Sunday, February 24, 2013
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Snowshoes FAIL
I got snowshoes last year for Christmas and never got to use them, I figured two plus feet of snow was a good time to test them out. No it wasn't, the snow was so fluffy I simply sank two feet into it. I can do this in my boots without the snowshoes. Maybe after the warmup today it'll be better.
Saturday, February 09, 2013
Twenty Seven Inches!
Twenty Seven Inches!
Rosie measured Twenty Seven inches, that's a lot of snow compared to what we got for snow the last couple years (excluding Snotober 2011 of course).
That's my drivers side mirror you see sticking out of that pile of snow...
That's a plastic barrel full of sand next to that shovel.
View from the house...
Snow Blowers got to Love 'em
The snow wound down here around noon, the sun came out for a few minutes, I dug out the buried snow blower, un-tarped it, plugged it in the extension cord and started it, it fired right away imagine that. I had to shovel a working path just to get it out. I backed the machine up and tries the thrower mechanism, out came a pile of snow, I turned the machine and headed for the driveway. Within six feet of blowing snow I knew something was wrong, I was having to push the machine through the snow. I'm getting older but this is ridiculous, the machine really doesn't want to go. I let the blades stop and went to the front of the machine, I used my boot to try and move the blades, one was fine the other spun, great, tore a shear pin in the first 6 feet of blowing snow, went back inside got the tools, Rosie found the bag of shear pins right where (they belong) we keep them in the hutch. Outside again, I tipped the snow thrower back and spun the blade while sticking a Phillips screwdriver into the hole that the shear pin once occupied allowed me find the hole quickly. I had to go in and retrieve a hammer, the vise grips I had just weren't a good enough hammer to coax the broken pin from the shaft. I replaced the pin and off I go. I am having to go over everything twice as 6+ inches of snow are going over the top of the snow blower chute leaving several inches of snow in my wake.
Walkway down beside the cars, done.
Driveway, done.
Workshop cleared, barn cleared.
Headed back up the hill to finish in front of the Van, crap... hard to push again.
Broke the second shear pin of the day, back into the house to get the shear pins again, luckily I bought a 1/2 dozen last time we needed them. I backed the machine down the driveway, found the hole and quickly replaced the shear pin. Off I go up to do the front walkway, then the RPMs start dropping on the motor, that's odd. I checked the oil before I started, checked again, it was dirty, I hadn't changed it this season, oh well, so I drained and changed the oil in the motor, fired it back up and it ran fine, though this time I noticed that it was only when I started the auger that the motor RPMs slowed down. I limped the machine around the house and parked it, I'll have to see if something got bent or if the Auger needs lubrication. I don't know, we're done for not except the roof raking later once I warm back up again.
When they are running good there is nothing better, but when they aren't...
Yes sir, we're having fun now...
Rosie measured Twenty Seven inches, that's a lot of snow compared to what we got for snow the last couple years (excluding Snotober 2011 of course).
Snow Blowers got to Love 'em
The snow wound down here around noon, the sun came out for a few minutes, I dug out the buried snow blower, un-tarped it, plugged it in the extension cord and started it, it fired right away imagine that. I had to shovel a working path just to get it out. I backed the machine up and tries the thrower mechanism, out came a pile of snow, I turned the machine and headed for the driveway. Within six feet of blowing snow I knew something was wrong, I was having to push the machine through the snow. I'm getting older but this is ridiculous, the machine really doesn't want to go. I let the blades stop and went to the front of the machine, I used my boot to try and move the blades, one was fine the other spun, great, tore a shear pin in the first 6 feet of blowing snow, went back inside got the tools, Rosie found the bag of shear pins right where (they belong) we keep them in the hutch. Outside again, I tipped the snow thrower back and spun the blade while sticking a Phillips screwdriver into the hole that the shear pin once occupied allowed me find the hole quickly. I had to go in and retrieve a hammer, the vise grips I had just weren't a good enough hammer to coax the broken pin from the shaft. I replaced the pin and off I go. I am having to go over everything twice as 6+ inches of snow are going over the top of the snow blower chute leaving several inches of snow in my wake.
Walkway down beside the cars, done.
Driveway, done.
Workshop cleared, barn cleared.
Headed back up the hill to finish in front of the Van, crap... hard to push again.
Broke the second shear pin of the day, back into the house to get the shear pins again, luckily I bought a 1/2 dozen last time we needed them. I backed the machine down the driveway, found the hole and quickly replaced the shear pin. Off I go up to do the front walkway, then the RPMs start dropping on the motor, that's odd. I checked the oil before I started, checked again, it was dirty, I hadn't changed it this season, oh well, so I drained and changed the oil in the motor, fired it back up and it ran fine, though this time I noticed that it was only when I started the auger that the motor RPMs slowed down. I limped the machine around the house and parked it, I'll have to see if something got bent or if the Auger needs lubrication. I don't know, we're done for not except the roof raking later once I warm back up again.
