Storm Update 2

[unicornduke]

 We did lose power yesterday, right around lunch time. My mouth had been hurting from the dentist, so I had taken an ibuprofen and napped and when I woke up, the power was out. It stayed out until 10pm or so. We didn't run the generator at all, we were waiting until morning just because the digging out of the spot it needs to be would be annoying and it was still snowing quite hard in the afternoon with a lot of wind. 

It's fine though. We were only chilly for a little bit and it wouldn't have gotten below freezing in the house. Some people are still losing power today, the wind is still going and some branches are falling on lines and things. 

Yesterday morning, I went and cleared the important parts of the driveway, the drive up the hill, in front of our vehicles and the path to the propane tanks and the house. I'm glad I did because we had at least another 8 inches of snow and the snowblower was incredibly unhappy when I tried to plow out the sections that I hadn't cleared yesterday. It did clear the snow, but extremely slowly and with great difficulty. Final snow amount is probably 16-18 inches with a bunch of it being blown around. I'm going to take a measuring tape when I take Mara out for lunch time potty break. 

I cleared the snow alongside the vehicles first then I had to clear the vehicles off with a shovel there was so much snow. Also had to use a step ladder because I couldn't reach the tops. Pulled the vehicles out then snowblowed that snow into the bank. 

The sun has come out, which is melting the snow on the driveway that is mostly gone, so we'll see what happens with the snow I didn't clear off the drive. Hoping it doesn't become an ice sheet. I guess there isn't anything I can do about it anyway, it's incredibly heavy snow.

I did shovel a little area for Mara to roll around in or pee in, whichever. I may try and shovel down to the play area but not sure yet. 

Comments

[ranunculus]

Thank you for the update. Hope you feel better soon. Dental stuff sucks.

[graydon]

Boo, dental pain.

Glad the power outage was no worse!

The Swiss at least used to make big self-propelled snow blowers that don't care at all about how much snow or what kind. The downside (aside from cost) is that they'll happily snowblow an entire car.

For the rest of us, coming up on the throw capacity of the blower kinda sucks. Glad it was no worse!

[unicornduke]

I wish I could get a big snowblower, it would really help since our driveway is so oddly shaped. And given the wet heavy snow, I can't blow snow onto snow I want to blow again since it becomes impossible to get the snowblower into the packed snow. The tires just spin. It's a solid snowblower for most storms, but not the big ones. And I don't know that having a 4 wheeler plow like we plan to get would have helped.

Oh well. I might try and get out there today and clear a little more once it warms up a tiny bit since the snow is trying to melt down the drive and will make a nice ice slick shortly.

[graydon]

Nothing quite like flow ice.

Sometimes it does the most good to make sure there's somewhere the water can drain, though that's definitely a "if it gets warm enough".

Fresh dry snow starts at 50 kg/m3; wet snow can get to 500 kg/m3. I'd be considering a blower for the 4 wheeler, at least if it's got a PTO and they make such things. (They do, but they're gasp-choke prices -- https://www.kimpex.com/en-ca/products/atv/winter-accessories/snowblowers )

When I was a kid, the snow blower we had went on a tractor 3-point hitch and was a direct drive paddle off the PTO; the paddle was 1/2" plate with angle iron welded up the edges. This was all mostly exposed, the sheet metal snow director tended to be a bit more of a suggestion than a direction.

It did work but you had to stay well away from it. Rocks would come out with velocity.

[unicornduke]

The driveway is a hill and the parking area is closer to the bottom of it in the winter. The problem is the hardest part to clear is the upper area, which flows down over the cleared area that we drive on. With the lighter snows, I was able to throw it far enough off the pavement that it didn't run down the driveway as bad, but with this much snow, it's a problem.

A 4 wheeler is a stretch too, I'm saving all the cash I get working for my parents but it'll a while until we can get one. And I don't think it'll be beefy enough for one of those.

I wish we could get a tractor, the throwing power would be much better but it doesn't really make sense. Our snowblower flings rocks pretty good too, it's amazing the power they have!