It's been a while since our last post so I thought we should update everyone on our progress. As I write this, I am looking out the window at the 6-8 inches of snow that fell on Thursday. We made it in to the office in our little 4WD car but it was obvious that we needed to plow out the driveway. We took the afternoon off and headed home. The tractor was a little reluctant to start but came to life nicely with a little persuading. I managed to get 4 passes done on the 2km roadway up to our house - 2 up and 2 down. Plowing downhill with a little tractor is easy. Gravity helps keep you pushing the enormous weight of snow off to the side. Plowing uphill, however, is another story. Without gravity on your side, momentum becomes the tool your turn to. The trick is to keep the little diesel tractor engine running in its sweet spot rev range. Too many revs and you can spin all 4 wheels. Not enough revs and your speed quickly falls off. Keeping your uphill momentum takes a little skill and a lot of luck. Several times my luck ran out and I had to back down the driveway and clean up the mess with the front bucket before attempting to continue up. With the amount of snow that fell, it takes about 15 minutes to make one pass up or down the driveway so it was almost dark by the time I had completed 4 passes. If you're wondering why we don't just make 1 or 2 runs with the plow, the answer is "width". The blade is around 5 feet wide and angles off to the right side so the snow is moved off the road. Our neighbour told us when we moved up here that you need to keep the plowed area as wide as possible, especially early in the year. As the winter progresses, the snow comes, melts a little, freezes and creates rock solid ice berms where the plow piles it off to the side of the road. As you continue to plow over the winter months, these berms trap the plowed snow causing your roadway to narrow a little each time. If you didn't keep them very wide to begin with, you can barely get your car between the piles on each side by late in the season.
So you start plowing just off the center line with the first pass, with the second pass going in the opposite direction on the other side of center. The next passes are to increase the width by plowing as close as you can to the ditches on either side of the driveway. Don't get too close to the ditch or the tractor might slide in or even tip over! Oh, one final tip...make sure you have lots of fuel in the tractor. I know that this seems like a no-brainer, but after having the tractor get stranded on the narrow driveway last year when I managed to run out of diesel, it seems like good advice!
We have managed to finish all the paddock fence wire and will be installing the final gate this afternoon (this does not include the gates and wire that will eventually be installed across the driveway at the front of the house). Carol has returned from her trip to visit her family in Ontario making all the animals thankful that they don't have to deal with me full-time any more. It's nice to have her home for the holidays!
We will try and post some photos over the next few days but would like to take a moment to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
