Day 9: A day of Snow

Well as the title suggests, we got snow today. I had some of the annoying hard labor clearing of snow, and then some really fun clearing of snow. But I will get to that later.

The night before it started to snow quite heavy, so I knew I would be getting up to go shovel this morning. So there wasn’t any nasty surprise when i woke up this morning. I woke up at 5:15, got dressed and waited for my boss to call to say he was coming to get me, mainly cause I can’t get out of the driveway with my truck if there is snow because it isnt 4 wheel drive. Just before I went out the door at 5:30 it started snowing again, after a phone call from my boss [aka my Dad] I went back to bed till just after 7 when the snow finally stopped. We got back from shoveling around 9:15am. We had a beer and then I went to do my farm chores. After letting the dogs out I went to feed the horses which seemed a little miffed at me that I was feeding them almost an hour later then I usually do.

After the regular chores I went inside to get my own breakfast and to give Turk, Curly and Red their chunks of rice. I watched some Tv and relaxed for most of the day. Around 11:30am I went to go collect the eggs. There were only 11 today. The cold weather must be making the chickens slow down with their egg production. Never see that happening in Hm games. Which is good because in the classic games, in winter your only means of income are animal produce and mining.

I had noticed earlier today that the snow was weighing down some branches on the spruce trees behind the house and it wsas resting on the power lines going to the house. Once the father of the farm owner showed up we tried to tackle the problem with a pole pruner. Unfortunatly it got stuck and we can’t get it out of the tree. Its still there as we speak. Tomorrow Mike [the father of the farm owner] is going to get a new one and cut the branch down with the old pole pruner attached. Only way to get it down. We did knock a bunch of the snow off the branch so its not putting as much pressure on the wire as it was before.

Then I cleaned out the wood pellet stove. I tried to take as many pics as possible to show how its done and at the same time showing how the thing works in the 1st place. This parts for you Sly since you wanted to know how it worked lol.

[remember to click the pics to see the full sized pictures. Click them again when you get to new page and it will go to the full sized photo]

Pic #1: This is the wood pellet stove as it looks when all is functioning as it should be.

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Pic #2: This is the inside of the wood pellet stove. As you can see there is ALOT of ash build up and unburnt pellets that have bounced out of the fire cup.

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Pic #3: This is the hopper in which you empty bags of wood pellets that you can buy from the manufacturer. At the bottom of this hopper is a small auger that turns every few seconds depending on the setting you have on the control panel. Which brings us to pic #4

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Pic #4: The Wood pellet Stove control panel. The higher the heat setting the more pellets it deposits into the fire cup and more frequently. The pellets fall down through the little pipe you can see at the back of the wood stove in picture #2

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Pic #5: All clean! This is the stove when its all done. Big difference. Now the stove can function better and safely. Before the wood pellets were backing up the pipe that dispenses them.

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Pic #6: Now its working again. To relight the wood pellet stove you take some wood pellets you put off in a jar and soaked them with lighter fluid and a bit of motor oil. You put a couple spoonfulls into the firecup and some dry ones. And then just use an ordinary lighter to get it going. Once the flames are established you start the blower which feeds oxygen to the flames [duh lol]. It also vents the smoke outside and blows the heat into the shed and keeps the dogs nice and warm during the cold winter nights.

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In other pictures…
Pic# 7: Just as the sun was setting I managed to quickly take this picture. This is looking the direct opposite of the mountain I put a picture of on the previous blog, with the cliffs.

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Then just before I came in to do this blog I got to do the funnest thing yet!

I got to drive this:

As you can see in the pic, there is a plow blade in the back of the tractor. I used it to clear the lower driveway and pulled it into a pile, then used the bucket on the front to scoop it up and dump it over the fence onto where the lawn is. It is so much fun, I almost want it to snow again so I can use it to clear the driveway! I wouldnt mind doing snow removal every morning if I could use this thing. Later in the week my sister is coming to spend a week of her winter break. During that time, when it snows I will be posting a video of me operating the tractor along with possibly cleaning the wood stove for something to do. OH and a video of me taking the GT snow racer down the driveway. Its just too hard to try and do the filming myself. So once she gets here there will be more videos posted.

Hope you enjoyed the account of Day 9! Check back in for our 1st double digit day! DAY 10!

Until next time,
Stay frosty! [© 2012 Slypiper]