Posts Tagged ‘plowing snow’
Wintervale Road
In a day-long deja vu yesterday, it felt a bit like pushing a rock up a hill to repeat everything I accomplished the day before, plowing and shoveling to clear snow from the driveway and walkways. I’m thinking I should change the way I think about that 900-foot ribbon of pavement between the road and our house. It’s more like a road than a driveway. I have christened it, “Wintervale Road.”
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The snowbanks along the edges have officially reached a height too high for my ATV plow blade to spray snow into the ditch. Now the chunks of snow just roll back onto the driveway road behind me.
We aren’t expecting additional snow in the next week, so I catch a break there, but it doesn’t look like temperatures will be warm enough to melt down any of the mountains of snow that have piled up.
I did a little experimenting with knocking down the snowbanks using a hand shovel. It was easier than I anticipated to accomplish good progress but the reality remains that it’s a long road to be doing it by hand. However, in the summer, we worked on pulling up the gravel along the shoulder by hand for the entire 900-foot length, so it’s not something that is beyond my way of making incremental progress.
There remains plenty to be done before I can even think about chipping away on that task. I need to pull the snow off our roof, shovel the piles that develop below, and then plow around the hay shed and in front of the barn.
After that, it becomes a battle of the lure of an unfinished jigsaw puzzle versus toiling away on trimming back the snowbanks on Wintervale Road.
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Looks Pretty
Sure, it looks pretty but that doesn’t mean it isn’t brutal. The freezing drizzle of Tuesday coated tree branches with ice and overnight snow stuck to that ice creating a gorgeous landscape yesterday morning.
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Contrary to the report Cyndie heard from one misguided weather reporter on the radio who attempted to soften the blow of the mounting accumulation of snow by saying it was light and fluffy, I was faced with sticky, heavy snow to be shoveled and plowed.
I didn’t get very far with the plow before the winch rope came off a pulley because of the heavy snow and got wedged so tight I couldn’t get the blade to move up or down. It was back to the shop garage to correct the situation.
I decided to use the occasion to swap out the old, fraying winch rope with a new one I bought recently to have as a backup. While I was reworking things, I also decided to leave the pulley off altogether and route the rope through the tubing of the front bumper. I’m not sure what new problems this setup might produce, but it will for sure eliminate the repeating problems I’ve had with that dang pulley.
My efforts proved sufficient for completing the clearing of the pavement. I left the gravel portion around the hay shed for today.
The snow was so sticky I could only push up to the edge, never up and over. That portion needed to be accomplished by hand shoveling. It got me thinking, after hours of sweat and grunting, that I could suddenly see the attraction of living in a retirement community complex. I could sleep in, take as much time as I want to read the paper, and have breakfast. Maybe spend some time on a jigsaw puzzle. Take a nap in the afternoon. All this while staff was responsible for doing all the plowing and shoveling after snow storms.
I also was thinking that if I was an employee clearing snow at Wintervale when the job got this brutal, I would tell the boss more resources were needed. They need to assign more people to work on the project and give us more time to get it all done. Better equipment might help, too. A skid steer with a loader and snowblower attachments would be great.
Thinking about things like that helps me pass the time as I throw scoops of snow higher and higher over the growing mountains piled around the edges.
I’m not looking forward to daylight when I will be able to see how much new snow fell overnight.
Regardless of how much it is, I’m sure the new snow will look very pretty.
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Frustrating Amount
If a little is good, more must be better, right? Certainly not. Not lately, anyway. I could sure use a break from plowing and shoveling.
Of course, getting the ATV stuck at the end of the driveway didn’t do much for my cheerful outlook. When I came over the hill to see the state of things at the end of the driveway, I wasn’t surprised that our trash and recycle bins were knocked over by the snowy blast off the blade of the township snowplow.
The surprise was that our mailbox was still securely attached to its post. I think it was saved by the trash bin.
I plowed just enough of the snow at the end of the driveway to restore order with the bins but I got carried away thinking I could push the massive amount of snow well off the driveway. Suddenly I couldn’t back up. The front wheels had gotten beyond the pavement and the blade was stuck in the accumulated pile of new and old snow.
A long walk back to the barn for shovels was required. As long as I had the shovels, I decided to work by hand to clean up the area around the mailbox and the heavy wash of snow that came off the big snowplow. It’s easier to find the edge of the pavement using shovels.
After digging out the snow beneath the ATV and around the plow blade, it backed right out of the predicament with ease. On my way back up the driveway (after two successful passes plowing) I ventured too far to the right and dropped two wheels over the steep bank. You know, the banks where I wanted to add enough fill to create a more functional shoulder beyond the pavement.
