Post holiday update. Unfortunate resemblance to last winter.

I am finally back from the holidays and weddings.  Merry Christmas to all, Happy New Year, Congrats to Mike and Sarah.

For Christmas I got a battery charger (I was tired of jumping whichever vehicle I wasn't actively driving), and a new toaster oven.  I had two objectives for this weekend: testing the new toaster oven and unburying the car.  

The first part went well.  The toaster is the perfect size for the pizza crusts I normally use.

I will have to figure out something on the counter end.  It and the Foreman don't really fit together side by side.

It looks odd when it is running.  It is an infrared toaster oven, it isn't just a heating element.  This allows it to bake with no pre-heat time.  There are things that cook differently like this, which I will be finding out as they come.  I started with a mexican pizza, using queso blanco for the sauce and with some spicy ranchero sauce on top of the mexican cheese and taco chicken.

The heating is actually invisible, the light inside the toaster oven toggles along with the heating element so you don't do something foolish.  

12 minutes, with no preheating and the pizza was done.  When it is heaped this high, this would actually take 15 minutes in the oven.

Since aluminum reflects a lot of the infrared spectrum, the pan can be grabbed without oven mitts about a minute after opening.  

The next test was chicken tenders and fries.  I haven't made french fries since the bag I bought when I first got the oven hooked up because it immediately meant 45 minutes for a meal.  the two cooked roughly the same amount (the chicken was 450 for 11-13 minutes, the fries 400 for 19-22 or vice versa).  I just put the whole thing in for 19 minutes at 400, and everything came out nice and crisp.  Normally I make chicken tenders in the microwave.  They take 4 minutes that way, but are normally disappointingly mushy, this might change that.

I have used this model before at one of the airbnb I stayed at, so I already know it toasts really good.  All in all, I would consider this a success.  

A little snow update before getting to the car.  Earlier in the week we got a half inch of ice, then a couple of inches of snow.  Then more freezing rain and ice, and then more snow.  The snowblower fired up immediately upon my return, despite not running before I left in December.  This weekend we got rain followed by a little snow after it froze.  Which was annoying because I couldn't scrape the ice off my steps.  

 

A couple of the places where the water normally runs the rain was enough to get all the way through.

Most of the driveway however is straight ice now.  This spot down at the bottom is probably 3-4 inches thick.  

Now to get to the car.  It is cleaned off.  It really didn't want to, but it did start without the battery charger (good insurance).

The car however is stuck.  The rain melted things down and the water ran under the car around the tires and built up ice around them.  I tried just dropping the hammer and pushed it until the tires started smoking but it still won't move more than a quarter inch.  Ugh.

This is unfortunately exactly how last winter went.  It snowed, the car got put at the bottom of the hill because the truck became the primary driver, and then it rained and then everything froze, which is exactly how the car got stuck last year.  At this point I will have to find a way to pull it (when I can't get the truck in front of it really), jack it up and put boards under it to get it out, or wait for a true thaw.  Ugh.  Also like last year, I have gone through a ton of salt because there has been more ice than snow.  Even where I am in the higher elevations.  I have already gone through half a thing of calcium chloride, and since I don't want to leave the car until spring like I did last year, I might use the rest of that container trying to get the car out.  

There won't be too many updates during the weeks anymore until spring, but one last thing I want to do is point and laugh at the Patriots for losing to Ryan Tannehill and the Titans yet again.  That helps ease the way that the Bills lost. :)