The Blizzard of January 23 & 24, 2010!
Hooo boy! In my last post, I had mentioned that we were wrapping things up at the bowling alley and heading back to the farm to avoid the forecasted blizzard. We stopped off at the Hall and dropped off the dessert I had made for the 4-H Fundraiser Supper, and headed home. We briefly considered staying for the supper, but I really wanted to get back to the farm before the sun set, and it was a good thing that I decided to do so.
When we arrived back at the farm, it was just after 5pm. The sun would still be up for a little more than an hour, but the heavy cloud layer was already making it grey and murky out. The wind was starting to pick up, and freezing speckles of ice and snow were blowing all over the place. The power was out, and there was no way of telling when it would be back on. Again, as I mentioned in the last posting, I had been debating about dragging the generator over from the shop, and I felt we had better do it now before things got any worse.
We built a "cage" for the generator using three large wooden pallets, and a chunk of plywood to make a roof for it. The pallets would protect the generator from the worst of the elements, yet provide sufficient air-flow to keep it running properly and allow for the venting of the exhaust. These images were actually taken the next day, as we were a little pre-occupied with just getting everything working to take pictures at the time!
Snuggled safely within the cage, I'm happy to say that the generator performed flawlessly, though it's a rather loud unit and generates a surprising amount of heat. It seems to be very fuel-efficient, but then it wasn't under a constant heavy load, which probably helped a lot. There are really only three circuits on the generator: One 20-Amp 220V circuit that powers the deep-well pump so we have running water, and two 15-Amp 110V circuits that power the heating system, and the refrigerator & deep-freeze. Both the refrigerator and deep-freeze are modern high-efficiency appliances, so their electrical consumption is very low. For example: Despite being a 25-cubic-foot model, the deep-freeze draws less than 200 Watts when running, with a momentary surge of just over 500 Watts when it first starts.
The power came back on briefly at around 9:15pm, but only lasted about 15 minutes before it went out again. That had given me enough time to shut down the generator, and I decided to leave it powered off for a few hours to see if the power would come back again. At that hour, we were all ready for bed anyway. I set my watch-alarm to go off at 1:30am to restart the generator if needed. I stayed up a little longer to let the generator cool sufficiently before topping up the fuel-tank so it would be ready to go if needed. I wasn't entirely sure how long the generator could run on a tank of fuel (25 litres) but I seemed to recall something about it being able to run for about Eight hours at half-load. If that was accurate, it would mean that it should be able to run until 9:30am without worrying about it. At 1:30am Sunday Morning the power wasn't back on yet, so I fired up the generator, switched the loads back over to it, and went to bed.
To say that it was not a Good Night's Sleep is an understatement. We were certainly warm enough; The generator kept the heating system working perfectly, but there was that constant underlying worry about how well it would keep working. I think I eventaully passed out from exhaustion around 4am, and managed a bit of fitfull snoozing until 8:30am or so. As it turned out, I really needn't have worried; Not only did the generator keep running all night without a glitch, it hardly used any fuel to do so. It was close to 9:30 when I went down to check on it (again believing that it should be able to run for at least eight hours on a full tank) and as it turned out, it had consumed less than half a tank of fuel! Again, with everyone sleeping, there wasn't a heavy demand on it; Just enough to keep the heating system working, and the deep-freeze and refrigerator running. The power came back on again around 10am, though it continued to flick on and off throughout the rest of the day.
There was a very good reason that the power was still unstable: The blizzard hadn't let up yet! The sun was trying to burn its way through the layers of clouds and blowing snow, but it wasn't having a lot of success in its efforts. The wind was absolutely howling in the shelter-belt, and I'm just thankful that the wind was coming from the North, which is the side that has the protection. A South Wind wouldn't have had anything to block it, and things would have been a lot more miserable! As can be seen in the image to the right, the wind had already piled snow into drifts a couple of feet deep or more behind the truck and Trixstir's van, and it would get deeper before it was all over!
Blizzard or no Blizzard, the horses still needed to be fed. Normally, there would be plenty of daylight by now, and this scene would be much brighter. It really was this grey and gloomy out, the only bright spot being Trixstir's fluorescent-orange touque as she greets Charles in the paddock.
Charles was definitely less than happy about the weather, but still ventured outside to see what we were up to. All of the horses are free to come and go from the shelter of their stalls in the garage as they please. Before we got him, Charles was named "Manny" after the Wooly Mammoth in the movie "Ice Age", and I can definitely see where that idea came from! Like the rest of the horses, his coat is very thick, and he's actually pretty warm under all that hair. In cold weather, the biggest worry is that a horse becomes too hot, thus making them sweat and dampen their coats from the inside out, which will result in the loss of their natural insulation, and then they'll start to freeze! Unlike humans, horses can't very well remove layers of clothing to help regulate their temperature or remove wet layers.