Yeah, we didn’t get that fill added to the lower half of the driveway before serious amounts of snow arrived. I’m now dealing with the very scenario I dreaded. I can’t plow wide enough to protect the driveway from getting narrower and narrower with each successive snowstorm.
That interesting-looking snow sculpture above is actually a spruce tree. Of all the years to start off the snow season with epic accumulations.
What could be a fun feature of winter is mostly a frustration for me this year. It’s not being made any easier by Cyndie’s inability to walk and help out with horse care and snow clearing. It’s a one-man operation this year.
Yesterday, I made it halfway around the house pulling snow off the roof eaves with our Avalanche roof rake. Still to go, the other side of the house, and then I need to shovel off the deck and plow around the barn and hay shed.
If it is still snowing, I then need to start the whole cycle all over again. Rinse and repeat.
I miss having time to read the daily newspaper in the morning before starting my day.
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Not Waiting
Woke up yesterday morning to a winter wonderland.
It was sticky snow and continued to fall pretty much non-stop all day long.
The stickiness was creating some interesting viewing. One little branch could hold a surprising amount of snow.
The same thing was happening to the cable I strung between two trees to create a leash run for Delilah on the slope of our backyard.
She never liked it when we connected her retractable leash to the pulley over her head on the cable. I think it scared her. Now that she’s no longer with us, I suppose I should take the thing down. I’m sure the tree trunks would appreciate not having that constant pressure on them.
As soon as I finished feeding the horses in the morning, I decided to plow the snow off the driveway in hopes of taking advantage of the daytime warmth to melt new snow that was falling. For the most part, the plan worked as I’d hoped. At least the bottom layer hadn’t frozen solid yet, so that was a plus.
There was so much snow stuck in tree branches that warming daytime temperatures caused large amounts to fall out of the trees and mess up the freshly cleaned pavement.
Because the snow was sticky, I resorted to a fair amount of hand shoveling in areas where I couldn’t run the ATV at a good speed to get the snow to slide off the angled blade. That made for some heavy shovel strokes where the plow had rolled up big blocks of plowed snow.
Based on the weather forecast and the radar images of the precipitation spinning around the low-pressure center of the storm, I will get to do this all over again today! That’s okay. I was well aware of that likelihood as I toiled away yesterday. Everything I accomplished yesterday will be that much less snow I will have to deal with today.
I learned long ago –the hard way– that it doesn’t pay to wait until the very end of multiple-day snowfalls to start clearing snow.
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November’s End
The weather predictions were spot-on for our area yesterday. They said it would snow and snow it did. Now, on the last day of November, it looks a lot like December outside. We received somewhere between 5 to 7 inches.
I was hoping it would stop snowing before I needed to head out and start plowing. To kill time, I spent the afternoon hours watching the U.S. men’s soccer team outlast Iran to advance to the round of 16 in the World Cup. Now we have to go through similar tense spectating on Saturday when going up against the Netherlands. It’s a good problem to have. It makes me think, be careful what you wish for.
I fed the horses in the morning just as the big snow was beginning to fall. They haven’t shown a great interest in the hay boxes until recently. Now is a good time to choose the boxes because they are well inside the overhang offering protection from rain and snow.
I’ve still been serving them hay in net bags so they have options. At this point, I would say they are going through the combination of bags and boxes at about an equal rate.
As darkness approached, I headed back out into the falling snow to feed the horses. They seemed to be taking the wintery weather in stride. While they munched on the pellets in their feed pans, I cranked up the ATV to plow.
It always seems like I make a big ruckus plowing, constantly backing up to then push forward again, over and over one blade-width at a time around the barn and hay shed. The horses don’t seem the least bit perturbed by the disturbance. I think it bothers me more than it does them.
When I felt I had done a reasonably sufficient job with the plow, I parked it back in the garage. The shoulders weren’t frozen solid yet so I did my best to keep the blade confined to just the width of the pavement.
A precious snow-dampened quiet returned and I noticed the moon was clearly visible in the sky. The falling snow had finally stopped. The only flakes still flying were being blown around by the wind.
There was still a lot of hand shoveling to be done around doorways, walkways, and the deck but I saved that for later today. After I drive Cyndie to a physical therapy appointment, I’m going to celebrate the last day of November 2022 by cleaning up new-fallen snow. She will be getting an initial assessment done to develop a rehab exercise plan.
Too bad there won’t be any snow shoveling included in her rehab plan.
