Rough snow day
As cool as it looks and as fun as it can be, snow can be a big pain sometimes. It all comes own to equipment, pretty much like anything else humans get involved in. We just seem to need gadgets to get by in this world. The ducks don't seems to be having too great a time of it either, but at least they have down jackets on when waddling through waist-high snowdrifts.
Problem #1 with snow today: The plow guy never showed up. Yeah, I've got a plow and a Jeep, but it needs an engine. I'm shopping for a rebuilt one, but it just didn't happen in time for this winter. Oh well, we'll have someone come in tomorrow and hack their way through the 4' high berm that blocks the driveway entrances. (I have to do it, I need to go out for feed tomorrow)
Problem #2 with snow today: I went out to take care of the critters with my snowshoes on. Half way to the pen, the strap on my left foot broke. Oh well, I guess I've got some leatherwork to do.
Problem #3 with snow today: my pile of downed trees that is at the end of the yard is now under a couple of feet of snow, and probably will be until April. To get wood, my plan B was to go and cut down some more standing deadwood with my chain saw, slice it up into stove lengths, and haul it back to the house in our handy-dandy sledge.
The sledge is built out of a musket crate and sits atop a pair of skis that I salvaged from the dump. It will haul a week's worth of firewood in one trip. Here is a picture of it the first time I used it. In the picture, it is loaded with a bale of hay and a bag of dried corn for the critters in the main pen and a bushel of fresh corn for the pigs. A couple of days later, I managed to break off the tip of one of the wooden skis when it bumped into a piece of wood that was frozen to the ground. Time for it's first revision...Jeff swapped another pair of wooden skis that I had for an aluminum and fiberglass pair that he had, and mounted them to the sledge.
Today was it's debut with the new aluminum skis. Snow depth ranged from 2-3 feet. The sledge sunk right in, and the cleats that the skis are attached to acted like anchors, making moving the thing a Herculean task. I was pretty mad at it by then, so I moved it anyway (only half full of wood, plus the chain saw). I dragged it, wood and all, right through the door into the shop where it is sitting to let the snow melt off of it. Revision #2 will involve adding 3 more skis to the underside of it to give it more flotation. My plan is to mount them along the arc of the cleats that the two main skis are attached to, so that the new ones will only contact the snow when it sinks into the deep soft stuff. I'm hoping that doing it this way will keep resistance down when it is sliding over lesser amounts of snow or ice.
I'm not going to let a musket box outsmart me!!!
Wish me luck!
Problem #1 with snow today: The plow guy never showed up. Yeah, I've got a plow and a Jeep, but it needs an engine. I'm shopping for a rebuilt one, but it just didn't happen in time for this winter. Oh well, we'll have someone come in tomorrow and hack their way through the 4' high berm that blocks the driveway entrances. (I have to do it, I need to go out for feed tomorrow)
Problem #2 with snow today: I went out to take care of the critters with my snowshoes on. Half way to the pen, the strap on my left foot broke. Oh well, I guess I've got some leatherwork to do.
Problem #3 with snow today: my pile of downed trees that is at the end of the yard is now under a couple of feet of snow, and probably will be until April. To get wood, my plan B was to go and cut down some more standing deadwood with my chain saw, slice it up into stove lengths, and haul it back to the house in our handy-dandy sledge.
The sledge is built out of a musket crate and sits atop a pair of skis that I salvaged from the dump. It will haul a week's worth of firewood in one trip. Here is a picture of it the first time I used it. In the picture, it is loaded with a bale of hay and a bag of dried corn for the critters in the main pen and a bushel of fresh corn for the pigs. A couple of days later, I managed to break off the tip of one of the wooden skis when it bumped into a piece of wood that was frozen to the ground. Time for it's first revision...Jeff swapped another pair of wooden skis that I had for an aluminum and fiberglass pair that he had, and mounted them to the sledge.
Today was it's debut with the new aluminum skis. Snow depth ranged from 2-3 feet. The sledge sunk right in, and the cleats that the skis are attached to acted like anchors, making moving the thing a Herculean task. I was pretty mad at it by then, so I moved it anyway (only half full of wood, plus the chain saw). I dragged it, wood and all, right through the door into the shop where it is sitting to let the snow melt off of it. Revision #2 will involve adding 3 more skis to the underside of it to give it more flotation. My plan is to mount them along the arc of the cleats that the two main skis are attached to, so that the new ones will only contact the snow when it sinks into the deep soft stuff. I'm hoping that doing it this way will keep resistance down when it is sliding over lesser amounts of snow or ice.
I'm not going to let a musket box outsmart me!!!
Wish me luck!
posted by MVTCoPete | 6:58 PM
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