PoohBear and Dirk didn't fare any better. In fact, considering that they're considerably smaller than Bonnie and Charles, they had an even bigger prlem with the copious amounts of snow! Still, despite the blowing snow, the temperature was only about -10°c (colder with the windchill) and they have those thick coats! Their paddock is also slightly more sheltered, so they tend to spend even more time outside even in the harsher weather. The result is a couple of completely snow-covered minis, romping around in snow so deep that they sink in past their knees, and their bellies rub along the surface! We fed all of the horses inside their shelters, and they stayed inside for the rest of the day so far as we could tell. We did pretty much the same thing; Staying indoors and letting Nature do her thing outdoors.
I refueled the generator in case we wound up needing it again, but although the power was flickering on and off all day, it wasn't off long enough at any time to really require the use of the generator again. I took advantage of the lull in activity to take a much-needed nap after my fitfull night of little sleep. I think I managed to snooze for about two hours before the Kidling's whining right outside the bedroom door woke me up. He was whining to Trixstir about being bored, and "Why can't I watch TV?!" despite having been told five times already throughout the day that we couldn't use the TV with the power flickering out all the time; It was too hard on the TV to be powered on and off like that, particularly with the surges that usually came with it. I do have the TV and all of our other electronics on good surge-bars, but I'm thinking a large, powerful UPS for the entertainment system might be a good investment. In any case, I was in a less than charitable mood for being awoken in such a manner (and for such a reason) but it was getting close to supper-time anyway.
I had begun to make a nice goulash when the power flickered out again. Fortunately, it had stayed on long enough to prepare the meat part of the dish, and I wound up using our Coleman stove to cook the veggies. I know the Coleman has warning labels saying "Do not use indoors" and such, but I think this is largely to cover their butts in case anyone is stupid enough to run one in a nearly air-tight environment. Of course you wouldn't fire one up in a tent, but I don't see any harm in doing so in a proper kitchen. As with any fuel-burning stove, you need to keep a source of fresh air available, but opening a window a crack takes care of that. We used naptha stoves and lanterns all the time when we visited my grandmother in the summer when I was a child, and there were no issues there. Cooking by the light of a kerosene lamp is a pain though; Those lamps are really only good for decoration. Next time, I'll bring in the propane-fired Coleman lantern from the camper. (Though hopefully, next time will be a long time from now!)
The power came back on again properly a little before 9pm, and stayed on. The kidling had gone to bed about 15 minutes prior, but right around then we got a call from Joan, the school-bus driver. She said there wouldn't be any bus tomorrow (Monday) as she was snowed in, and we knew we were snowed in as well, so it was going to be a Snow-Day for the kidling. The power seemed to be stable now, so I roused the Kidling and we all watched Mike Rowe deal with more disgusting stuff on Dirty Jobs. I'm really glad that we can't smell the stuff he smells on that show, just seeing some of it is bad enough! We called it a night after that, knowing that in the morning we'd have to start digging ourselves out.
Monday morning was beautiful, albeit colder than it had been on Sunday. The skies were clear and blue, the sun was shining brightly, and there was hardly any wind at all! Waffles were the meal of choice for breakfast, and then it was out to take care of the horses and see about getting ourselves dug out from the aftermath of the storm.
The horses were already up and waiting for breakfast, as they usually are by the time we stumble outside in the mornings. It's not easy to get a good picture when they think the camera might be something to eat, so they keep getting as close as they can and you often wind up with a lens full of noses, and little else! Dirk was obviously feeling much more energetic in the bright sun; He was bucking and kicking and high-tailing it all around the paddock, bounding around in the snow having a Grand Old Time! I don't doubt that if he had more room, he'd race headlong as fast as he could go up and down a pasture. Hopefully by the summer he'll be able to do just that!
Once the horses were fed, we had the opportunity (and the need) to have a look around the farm to see how things were holding up after the blizzard. The scenery was pristine, with rolling hills of snow and all of the trees covered in thick layers of snow and hoarfrost.
The problem that I was facing was that in order to dig our vehicles out of the snow-banks, and to clear our driveway, I was going to need to bring the tractor out of the shop. This was a problem because there was about two feet or more of snow covering the ground all the way around the farm, and more in some places. In the middle-left of the image on the right, you can just barely see the top rail of my snow-bear trailer, buried completely in the snow.