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Worst Combination
I’ve been dreading this possibility for months. The worst combination of plowable amounts of snow falling before the ground is thoroughly frozen played out yesterday right before our eyes. The unfinished shoulders of our new driveway are too soft to support driving on them, let alone scraping them with a plow blade.
Since we didn’t receive a huge amount of snow by the end of the day yesterday, I’m contemplating just pushing what snow there is to the edge of the asphalt to create small snow banks over the existing shoulder. Before the banks freeze too hard, I might try flattening them enough to create a base layer over which I could drive and plow after future snowfalls.
In the beginning moments of accumulation yesterday morning, I headed outside to clean leaves off the pavement in front of the shop. It’s a job I intended to do a week ago but a certain person’s emergency and follow-up surgery have disrupted a lot of the before-snow plans we had hoped to fulfill.
Nothing like raking leaves that are already getting covered by snow. By the end of the day, the area in the picture became a parking spot for my car. I moved my car out of the garage so I could put Marie’s car under a roof. If the snow lets up today or tomorrow, it will save me from needing to scrape windows if she decides to brave the winter driving back to her place in Minnesota.
With the two of us watching over Cyndie, the metal-jointed woman has been making pretty good progress managing her pain and healing her incisions. With Marie running the kitchen, I have been freed up to take the dog outside and to keep the horses well-fed.
And now, I’m adding the role of chief snow shoveler to my other primary duties.
🎶 It’s beginning to feel a lot like… winter.
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First Paths
Following a new blanket of snow, the next phase could be called “first paths.” As Delilah and I emerged from the woods behind the back pasture yesterday morning, the first thing I noticed was the few very specific routes a horse or horses traveled into the smooth covering of new snow.
I wasn’t able to capture it all in a photo but took a couple of sample shots anyway.
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This is one of those cases where the naked eye can absorb the full expanse of the landscape in a way the camera cannot. However, if I had a drone I’m pretty sure I could have come close.
Turning around to look back in the direction from which we had just come, you can visualize Delilah prancing along beside me as we forged each of our own ways through the deep powder.
After breakfast, I needed to finish the plowing that I had started the night before. It was both easy and difficult all at the same time. The snow was light and dry, making it easy to plow and shovel, but there was so much of it that it became difficult to manage with my little ATV plow blade.
A snowblower would have been a handy tool in this case. I have avoided that purchase decision for many years but the subject comes up more and more as we age.
To clear the areas in front of the barn and around the hay shed when there is so much snow becomes an almost endless iteration of shifting from forward to backward. I push forward with the blade overflowing, going as far as I can into the pile from the last time it was plowed, and then back up so I can make another pass beside the one just prior.
The engine revs, then pauses while the plow blade is lifted. The engine revs again as the ATV backs up. I generally don’t notice the noise because I’m focused on the task at hand but I get the feeling the sound of that on and off throttling would drive me nuts if I wasn’t the one driving.
I tend to wonder if the horses find it completely annoying but they made it pretty clear yesterday that it doesn’t bother them a bit.
While I was revving the engine over and over, Mix and Swings decided to take a little nap. Maybe the engine’s repetitive up and down droning is something they find soothing. They probably fall asleep during long car rides, too.
Speaking of first paths, if you look closely at that last shot, you see how much they’ve already pounded down the snow in the paddock while making just a few treks out into the hayfield. You can also see a skinny trail coming out of the paddock that was probably made by a neighbor cat who frequently visits.
New snow is so much fun for the vivid evidence of travel paths it exposes.
Yeah. Remind me about that next time I start whining about needing to plow and shovel it all.
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Lingering Shock
Honestly, I still don’t believe what just happened in the few days I endeavored to find a new road e-bike to replace my old reliable, familiar, and truly simple touring bike of twenty years. Rapidly changing from thinking my preferred choice wouldn’t be available for a year to being told the only one (the perfect one) available in the country was less than an hour’s drive away has rattled my sensibilities.
Cyndie has picked up on my excitement and happily agreed to let me bring it inside the house to devour the manual and familiarize myself with the complexities of all the features that are entirely new to me.
In addition to having never had battery-powered motor assistance in a bike, I have no experience with brake lever shifting, disc brakes, or a carbon frame. Plus, I’m feeling a surprisingly powerful compulsion to simply gaze at the spectacle of so much technical engineering packaged in such a functional work of cycling artistry.
In a phenomenal comment on yesterday’s post, John Hopkins perfectly captured the purity of my experience, before I even realized it’s what was happening:
Funny how intimately personal bikes are (to bikers), and when you hit on one, it’s a huge jolt of energy and pleasure that goes on pleasing every time one saddles up, or in many cases, each time one merely ‘looks’ at the fine machine!
