Snow. And more snow.

We got snow over the weekend.  A lot of snow.  Tons of snow.  Gads of snow.  I ended up clearing twice.  The main driveway I did on Friday since I was originally supposed to go out  visiting people over the weekend, but they cancelled.  That was my first experience with my new snowblower though.  

When I started cleaning on Friday, it was about 10 inches.  

The snowblower has a feature I missed; it has the "power steering" meaning you can disable the drive to an individual wheel to make it steer better.  

I have come to the conclusion that the discharge chute system on this snowblower is worthless.  I ended up just manually setting it , the lever that does it doesn't go all the way.  It also doesn't go very high, limiting the discharge range.

I made two passes and then noticed this.  It is leaking drive oil.  I didn't check that before I started, so I am hoping it was just overfilled or something.  I did have problems with it stalling out (meaning the wheels stopped) even in 1st gear in a few spots going uphill though, so I will have to keep an eye on it.

It also has a problem with the lock for the Auger.  The plastic clip that locks it when the drive is enabled is loose/broken, so it locks and stays locked regardless of drive status.  I figured out how to unlock it though.  

It was pretty quick though.  This unit is 28" wide, not 24", and those 4 inches saved me a whole pass up and down.  

The snow is still in the pretty phase of the season, though this storm might be the end of that.

I happened to notice Friday night that the snow glowed with my Christmas lights.  It was kind of neat.  

Saturday I woke up to 17" (measured on the slab.  It was still snowing though.  I think our total was about 20", since when I took a break, there was another couple inches on the stairs where I started.  It was above freezing, so it was melting down too.  

While thankfully I didn't have any major problems, large swaths of NH and VT lost power (and many are still without it as I write this).  I got a few blinks and a couple of surges, but that was it.  All I had to deal with though was random branches hiding in the snow.  The snowblower doesn't like them.  

One thing I noticed when I cleared on Friday was that I never set the skid height, so it dug up some rocks.  I fixed that for Saturday.  It still scraped rock a couple of times, but no shear pins broke.  

Did I mention we got a bit of snow?  The bank at the road was taller than the snowblower.  

So overall I a bit underwhelmed with the new snowblower.  It started second pull, and it doesn't bog easily, even with 20" of heavy wet snow, but I think that is more of a problem than it sounds.  You have to go really really slow with it because the first stage is slow.  This also limits the discharge distance since you can't fill the second stage to throw good.  My old snowblower would just barely not clear the edge at the wider part at the top.  This one had no chance.  Perhaps I am being a bit unfair since this was a really abnormal wet and deep snowfall (more on that in a second), but my first impression is that while it is an upgrade, it isn't as big of one as I had hoped. If it wasn't wider, I don't think it would be faster.

It was sticky wet stuff too that held itself up pretty well.  Usually when clearing my truck I just swipe out some underneath and it falls off.  This stuff was well adhered though.  I undermined almost two feet and it still didn't fall.  Impressive.  

It completed the curl on the carport.

My truck bed was full too.  Extra weight!

As per the usual, I tried to do the slab with the tractor.  It didn't go well, my tractor wasn't heavy enough to push that much so I had to scoop it and dump it.  But fortunately it could drive over it.  I don't think the tractor was faster than the snowblower when I cleared the slab though.  It was amusing when I dumped the bucket and the snow came out form-fitted to the bucket though.  

I made an oopsie when I was shoveling up by the house.  Hopefully things melt off enough that I can fix it, though it probably tore the silicone up so it won't be sealed anymore.  Oh well.  

But I got everything cleared.  It looks cleaner than it was because it was melting down, it was upper 30s and sunny.  

Naturally though, as soon as I finished, it started again.  Ugh.  It didn't really accumulate though. 

I went to a Yankee Swap Saturday afternoon, and didn't do much else.  Sunday was pretty lazy.  I finally got around to unpacking the temperature controlled outlets I had bought.  One of them came in broken.  

Hopefully this allows me to not use the heat pump which randomly doesn't shut off.  I haven't been getting a lot of sleep because it is 65 when I go to bed, and then I wake up at 2AM because it is almost 80 and I am parched, then when I wake up again it is back to 65.  They seem to work just fine though.

With only one of these I will have to leave one space heater on low and just hope the other one can make up the difference, but it should hopefully stabilize the temperature in the house.  This is the one that is currently temperature controlled.

The other one is just on low at the moment.  

I got see a nice looking sunrise on my way into work this morning, I got in kind of late.  I have been having motivational issues of late, but only three more days.  

I also got my snowshoes out and walked around for a bit, but that was pretty much it for Sunday.  I had wanted to finish building the framing for the cap, but got lazy.  No movement on the project list.  

Winter projects:

• Knock down the dead knotweed. 
• Winterize equipment.  Fire up the generator

• Get the building permit.
• Complete detailed house plans.
• Work with La Valley to get a concrete contractor.  Get the plan/schedule in place. 
  
• Design future method of travel.  Consider building the prototype.
  
• Shed floor.
• Shed windows.
• Fix generator box.  Decide/do something about power center.
  
• Clear/mark walking trails.