New Year's Day Cleanup
As I wrote yesterday, we had a day of rain that turned to slushy, high-water-content snow. Lisa and I spent time in the evening clearing snow from the front porch and the sidewalk. We then spent a quiet evening with a nice ground venison-based "Salisbury steak" and rice dinner, and we watched a variety of videos.
Later in the evening, Lisa wanted to go out to collect something out of the travel trailer, but after briefly going outside she came in to announce a small problem.
The snow had weighed down several of the trees that line the fence between the house and the East Lot. Fortunately, they hadn't broken off. We took the snow shovel and a broom, bundled up, and went out to whack on the trees to make them release their load of snow. Sometimes, this led to loads of snow getting dropped on my head, but this is less of a problem when you're expecting it to happen.
After clearing the snow from the walk again near midnight, We poured ourselves a couple of glasses of Martinelli's sparkling apple-grape and toasted in the New Year as people around Fernley shot off fireworks. I'm unsure if any of these were licensed exhibitions, but given the cold, wet conditions, I wasn't that concerned about someone setting the town on fire.
This morning, as expected, we had a break in the snow, but not in all of the ice.
I gingerly made my way out to the pumpkin and laid out birdseed for the snowbirds. "Gingerly" was the word because much of the snow had turned to ice overnight, especially on those parts of the porch I had failed to clear last night. This was not good because while it was sunny enough to start melting much of the snow (some of which came off the roof and landed on my while I was inspecting the porch), the portions on the north side of the porch are shaded at this time of year and wouldn't melt.
I used the snow shovel to scrape as much of the snow/ice mix from the concrete sidewalk and put down a potassium-based ice-melt mixture on shaded concrete areas to aid in de-icing. However, I obviously couldn't use the de-icer on the wooden porch.
Later in the day, I came up with a solution for the ice problem on the north porch. While the press-wood firelogs are pretty efficient, they do leave some ash buildup, and this afternoon the fire had died down to the point where I could dig some ashes. I put on one of my N95 masks to keep from inhaling ask and got the ash bucket.
As is generally the way of things, the ash I dug from the fireplace was warm and included enough hot coals that the bucket got hot. Not dangerously hot, but enough so that I wouldn't want to touch it bare handed. I took the bucket out on the porch and set it on the icy areas. This applied just enough heat that I was able to break up the ice with the snow shovel and scrape it off. Unfortunately, as I expected, this also took some paint with the ice. We're going to need to repaint the porch this spring, but at least for now I don't expect to wipe out trying to go down the porch steps.
This is the break before another series of storms, probably colder and with more snow, comes through in the next few days. I took this opportunity to once again move more logs into the living room and the porch wood box. After this next set of storms passes, I will inquire at Big R about getting more firewood.
Later in the evening, Lisa wanted to go out to collect something out of the travel trailer, but after briefly going outside she came in to announce a small problem.
The snow had weighed down several of the trees that line the fence between the house and the East Lot. Fortunately, they hadn't broken off. We took the snow shovel and a broom, bundled up, and went out to whack on the trees to make them release their load of snow. Sometimes, this led to loads of snow getting dropped on my head, but this is less of a problem when you're expecting it to happen.
After clearing the snow from the walk again near midnight, We poured ourselves a couple of glasses of Martinelli's sparkling apple-grape and toasted in the New Year as people around Fernley shot off fireworks. I'm unsure if any of these were licensed exhibitions, but given the cold, wet conditions, I wasn't that concerned about someone setting the town on fire.
This morning, as expected, we had a break in the snow, but not in all of the ice.
I gingerly made my way out to the pumpkin and laid out birdseed for the snowbirds. "Gingerly" was the word because much of the snow had turned to ice overnight, especially on those parts of the porch I had failed to clear last night. This was not good because while it was sunny enough to start melting much of the snow (some of which came off the roof and landed on my while I was inspecting the porch), the portions on the north side of the porch are shaded at this time of year and wouldn't melt.
I used the snow shovel to scrape as much of the snow/ice mix from the concrete sidewalk and put down a potassium-based ice-melt mixture on shaded concrete areas to aid in de-icing. However, I obviously couldn't use the de-icer on the wooden porch.
Later in the day, I came up with a solution for the ice problem on the north porch. While the press-wood firelogs are pretty efficient, they do leave some ash buildup, and this afternoon the fire had died down to the point where I could dig some ashes. I put on one of my N95 masks to keep from inhaling ask and got the ash bucket.
As is generally the way of things, the ash I dug from the fireplace was warm and included enough hot coals that the bucket got hot. Not dangerously hot, but enough so that I wouldn't want to touch it bare handed. I took the bucket out on the porch and set it on the icy areas. This applied just enough heat that I was able to break up the ice with the snow shovel and scrape it off. Unfortunately, as I expected, this also took some paint with the ice. We're going to need to repaint the porch this spring, but at least for now I don't expect to wipe out trying to go down the porch steps.
This is the break before another series of storms, probably colder and with more snow, comes through in the next few days. I took this opportunity to once again move more logs into the living room and the porch wood box. After this next set of storms passes, I will inquire at Big R about getting more firewood.