Even getting the tractor out of the shop was going to be a problem! The blizzard had piled snow up against the door, and once the door was rolled up I was faced with a wall of snow that would have to be removed first! Here, Trixstir stands in a shallow spot that is only a little more than knee-deep. Other parts were waist-deep! Another problem was just getting the tractor started; The battery is definitely on its last legs, and I'm just thankful that we have a portable booster-pack. Once that was hooked up, the tractor started easily and I let the engine run for a few minutes to let it warm up before we started working.
I have a magnetic block-heater on order for the tractor, and I think I should request a second one for the hydraulic tank. The hydraulics get very sluggish in the cold weather, and you just know that it's hard on the entire system to make it all work. It eventually warms up and starts working better (in fact, excess heat is a major issue with hydraulics!) but it's hard going until then.
Once the engine had wamed up a little, and I'd exercised the loader a bit to help warm up the hydraulic oil, I started working on getting the snow cleared away. This is a long, slow, tedious process; This is a 53-year-old tractor, built back before the idea of 4x4 drive on tractors came around. In low gear, it has plenty of torque, but that's of little use when your wheels are just spinning on the snow. Even when the snow is still "light and fluffy" (relatively) once you start pushing a bucket-full about fifteen or twenty feet, you're starting to deal with a lot of weight. The mound of snow in front of the tractor is about five feet high already, and I'm just getting started!
This is not an easy task; Modern tractors have hydrostatic transmissions, heated cabs, four-wheel-drive, and all kinds of other luxuries. To see where I am going, I spend about half the time standing up on the Operator's platform, and then have to sit down again to work the clutch and brake. At the same time, I have to control the main loader arms and the tilt of the bucket to be able to scoop up as much snow as I can with each pass. I also need to steer of course, so it becomes quite a juggling act trying to control everything at once. In time though, one starts to get more used to the controls and eventually you learn how to keep the loader and the tractor moving at the same time in a relatively fluid motion. It's also pretty cold out; There's plenty of heat coming off the engine, but that doesn't do me any good when the wind (as slight as it is) blows it all away, nor does it help my cold feet. Thermal-lined boots get downright cold when the linings get damp because you've worked up a sweat! I had to keep wiggling my toes to keep the blood flowing and keep them warm!
After more than three hours of work, I've cleared a path from the shop, past the snow-bear trailer. I need to clear this much room just to have room to manouvre the tractor around. A big tractor could easily shove huge amounts of snow around at a time, but my little old Massey-65 can only do so much at once, so snow needs to be moved and piled one bucket-full at a time. I was being very careful not to bury the trailer any more than it already was, as well as being careful not to hit it as I cleared the snow out from in front of it. I missed it by about six inches, which I feel is pretty impressive given that I couldn't actually see it! The point of clearing in front of the trailer is two-fold; 1) I may need to bring the trailer out, 2) I need to push and pile the snow past the trailer so that I have a place to dump more snow as I work my way further up the path. These mounds are more than eight feet high at this point!
The Cavalry arrived a little later. By now I had been working for more than four hours, and I was still barely half-way to even reaching our vehicles, much less actually clearing the driveway! I was worried about running out of gas, as I'm not sure how long the tractor will run on a tank of gas, and there's no fuel-gauge on the tractor! I had pretty much resigned myself to the fact that I'd be happy just to get up to the vehicles today, and tomorrow (Tuesday) I could worry about the driveway. That's when our neighbour Dwayne arrived with his big 4x4 Kubota tractor, and made short work of the rest of it! He did more in four minutes with that machine than I had been able to do in four hours with mine! Of course, it's not a fair comparison given the difference in size and power between the two machines. One of these days, I hope to be able to afford a machine like that!
I put the Massey back in the shop while Dwayne cleared out the driveway, and got as close to the vehicles as he dared. Just like last time, my legs felt like Jell-O and numb after spending so much time on the tractor, but the walk back around the shop soon got the blood flowing again! Dwayne shoved huge mounds of snow out of the way, clearing a large space for the school-bus to turn around in as well. While he did that, I headed over to the front side of the shop to bring the snow-blower out for the more delicate job of clearing the snow from around the vehicles. Dwanye's son Coby arrived in their truck a few minutes later, and we chatted a bit and thanked them very much for all their help. This is one of the great things about being out here: People help their neighbours in times of need, without being asked, or expecting to be paid for it. Karma is a pretty good currency out here, and I'm thankful for that!