When they are running good there is nothing better, but when they aren't...
Yes sir, we're having fun now...
OK, Enough of the Snow already!
Winter Wonderland it's not!
We've got some major cleanup ahead of us folks! Wow, we had 4-6 inches last night when I went up to bed. I woke up at 6am this morning to a major snow event! We have at least 24" inches on the ground and they're predicting it to continue until at least 1pm, another 4 hours...
On a positive note, it looks like I'll get to try out the Snowshoes I got last Christmas and never had a chance to try out.
Thursday, February 07, 2013
Historic storm... Time will tell.
We've got a Nor'Easter headed our way, get ready folks, this storm could be a record breaker, they're comparing it to the blizzard of '78 already. And it isn't here yet. Supposed to start Friday morning and continue right through Saturday.
One newscaster said that there's a chance some areas could get 48" of snow if it stalls off the coast.
We're as ready as we're going to be. Are you?
This pic is from Sno'Tober 10/2011 remember. The clean-up wasn't so pretty as I remember.
Good Luck All!
One newscaster said that there's a chance some areas could get 48" of snow if it stalls off the coast.
We're as ready as we're going to be. Are you?
This pic is from Sno'Tober 10/2011 remember. The clean-up wasn't so pretty as I remember.
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Saturday, January 05, 2013
Happy New Year! 2013 is going to be interesting...
Happy New Year!
Our Gardens
The Gardens are done except for some purple kale I'm giving to the rabbits and chickens. The seed catalogs have started arriving, I actually received a couple in mid December. I haven't had time to look at them in detail yet, soon I hope.
I found an online program for laying out gardens and raised beds that I will try out this year. You can fine the online tool here: Design Your Own Vegetable Garden Layout Using our Free "Vegetable Garden Planner" Software! From Vegetable Gardening Online.com
A busy weekend here at the homestead.
Big Freezer clean out:
We defrosted the big freezer Saturday (unfortunately not frost free), over the past 5 years frost had built up on the trays making it difficult if not impossible to add more food. While it was still cold outside (below 30 degrees) yesterday, and before the late Saturday/Sunday warm up. we removed all the food, chickens, turkeys, hams, and sausage. We put them all into green trash bags and placed these in the snow out in the fenced gardens out back. About five hours with an electric barn heater in front of it melted all the frost. All of the food fit into it much easier at 8am this morning (before it started warming up outside).
Dehydrating all weekend
We used several round dehydrators for years, these did not have thermostatically controlled heat, all the heat came from the bottom and flowed up through the stacked trays. These cheaper dehydrators sometimes burned the produce, particularly frail items like parsley and other herbs on the lowest trays. Last year we purchased a 9 tray Excalibur dehydrator, it is a thermostatically controlled unit, air from the blower flows over the trays and out the front, a much better design than the round ones although they worked OK for years too. We couldn't be happier with the results from the Excalibur, it really helps with the excess produce and produce sales we hit throughout the year. Dehydrated produce takes up 1/5th or less of the space of fresh or frozen produce.
Excalibur with a load of fruit.
Temperature control
Yesterday we dehydrated 10 pounds of vegetables, corn & peas, peas, string beans, broccoli, and a New England medley, (green and yellow beans, and corn). Now completely dried to a crisp these will get vacuum sealed and put away for soups and stews. We put them into baggies initially as we haven't brought the vacuum sealer down yet.
CW from top left, String beans, medley, broccoli, peas, and mixed peas, corn, and carrots.
Fruits:
Today we dehydrated about 5 pounds of fruit from the farm, and some bagged frozen fruit along with a couple canned fruits. Two trays of our blueberries, these bushes are really starting to produce, two trays of our red raspberries James and Jason help me pick every year, a tray of our black raspberries, a tray of strawberries bagged frozen, and a couple trays of experiments... a tray of cling peaches, and a tray of mandarin oranges. We'll have to see if/how these come out. I wanted to try some banana too but simply ran out of room.
Chicken soup:
Rose cooked up (3) chickens (ours are still laying so these were store bought) last night for making a batch of chicken soup. We've stripped the birds of meat, skimmed the broth, all that remains is chopping the vegetables, and adding the pasta, rice, etc. oh, and are putting the pot on the stove tomorrow morning to cook all day.
Beef Stew:
Crock-pot number one is cooking up a large batch of beef stew
Pulled pork:
Crock-pot number two is cooking up a batch of pulled pork.
How was your weekend?
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