Living in south-western Ohio my entire life, and working in the construction industry, weather has always been kind of a "whatever" thing. As they say around here, "if you don't like the weather, wait 5 minutes and it will change". So I never got too uptight about a little snow. As in, shoveling it. In my experience, it eventually melts and I could never see the point in wasting a lot of time and energy doing what nature will do on its own in a few days. Driving a 4WD vehicle helps with this philosophy.
Sometimes, though, we get enough snow that it really can't be left alone. This is especially true now that I have young children that have to get to school and a minivan with Japanese ground clearance. As luck would have it, this past Friday, we got exactly that much snow, and were expecting several guests in the 60 plus age bracket Saturday evening.
As a former construction laborer in my "apprentice" years, and a long time homeowner, there are 2 tools that I am loathe to use: ladders and shovels. I woke up Saturday morning resolute in my decision that the only way to deal with the white menace must involve internal combustion. Having the proper equipment would surely cut my time working on this to nearly nothing, and I could get some work in on the "troll" before guests arrived.
So I drove to my office/construction yard, which by design is only a few miles from my home, and found the gate to be well embedded in a 3 foot drift. Not a good start. I climbed the fence and waded to the yard office to get keys for the Bobcat and dump truck. I started the dump truck to let it run while I would "quickly" plow the snow away from the gate. Having 2 Bobcats was lucky, as one had a flat tire (I swear I had those tires foam filled) and the other had forks on it instead of a bucket. Choosing to change the bucket instead of the tire, I started the Bobcat to let it run. There was a pickup truck parked in front of the dump truck, buried in another drift, so I started to dig it out while the Bobcat warmed up. Then while the pickup warmed up, I got back to the Bobcat and realized that it was nearly out of diesel. No problem, we have a diesel tank in the yard--I'll just fill'er up.
It took about half an hour to get the bucket mounted and plow my way back to the diesel tank. I cranked on the pump for quite a few minutes until I realized that it was empty. I decided to gamble on having enough fuel to get the yard plowed enough to get the dump truck and trailer out. About another half hour or two later I had the path to the gate cleared and most of the yard plowed. I began to suspect that either the fuel gauge was inaccurate, or some sort of Hanukkah thing was happening with the diesel. Knowing that the dump would never pull the loaded trailer up the slight grade to the main parking lot in the snow, I pulled it out empty to load the Bobcat up on plowed and level pavement. Then I set about getting the snow blower.
The snow blower was kept in the nice warm yard office, so it started right up. "This will be easy", I thought, "so I might as well clear the office walks so the crew has one less thing to worry about Monday". I very quickly found the Welcome mat buried in the snow. A nice heavy rubber Welcome mat will pretty much stop a snow blower dead when it gets sucked into the tines. About a half hour later I had cut the mat into pieces and extracted the pieces with pliers. I finished blowing the snow, but the blower didn't seem to have much power. I would have thought a 7 HP motor would do better with less than 2 feet of snow drift. But I managed to nurse it along to finish the job.
By now I was well learned in the effect that throwing snow into the wind has on a beard. Looking like Jeremiah Johnson, I loaded the Bobcat and snow blower onto the trailer to finally get to the job at hand--clearing my driveway. I stopped and got diesel on the way. When I got to the house and unloaded the snow blower, it wouldn't stay running. After a few hardy pulls, I had ripped the starter rope right out of the motor. About a half hour later, kneeling in the snow, I had re-wound the starter rope, using a knife, a propane torch, and a pair of pliers. I managed to get the thing started and running well enough to get it up into my garage where I could work on it out of the snow. Conscious of the time, I prioritized clearing the driveway and the street enough to allow for guest parking.
A few half hours later on the Bobcat, I had managed to clear the cul-de-sac and my driveway without damaging anything. I then set about the task of getting the snow blower running properly to clear the walk. Turns out that the crew had been using the blower with the choke on full to keep it running. I thought this was odd, since we have an on-staff mechanic who keeps the fleet in pretty good running order. I managed to tweak the carburetor back into the realm of normal and got the walk cleared. Took about a half hour.
I then loaded everything back onto the trailer and returned it to its proper place. Got back home in about a half hour. Took a shower and got dressed in about a half hour, just in time for guests to arrive.
Thank goodness for time-saving machinery. It would have taken all day to shovel the drive by hand.
Oh. My Gawd. This was a riot! - John N
ReplyDelete