved today was getting the wheel fixed for the snowblower.  Dube's didn't charge me anything for it, all he did was put more bead sealer on it and remount the tire, which was nice.  The snowblower runs significantly better with it. 


Unfortunately it looks like the recoil isn't one of the standardized modular ones.  Those bolt on, this is molded into the metal casing for the engine.


The electric start did work though.  It runs notably worse than last year.  It tries to die when you unload the engine now, which it didn't do last year.  If you keep it loaded it doesn't stall though, so I ran it as hard as it would go.  It was warm and sunny the last couple of days, so it has packed down quite a bit.


Apparently I had some turkeys visit.  They liked the snowshoe trail I made.


They came from the woods over by the creek.  I have seen them nest in there before, though not recently.


It wasn't pleased with my decision to push the banks back to where they should be.  It almost can't throw it high enough to get over the bank.  It has less than a foot of clearance at this point.  Another big snowfall and it is game over.  As it is I had to lift on it to let it float and do it as multiple passes.


I got a few passes up and down before I decided to call it a night, and it ran out of gas.  I will put the mechanic-in-a-bottle stuff in the next batch, hopefully that will help it.  It really liked the stuff last year when I used it. 


The most important thing though: I didn't break a single shear pin.  That is promising.  That means the layer of ice or the tire was the problem.  Both of which will likely be there for the rest of the winter.