Dangerous words, but is spring coming?

I got the truck all loaded up today for bringing the wheeler back down to KY.  The driveway is completely melted off. 


The slab is still covered outside of the one pass I made with the wheeler.  This wasn't too bad though, since while it didn't get cleared with the most recent storm, it was cleared in the one beforehand.  I could drive over it if I needed to.


Before I loaded it up, I took one last stab at making it up to the shed on the wheeler.  It failed.  The little dark spot on the right of the tracks is a mouse.  They are definitely coming out of hiding.


I am headed to KY this weekend, so no updates this weekend.  I wanted to get some work done during the week, but have been working late so I can leave at 10AM tomorrow and not have to take time off, I am actually at 39 hours for the week already.

The car made it up.

It was another late day at work, but I went up to get my mail and look the place over.  It was warmer than expected, and the door popped open.  You may recall last summer it didn't like to close, the door wasn't perfectly level.  It wasn't a problem during the winter, but it was warm enough today to make it not want to stay closed.  A good sign in my opinion to be honest.

I did manage to get the car all the way up.  Despite the plow leaving several inches behind, the car made it up without too much trouble.  It managed to turn around at the top too, though the truck doesn't have a chance.  The car hit the snowbank on the front and the back. 


Nobody seems to have any idea what is going to happen with the storm tomorrow.  Last week we were in the 8-12" range, yesterday it was supposed to miss, this morning was 3-5, now it is back to 1-3.  So we shall see.

Bad day for snow clearing equipment

It was cold enough today so that everything would be frozen and I wouldn't have had issues with the snowblower auger clogging up, so instead it decided to die.  I was in the middle of a pass up the driveway, and it threw the auger belt. 


So I put the belt back on, which was in surprisingly decent condition, and fired it up.  As soon as I hit the auger though, large quantities of smoke came out.  I double checked, and both stages (which are what are run from this belt) are free.  Dad mentioned a couple of other things to try, but unless I get lucky, the snowblower is out of commission until I have a place to take it apart, since I have to remove the entire front end of it.  The belt is no longer in surprisingly decent condition.


I did manage to get over to the power with the snowblower before it gave up.  The last snowstorm had ripped out the cord going up to the slab since it is stretched a little bit tight.


So with that bad news, I decided partially clearing it was better than just leaving it.  I completed the driveway with the wheeler.




This is supposed to be a couple feet further back, and now that there is a huge bank there, it is not clearable with the snowblower (if it ran). 


Likewise, I was unable to push it far enough to on the other side, so turning around if I do pull all the way up will be rather tricky. 


I then decided to do something a little crazy, and cleared a path off the slab.  If you hit it in third gear wound most of the way up, it will push it a lot further, but at a cost.  There is a rapid change in slope at the slab, where it goes from a 5% grade to flat instantly.  This acts as a ramp.  Surprisingly the plow didn't get destroyed, but there is a new bend in the front rack on the wheeler.  It isn't bad, I only did one pass like that and learned my lesson. 


I do at least have one pass cleared at the slab though. 


I also shoveled out the steps by hand.  This was pretty much all ice, so I just cleared/carved steps in the ice.



Next up was the roof.  Because I wasn't able to clear the slab, I didn't have access to the other end of the cord I had plugged in earlier, so I had to clear it the old fashioned way with a roof rake.  It needed it.


The roof is all done.  I missed a little bit on the ridge itself, but that is fine.  It had melted down to under a foot, but it was literally solid ice.  I had to chop it with the roof rake to get it to come off in chunks. 




When I got down to the truck after clearing the roof, I discovered that apparently there was enough wind to blow the socket set off the tailgate of my truck.  Since they were in a black container in the sun, they melted into the ice, and then promptly froze.  I think I got them all, as annoying as it was with them all frozen into the ground.  Thankfully this is my cheapo made in Malaysia set, so if one is missing, oh well.


Now that I spent all this time clearing, the storm on Tuesday is now supposed to miss us, which means I could have gone down to KY this weekend, though I would have no longer had the wheeler to clear with, so I guess it is for the best. 

I don't know if Mike reads this, but congrats to Mike on getting engaged :) 

Finally able to take pictures again.

I finally got my new phone up and running.  It is a Moto/Lenovo G5 plus.  So here are some pictures of how much snow we got out of the last storm.  Keep in mind that we have had a couple days of sunshine and above freezing temps to melt it down several inches.

The bank at the of the road is up to the hood of my truck. 


The wheeler was buried too. 


As you can see the snowblower was shorter than the snow.  Before it melted down a bit, I had to go over everything multiple times because we got more snow than it could handle.


The house managed to survive it fine, for which I am thankful.  It melts off really quick too; it is already down to about a foot.  On a side note: don't use digital zoom, this picture looks awful.


The front camera on my phone works fine.


I got the wheeler unburied.  There was a lot on it.  I didn't clear it off after the last storm, and there were still feet on it.


I put Dad's redneck plow back on it. 


I expected it to disintegrate when I went to use it, but it actually survived.  I did the bottom portion of the driveway with it.  It worked poorly.  It couldn't push the 18-20" very well.  It would get a couple of feet and then stop.  I had to plow it, then ram the bank again.  Since the wheeler turns like a slug, this wasn't easy given how narrow the driveway is.  Of course if the driveway was wider it wouldn't have been able to push it


The reason it couldn't push it is because it rapidly became taller than the plow.


It never fell off, but the smaller clamp didn't stay on very well. 


I switched over to the snowblower further up since I hadn't cleared the center line.  I might try the wheeler again when I get to the slab. 

I stopped mid afternoon when it warmed up outside.  There seems to be an issue with the snowblower and running when it is warm.  The snow collects on it really badly.  It was like this every 5-10 feet.


I will try to finish it up tomorrow after everything refreezes. 

So much for an early spring

The storm last weekend left dropped more snow than expected, I am guessing around 6-8 inches in Sullivan.  It was all rain in Keene, and only about an inch of snow at my apartment.  I went to NYC for Krass' birthday and drove through the heart of the storm much to my dismay.  I had expected that as I got further south it would be all rain, but that turned out to be a lie.  The interstates most of the way down were backed up because you couldn't see the road, the signs were completely coated, so I had to trust my GPS.  What a mistake.  For whatever reason it decided to take me in on a different route than normal, which sent me through some of the heaviest traffic near the city.  It took me almost an hour to cross the George Washington bridge on I95.  That aside though, the trip was worth it.  I got to play with a lot of VR (virtual reality) stuff, which was pretty awesome. 

On the homestead front, we are supposed to be getting another monster storm today.  I have seen anywhere from 6-10 to 12-20.  It is supposed to be wet snow too unfortunately, so I know what I will be doing all weekend.  I fired up the snowblower last night to clear the bank by the road, and it didn't run worth a damn.  I didn't put any of the carb cleaner in the last batch of gas, so I will pick some up before I go and abuse it.  It has also been a month since it last ran, which is why I decided to go up and test it.

I have been looking at new cameras, but I think instead I am going to replace my phone.  The battery life in my phone has become pretty unsavory, and I would likely have to replace it in the next year or so anyways, so I think that is a better use of money.  I am looking at a Moto G5 Plus, so it isn't an expensive one; I can then wait and buy a slightly nicer camera when the time comes that I need it.  Bringing a camera to the work site has resulted in the deaths of the last couple of cameras, but my phone survived.  The phone has a decent camera in it, it should be on par with the camera that just recently no longer counted itself among the living, though I lose the optical zoom.