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Wow ken!.....If not for the time stamp I would think u were trying to get one over on us for April fool's. U r brave living up there in the Arctic!

Not exactly, the brave ones live above the 45th
Here's a shot taken from the same general angle 20 hours later. It's supposed to hit 50 degrees today. I do hope that this is the end of it, I've had quite enough of that
The resorts are claiming they have enough snow to remain operational for this entire month.

Snow piles look like piles of cookies and cream ice cream Ken.

Funny you should mention that Lew. I got the strangest craving today. Yes, it's all gone now Oh, by the way, the resorts will say just about anything to bring cash carrying bodies up here. It's going to be 50 tomorrow and rain on Tuesday.
Good skiing till May, hmm, -I kinda doubt that.

With the end of Winter comes Spring runoff.
Boy, are we getting runoff.
I could tackle this with the Cub but I think I'm going to call in the Bobcat. And then there's the matter of what the lawn looks like Looks like I'll be raking for a while.

Well I pressed my little homemade driveway scraper into service. That thing does alright. The amount of drag is set by the number of rocks in the barrel. Thick wet stuff like this light drag.
I took it easy in first gear as the 102 is still set up for Winter with snow tires up front and chains out back. I don't want to snap an axle with those chains on, there has to be some tire slip, been there done that.
This will have to do for now until the water runoff slows down, maybe in 4 days or so. With 200 feet of elevation above above me there's no telling how much snow is still up there. Still and all I'm going to have to get professional help later on

Ken - Man, poor you and that driveway. I've watched you go through this over the years, but that erosion pic looks worse than most!

You might want to get in on the Brinly box blades that Jess and I both got and beefed up. Your scraper would be good for the fine tuning last passes, I could use one of those after I get done with the box on my neighbors drive every year.

Hopefully things have improved for you as spring finally comes in.

Well Tom, I said that we were going to do something about the driveway and today we did.
Three loads of Shure Pack in the main drive and one for mine.
In the rain. Actually that was OK because we could tell how the water wants to run. Now we will finish off grading Monday and then with the tamper roller thing providing the rains stop

By the way lookie what just turned up while I was out there raking- The other half of the chain link that I popped back in February.
Now I don't have to worry about it hanging up in one of my tires anymore!

Ken, looks good. Hopefully you don't get too much rain before it gets packed down. And, always nice to know where that stray metal tire-poker went!

Well here she is, our first new snow for the season

Our first serious storm of the season.
We got a foot. I did not measure with a yardstick. I don't need no stinkin yardstick to know what a foot of snow looks like

Ken...I was just reading some of your post from the spring.....and u talked about not snapping an axle. I guess u jinxed yourself.......

Looking good and looks fun to me. I was encouraged this am when I got up and noticed flakes dropping from the sky. I recall I waited 7 yrs after I got my Original to test out the scary non trip blade but man was it fun. The usaual thing happened here today and it turned to rain but I stand prepared hehe.

Don....looks like you out did yourself with the Christmas lights!
Please.... please can we get a picture with the lights on?..... maybe even at nighttime....lol

Looks like it's going to be a white Christmas afterall.

Here ya go Dave. Merry Christmas to all.

Ken, is sure pack crusher run and portland cement? I've made mixes like that for driveway pads and such, A couple of the local haulers will bring it now as well. I love the stuff. You can work it likr gravel but once it gets wetted down and backed it locks together and the cement bonds it so it doesn't wash. And it still looks like gravel on the surface.

Don....that was very fitting that u waited for some snow. Thanks.... waking up Christmas morning and finally seeing the cubs lit up was a fun treat. Looks cool!!

