Snow Plow Thread

With a D7 ......... What fun. Was it still snowing while you were that doing that Job ? Look's Cold.

I once had to hand shovel a 200' path......to do interior Trim !

 

It was 09 degrees out side 78.5 in the cab of the cat. modern machines are a wonderful thing can’t go wrong with an enclosed cab till ya got to work on it .

 

It's been a weird year so far. It seems like we get 2-4" of snow every day or every other day. Then it will warm up to right at freezing and a little melts but mostly it compresses down. Even though it doesn't look like a ton of snow out in the fields, we've had to plow the driveway more days than not.

This morning it was fog on top of new snow:


Makes the marker posts even more important when there is no contrast in your life:


That's my wife and the dogs in the distance scouting the driveway where it's not marked yet. Just got a bunch more posts we'll be putting in this weekend.

The tractor did well chewing through a 2 ft deep drift this morning.

 

I agree......It's changing from what we are accustom to. We came up with Frost lines down 2' or more. The last few years , I don't think it's got down 2 " ?

 

We got about a foot of snow overnight with drifts up to 3ft deep. When I could finally get to plowing at lunch time, it had started to rain. The snow was super heavy and slushy and I got soaking wet.

On a good note, the snow blower seems to deal with the wet snow OK with one exception. NEVER let the blower come into contact with the snow when the PTO isn't at the full 540 RPM. If it's not throwing it out the chute with enough force, the entire chute plugs up solid with compacted wet snow and it takes 10 minutes with a screwdriver to chip it all out.


Chugging through a 3 ft drift in the lowest range and 1st gear. The new home-made front chains help a lot:


Now I have nicely plowed driveway to nothing. The road is drifted in and unplowed without a single tire track. This is looking East. I'm standing in the middle of the road. It goes between the 2nd and 3rd power poles and winds up the hill to the trees:


Glad we went out for supplies between storms yesterday. I imagine they'll get this plowed out in the next day or two.

 

Yes Sir.......Nothing worse than moving ' Mortar Mix ' Snow. Makes for ~ 10 X 's harder work.

 

Like fireball, we’ve had 2-4” daily for quite a while, then got close to a foot two days ago, then last night it turned to 40° rain. Our packed powder (steep) road turned into a skating rink. The kind where you try to walk on it, you fall, then you pick up speed on your butt until the berm at a turn in the road stops you.

I put a solid link in the plow to get about a ton of down pressure on the blade by lifting the front wheels off the ground. This does a pretty good job of digging up just enough rocks to keep cars from ending up in our yard or down over a cliff.

I have to run to town in a bit; we’ll see if my car can make it up out of my driveway.

 

Yeah..... This up & down & then Wind is getting Kinda weird ( & Dangerous ). Reminds me of what the ' Ol time plumber's called ' Hore Freeze '

 

That Tool Cat is an awesome rig!

 

Bleh. Sloppy mess. Had to plow out the upper driveway so I can bring wood over.

 

Like ITLKSEZ, it's a slushy mess 2 hrs south. It's supposed to freeze tonight and stay that way for a while so I tried to scrape as much slush off the driveway as I could before it turns to sheet ice.

I used the the plow on the quad but have no down pressure, uneven gravel, and large areas that are still frozen. This the best I could do:






At least I got some gravel mixed in with it for traction, but it's going to be an icy slick mess for the next week or so.

...and to make things more fun, we're in the middle of another 50+ mph windstorm that's shaking the house. Interesting year this.

 

Yep, now it's solid ice. A bit of a tricky walk down to the shop:

 

That looks like my drive too...only mine is down hill to the shop

 

Bauer Hockey Skates, Anyone ?

 

For the paved driveway, I use the pos plow truck. It gets the job done.



For everything else, I use my backhoe. Doesn't get stuck, can stack the snow real high, heat, and plenty of pushing power. My personal favorite.

 

The Wall......
The Other Wall.....
My other Jeep works Hard ! This is 'stacked ' 20 ' back. All in one night , ~ 18".

 

Got an additional 5' of Lake Effect all day yesterday. The Local weather guys can't often 'See' this type of event..........But' we sure can. Especially when it's - 1 *
At least it's powder......but it's gonna sit 'till later today .

 

I have those R4 tires on my backhoe and they suck in the snow. I guess the chains on the rear make a big difference.

 

I was walking between the barns today and saw something in the gravel I never thought I'd see again: