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.