Once Dwayne and Coby left, I got on with the task of clearing out the snow around the vehicles with the snow-blower. I had been thinking of selling it to my brother back in the city, but I was starting to be glad that I didn't do that. Come the next day (Tuesday) I'd be even more glad that I didn't sell it! By the time I finished getting things tidied up, it was time to start winding things down for the day. Even though it's self-propelled, struggling with the snow-blower in the thicker, heavier snow-drifts is a lot of hard work. Light fluffy snow is no problem; Even the heavier wet snow isn't really an issue if it hasn't been packed down at all. But once you're dealing with stuff that's been packed down by the wind, or machines, or just people walking on it, it gets a lot harder! The machine bucks and jumps, twists and turns, and you're always watching to make sure you don't hit anything, or snap a shear-bolt. Still, it sure beats shovelling!
I had planned on updating this journal on Tuesday, having assumed that I was finished with clearing snow for a while. I was starting to ache, though not nearly as much as the last time. I had taken an "Aleve" the night before, as well as some Orange Juice to help put more potassium back in my system. I think that helped. Apparently I wasn't done though, because I got a call from Trixstir asking if I could bring the snow-blower into town because she was stuck in snow waist-deep on the sidewalk in front of the bowling alley! This is why I wanted to have the snow-bear trailer clear of the snow; it's a lot easier to move things like the snow-blower on a trailer with a drop-down tailgate than to load it into the back of a pickup truck or the Explorer. Trixstir hadn't been kidding either; The town had been hit by the storm just as hard as we had, and there were mountains of snow everywhere!
The main streets in town had a huge wall of snow down the middle like a frozen median. The plows had done a quick job to get the streets at least partially cleared, and later they would come with a huge snow-thrower and trucks to pick it all up and haul it away. I had to park around the corner in a neighbour's off-street parking area because there was absolutely no room on the street! I cleared the snow from our bowling alley, the apartment house next door, and the "Haircutz" shop next to that. The apartment house actually had the worst amount of snow to deal with; The house is set back about five feet, and as a result the snow just piled right in. It was higher than the intake on the snow-blower, so the snow-blower would actually tunnel into the drift and then I'd have to back it out, collapse the tunnel, and head in again. I don't know if the neighbours will even realize that I'm the one who cleared the snow for them, but that's OK - It's all deposits in the Good Karma Bank. :)
Tanya, the owner of "HairCutz" came out and chatted with Trixstir as I was clearing the snow from the front of the apartment house, and had asked her if I would be able to help get her driveway clear as well. Tanya does the senior's hair at the Villa on Wednesdays, and she was worried about letting them down because her car was pretty well stuck. She offered to pay whatever I wanted, so I bargained for a free haircut the next time I needed one. I've been going to Tanya for my haircuts since we got here, so she was more than happy with that agreement. Her house was just two houses down the block, so it was easy to get to, but she wasn't kidding when she said she was stuck. A plow had come through in the morning to clear the way for the town's garbage truck, and had piled up a wall of snow behind her car and truck. To make matters worse, that wall of snow was pretty hard packed, so chewing through it with the snow-blower was a lot of hard work. Still, I got the job done, and the senior ladies got their hair done. The only bad thing is that while I was clearing the snow, I found Tanya's extension cord, the hard way. Now it's an ex-extension cord... It took me about half an hour (maybe less, but it felt like half an hour!) to unwind the remains from the auger. Fortunately, it hadn't been plugged in and Tanya wasn't upset about it. It was clear that cord had met up with a few mishaps with assorted lawn-mowers and/or snow-blowers already, so it was well past its due-date anyway!
As you can see in the image on the left, Trixstir wasn't kidding when she said that the snow was waist-high! Thankfully, the weather has been more cooperative since the blizzard ended, making the cleanup efforts a lot easier, and letting everyone get back on with their lives. In spite of this sudden dumping off snow, we're still doing better than last year where we had lots of snow (though not so much all at once!) and bitterly cold tempertuares as well. I'm hoping that this will be "The Big One" for this Winter, and the rest of it will be more mild. After two days of clearing snow, working the tractor and fighting with the snow-blower, I'm stiff and sore all over and hoping for some time to rest and relax. I hear that the weather was really nice down in San Jose for FURther CONfusion, and I'm sure it would have been a lot more fun down there than sitting in the dark in a blizzard up here last weekend! Still, we're all safe and sound, we made it through the blizzard just fine, and I probably burned off a huge amount of calories with all that work! ;)