It being the depth of winter, I am suffering the lack of opportunity to get out immediately to ride. Yesterday, I didn’t even have time to tinker with moving pedals from my old bike to the new one because there was snow to be plowed and hay bales to be stacked.
Hay delivery was confirmed for the morning so I was pressed to get the driveway cleared of Friday’s snowfall quickly so the trailer of hay could be trucked in without complication. Delilah had us up earlier than usual so we got a head start on feeding horses and eating our own breakfast. That put me back outside and plowing with plenty of time to make extra passes around the hay shed to create as wide a path as possible for the incoming delivery.
Hoping to give Delilah a walk around the property before I got tied up throwing bales, we made it to the far side of the pastures when I spotted the truck come over the hill. Cutting our usual route short, I directed Delilah under the bottom wire of the electric fence and I hopped over at the gate to trudge through the snowy field to meet our supplier, Chris.
In a blink, they were tossing bales down and I found myself struggling to keep pace while carrying on an engaging exploratory conversation typical of two people who just met.
Three quarters through the load, my exclamations clued Chris in that I could use a break. He gladly called for a pause and grabbed himself a drink to sit and maintain our pleasant chat. It occurred to me I hadn’t stopped moving since breakfast.
By the time we finished, I was soaked in sweat and exhausted. Later, Cyndie and I cleaned up around the paddocks and packed the two hay boxes with the loose scraps of broken bales that came apart during handling.
At the end of the day, the only energy I had for the new bike was to look at it longingly.
Going forward, I think I will also find myself looking longingly at the pavement of our roads, anxiously waiting for the day they become dry enough I feel comfortable for a maiden voyage on my new pride and joy.
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Snow Coming
I’m usually grateful to have advanced notice of coming weather, but sometimes I don’t like knowing we are about to receive large amounts of heavy, wet snow in April.
The snow is predicted to come in a narrow band, so it could shift a little, but we are located perilously close to the highest risk of seeing 6 or more inches of snowfall. Look to the right of the letter “e” in the word Moderate, just above Red Wing. Oh, joy.
I spent yesterday tinkering with the slowly developing berm we are constructing at the edge of our property where the neighboring cultivated farm field drains onto our land. It’s been 2-and-a-half years since we installed the latest version of erosion fencing and much of that has filled with so much topsoil the fabric is laying almost flat in some places.
Granted, the following photos were taken at different seasons, late summer vs. early spring, but the difference is rather striking.
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The bales obviously disintegrate. Progress that may not be evident can be found in the number of volunteer plants that have taken root and naturally help to hold soil in place. The thing is, though, that helps to hold our soil from eroding, but we still get large flows of the neighbor’s topsoil washing over our property.
If I can get the berm established enough to pool his runoff, it will serve as a natural replacement for the Polypropylene fabric and, most important to my sensibilities, be a less unsightly barrier.
I have found the use of gnarly dead branches that are too big for my chipper makes for great starter material in establishing a natural barrier. The highly fertilized runoff tends to fuel thick growth of tall grasses that ultimately create a tangled wall of live plants weaving through dead wood.
Looks like I’ll have a fresh opportunity Monday to see how my latest upgrade to the barrier yesterday will impact the drainage of many inches of melting snow.
Wouldn’t you know it, I changed the tires on the ATV yesterday to swap out the aggressive treaded winter tires for plowing snow, with the smoother treads of summer tires that are kinder to our land.
I could be in for a complex day tomorrow of clearing heavy, wet snow that will be a big problem for a day or two, and then melt. Then we can get on with spring, which is on the verge of swiftly getting sprung.
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Getting Out
I’m burnin’ daylight, what little there is today. I have a full day of work ahead of me clearing snow and entertaining the “every-hour-I-need-attention” canine. I need to make this post short and get outside to shovel, plow, rake, and shovel again. Oh, and I need to reattach the mailbox, as usual.
The plow had only made its first pass by the time Delilah and I made our way down to the road to find the mailbox tossed down into the ditch. I won’t bother reattaching it until the plow passes one more time to clear snow off the shoulder.
Do you think this will inspire me to install a “plow-proof” mount that swings away? Probably not. I’ve toiled seven years already like this, so I suspect the most I might do is take another crack at erecting a legal obstruction to deflect the force of the snow spray away from the vulnerable surface of the mailbox.
At least the plastic sliding grooves are designed such that the box just pops off the base each time, so it can be replaced again with relative ease.
Time to go outside and play!
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Relative Something 