Third Snowfall

This is our third snowfall of note for the season. If it is under 6 inches it doesn't really count in New England
We woke to 8 inches of wet sticky snow on Friday morning.


It stuck to everything and made our valley a winter wonderland. This is the backyard.


It stuck to the individual blades of a "pinwheel". I thought it looked pretty cool.


This is ML stomping in the woods as she takes pictures.


Our version of alpenglow. The sun rises over the hill and lights up the tops of the trees.



Lastly is a picture of the trusty tools that allow us to live in such a hostile environment


We are expecting some more this evening.

Phil

It is absolutely beautiful, Phil. Right now, I am looking out the window of my friend's place in a small village near Buffalo. The snow makes the view look fantastic. I won't miss it, though, when I go back to San Diego on Wednesday. I had my share of the white stuff growing up in Brooklyn and living in Toledo in my 20s.

It is absolutely beautiful, Phil. Right now, I am looking out the window of my friend's place in a small village near Buffalo. The snow makes the view look fantastic. I won't miss it, though, when I go back to San Diego on Wednesday. I had my share of the white stuff growing up in Brooklyn and living in Toledo in my 20s.

I lived in Michigan from age 6 to 32, I find myself missing snow every winter down here. We do get one snowfall a year, but I feel the snow makes the cold weather worth it.

:-) Bah, Humbug!

Phil we got hammered by it. We already had ice covered driveways and we got 18" of the same stuff you got. When tires hit it it compacted into an ice layer, but it didn't stick to the icy layer beneath. What normally takes me 1-2 hours to plow took me 4 1/2 hours of abusive "fun". I got stuck at least 4 times and had my neighbor pull me out of situations that with traction never would have been a problem. On Monday I'll be on the prowl for chains for the rear tires. I never even considered them in the previous 36 years.

On Friday I hadn't finished the plowing and had to complete it Saturday. Amazingly it was much easier to move. It was more like windblown powder than the heavy wet snow we got the day before.

Beautiful pics! We had a slight dusting on the cars the other day and people acted like we had a storm lol.

A gent from TN bought land at the very peak of the hill and a tractor to handle road maintenance and such. He has a large snowblower on the front and I told him long before the season began to put tire chains on it. I failed to mention 4 chains (never assume folks know what's meant!) . The hill is quite steep and ice is very common. He put chains on the 2 rear tires only. Huge mistake. The tractor can't get up the hill. Now he's buying chains for the front. Hopefully that'll do it.

great pics! you can keep the snow up north, too!

it's been incredibly mild in Philly this season so far...I think we've only had like 1/2in or less of snowfall so far!

Tire chains... I found one local place that could get what I wanted. As it turned out I didn't order from them. Instead I went online to tirechains.com and ordered from them. They had better chains for less money, but I wound up spending more. For years I never understood why manufacturers didn't double up on the cross chains. Well, this outfit had just that type. I got them with V-bars. They can never go on the road, or at least not under normal snow conditions. In Maine it's up to the officers discretion as to whether or not the chains are overly aggressive and it would be my belief that they would be found to be in violation of the law. Conditions would have the be such that no person in their right mind would be out driving for me to ever hit the pavement with them on the tires. But for plowing snow on my land I should see quite a difference. I either won't get stuck after pushing the snow into the snowbank, or I'll dig one heck of a hole pretty fast.

ANow he's buying chains for the front. Hopefully that'll do it.

Brian,
Does he have a counter weight on the back of his tractor. The counter weight matters as the front mounted implement can pull the back end of the tractor up causing less contact with the ground. I use a ballast box filled with granite rocks. It makes a notable difference. But I am using a bucket.

With 4WD I only ever got a tractor stuck once. I pushed snow over an embankment. I went to far and one of my front tires was in air. I quickly dropped the bucket to keep the weight from pulling me down the embankment. No amount of fiddling freed me. I went and got our logging chain, my pickup and my wife.

After positioning the truck and hooking up the tow chain I explained to my wife what I wanted her to do in the truck. Her reply? "I'll take the tractor - You drive the truck" I explained the tractor and driver would be in a much more precarious position than the driver of the truck". She said "I know that but I'd rather fall down the embankment than do something wrong in the truck and risk damaging your precious tractor". And she was serious. I drove the truck and had the 'Bota unstuck in no time.

Good luck with your new chains. It was 38 yesterday and 43F today. Most of the ice is gone from our driveway, thank goodness.

Phil

Yes, he has a counterweight, but IMO not big enough for the size of the tractor. I'd have made a homemade massive thing but he has this foofoo factory made pretty thing. I don't know if his tires are weighted either. (I doubt it though)

He doesn't return calls and listens to one person who has the mindset of, "I have a hammer so every problem looks like a nail.". So there's little I can do. Without an open mind nothing can get in. He'll figure it out eventually or be a transient. But he'll never sell his house (It's more of a camp) and recoup what he has in it, 250k. He has far more problems that I have stated (no running water, problems with electricity). But it's his $, his land, his access, and he's an adult. I just sit back and watch and when I see him by pure chance I try to get a foot into the closed mind and gently try to suggest.

We were near 40° today, but we have so much ice that it'll take a superstorm of warm rain to melt it and I hope that doesn't happen since my driveway is gravel and I can plow the gravel onto the lawn again, or it'll take spring to melt it... much more desirable IMO.