Pellet heads!! What's up today?

My brother in Kingston brought sister in law to Dr around noon. Same scenario. When he came home and called me to let me know that I may want to get out there earlier than planned as its turning to cement. He said exact same thing about being loose around noon and then walking on it and no footprints when they got home. That was around 2:30.

Went out but was too late here so held off till about 4 in hopes of it being over around 6 as expected. That didnt happen either-sn*wed till after 9.

The 24 hour thaw with rain then turning into so much sleet combo really made this one and odd storm for this area for sure.

Generally, sleet storms I can clean up but this one not so much.

Will head out in a few hours and see what can be done, if anything.

Hopefully this holds true and doesnt change as its what many are banking on.

 

New twist this week........,

 

Worked a 12 hr. shift yesterday and by the time I got home there was about an inch of solid ice on everything. Going out now to clean off my work beater and get that in the garage so I can fix the exhaust. Gotta get steps and in front of small garage clean so I can get to pellets and don't fall on my azz in the process. Already feed my feathered friends and the feeders were encased in ice and I had to work on them awhile is morn to get seed in. This is not gonna be fun.

Doggy

 

Was out at 7:30 to get the Corolla cleaned off and it took 25 min. It just clears the little mound the town plow left at the end of the driveway but the mound has the tracks Lori's Rav4 left yesterday frozen in it which help.

Our feeders were packed with frozen sleet & ice as well. I too had to chip away at them with a screwdriver. Once I was done, seed and mealworms put out, it was feeding time at the zoo. The bluebirds don't mind sharing, have seen 4-6 at a time sitting on the basket the mealworms are in, have seen Starlings peck & push other Starlings off of it.

sam

 

Went out this morning at 9, started the truck and let it run while I cleaned up the berm - about 10 minutes or so of chopping. Then started trying to get the 2.5" of stuff off the truck. Broke my ice scraper part way thru so I had a piece about the size of a credit card to work with. Since the ridged side was making the most headway, I was doing wax on - wax off with it, then brushing off what was loosened, then continue. Had to open the doors and stand on the sills to get to the top of the truck. I finally finished "good enough" at 9:45.

I had my phone in the breast pocket of my jacket. Usually when it is there it doesn't track hardly any steps. But, with the push/pull and wax on/ wax off motions of my arms, it tracked 1290 "steps" in that 45 minutes . There is no getting any of it off the driveway or paths, so it's there until spring.

Did the dump run and stopped at the local hardware store. Came home had lunch then cleaned both stoves. Last time was 4 weeks ago, for those of you who are tracking my stove cleanings

 

Same here, but hopefully will melt off some this week.

Good thing I didnt waste my time (and kill my hands) scraping this chit last night. The small areas I got down to pavement to see if it was possible filled back in and froze over again.

Used the blower again today to get up what I could fron the overnight stuff but about 1.5 inch of frozen crud left on the asphalt. First time in 10 plus years I havnt scraped after using the blower. Might have gotten up a little more if the loose stuff that fell overnight but wasnt worth the effort. Learned that lesson 3 weeks ago in the storm that did in my hand and left me with solid ice anyway.

The one area I did chisel was the 2x2 cement pad I have by the back garage door. That was hard enough to clean. Never mind the driveway.

The slight incline to get to the bird feeders left no imprints walking up it on the 3ish inches of fresh fallen crud. At least the feeder wasnt frozen and my blower wasnt turned into an ice brick. The 1-2 inches of frozen stuff I did get up last night was very dry and was like granulated sugar.

 

Finally got all ice off driveway only to have it covered with packed sleet last Friday which was manageable. Monday got 3 inches of sn* w that turned to rain for 5-6 hours on top of the packed sleet.

All ice again. Maybe it will melt this week.

White flag has been raised.

 

Hate to, but you all know the answer to these problems.

 

Today's forecast

Warming to 40ish by noon. Progress !!
Rain showers 2-4pm to fill in the melted areas
Dropping below freezing to re solidify and undue the progress.

 

Snowpack here is receding fast. Being replaced with the usual mud. On a good note, not using much fuel in the stove and minimal propane in the shop and the RH is staying right at 50% with little water usage by the big humidifier.

All good with me,

Spring ain't too far off. I have a very good barometer. My Australian Shepherd is starting to shed. he's a better predictor of weather trends than any weatherman.

 

Went out yesterday moved the truck to the parking area (to right of picture) and sanded the driveway so the FedEx guy can deliver my new office chair today (assuming it makes it here on time). This was before the sand - not much melting going on despite temps in the 40's and a decently strong sun.



Supposed to get nice and warm tomorrow. Hoping that some of that can be beaten / chipped away. Then at the beginning of next week the lows will be back to the negative single digits.

 

Some small progress made here yesterday. Found the ice to be thicker than I thought in areas.

Hopefully this holds true and gets us out of the frozen driveways. Although its 7 days out and last similar 7 day forecast ended in the crud we got last Friday instead

 

Weather here has been "Nearly" spring like....Well almost.
Been pretty much dry and temps in the Low 50's F
Not all that unusual for February to get a sneak preview of spring....and then get slammed with another shot of winter.

Tomorrow we are going to head to the plant and get our 4th load of shells for the season......Just coming up on a month to burn through the load we got back on Jan 12th.

Depending on the plants schedule and the weather....we may try to get one more load before they finish processing for the season.

We have been running mostly the Big Whitfield Advantage 2T ...We ran the Prodigy 2 in tandem during the coldest times Dec/Jan.

Been an interesting winter.

Last year at this time we were in the throes of a nasty ice storm.....not terrible cold, but the perfect set up for lots of ice......

Gave the Big stove it's mid winter deep cleaning last week.....
Running 24/7 sure gobbles up the shells.......

I expect we will be shifting over to running the small stove pretty soon....

Takes far less fuel.....
We may even be able to shut the big boy down today and let the little guy handle things....Today and tomorrow is supposed to be upper 50's F

 

Well, my Australian Shepherd is just starting to shed his undercoat on his rear flanks, a sure sign that spring isn't far off. I have a lot more faith in his internal weather forecasting than any weather man. Soon, we will be into 'hair season', I'm excited, not. Least Wyatt has no issue with vacuum cleaners and I have one of those shedding combs that attaches to the vacuum, that helps a lot. Wish that worked on the cats as well. It's don't. Gonna be a lot of 'tumbleweeds' on the floor soon and the cats will be puking up hair balls.... Did I say I liked cats? Hope not, I don't. Wife does. Cats are only good for 3 things, the puke, pee and crap and that is it plus they aren't affectionate like the pup is. Only affectionate on their terms and their terms aren't mine.

I'd like to have all of them outside where I think they belong. Problem is, my wife feels otherwise. I will not clean litter boxes or cat puke or any of that. It's 100% hers to deal with. Not my cats, never will be. They give the pup a wide berth, he feels the same way as I do about cats but in his case, I believe he'd like to bite them in two.