Steve,
I'm not well versed on construction materials but I'd have to say yes it very probably is. The crusher stone used was granite that's for sure. It's a very common material around here. I'm guessing that it came from the quarry just across the river. I noted that the first couple of rains we had after it had settled to it's base there was a milky like runoff at the top that looked very much like cement. It has held together very well in heavy rains since and cannot be shoveled at all unlike the 3/4 stone that I had spread out just in front of the house some years earlier. Some claim that it does not work all that well. I happen to think that depends on the quality of the mix that is delivered and the type of stone used in the mix. It also was cheaper by the truck load than the 3/4 stone. My contractor that spread it out for me first used a blade on his Bobcat and then did an attachment change over by putting on a device best describe as a 4 foot long rotating drum with whipping rods attached that pivoted, excuse my description I have no idea of what the attachment is called. Although I found it amazing that he could change out from the blade over to this rotating drum in about three minutes!

I had to call in him yesterday for sand, it got just warm enough the day before for everything that remained on our drive to turn to ice and it's a full inch thick now. Digging out the vehicles was terrible. With today's white Christmas that base is going to make snow removal difficult for the rest of the season. A lot of ice never fell off the trees and power lines so people are being told to expect outages. I had the drive so nice and cleaned up yesterday and just look at it now.
From last week Today at 8 AM. Anyway, the 102 will rise to the challenge. AGAIN! Wishing all a very Merry Christmas and a healthy and Happy New Year

And here we go HoHo Ho!

An old fashioned Winter to be sure. More like February than December. Wind is picking up. Temps dropping Trees coated with ice and snow over that, many of the smaller trees bent over heavy. The TV says Maine is getting clobbered.
I suppose the power is bound to go out sooner or later. Pretty to look at, done snow plowing-I'll stay inside

Ken - We've only been clipped by what you are seeing in full force so far this year. We've had a few nights of slippery roads and some minor driveway clearing, but nothing major yet. Hopefully your driveway looks much better than the results of previous years after the winter is done! Looks good so far, I don't see a whole lot of stone getting rolled up by the blade. If it works well I'll be leaning on my neighbor to make that his next resurfacing.

Hopefully your power stayed up for you. Merry Christmas!

Klapatta wrote:Well Tom, I said that we were going to do something about the driveway and today we did.
Three loads of Shure Pack in the main drive and one for mine.
In the rain. Actually that was OK because we could tell how the water wants to run.
Now we will finish off grading Monday and then with the tamper roller thing providing the rains stop

What is Shure Pack?
I had millings applied and rolled on my driveway 2 years ago. So fare it is doing well, almost like a paved driveway. No grass growing in the middle and a nice hard surface.

Ken, Yep that sounds like the same stuff I use. Wetted down and packed it acts almost like concrete but doesn't look like it on the surface. I used it here on a couple areas because the assessor actually informed me the "a gravel pad under a mobile structure (shed) doesn't fall under a taxable listing", but concrete does...

Charlie, If it is the same thing I get it looks like everything from stone dust up to 3/4" - 1" crushed stone. They mix in cement and deliver it dry. Drop it in place, spray it down with water and PACK it.

No, not the same but most likely just as good or better. Millings are what you get when those huge grinders remove asphalt from a road to be resurfaced. There is just enough tar left that once rolled the summer heat takes over and pretty much makes a hard durable surface but not quite as good as a good macadam job.

Charlie, Yeah millings are ground up road surface, HARD to get in my area because the milling crews have them sold off before they even start the machine. A few years ago I managed to get 6 loads for our fire departments parking lot. "borrowed" the towns grader and roller to get them down. I know the original idea behind them was that they would mill the top layer off, then dump that into a machine that crushed it while adding in new asphalt and laying it back down as the new surface. I've seen that in a couple places but in most they mill it off and lay down new material. One guy I talked to said it cost them more to recycle it than replacing it.

I was referring to the Shure Pack as the blended product not the millings.

Well the power here has not blinked but 2600 homes in the county lost theirs on Christmas Eve. Much of the snow has dropped from the trees but most are still pretty weighted down. It's all rather breath taking really. With all due fairness to the power company they have done a lot of upgrades on the line over the years and outages are a fraction of what they used to be.
20 years ago some of the older poles on our road still had the old style cross bars and multiple green glass insulators though the copper had long since removed. Our phone lines are now fiber optic as well.

It sure is quiet around here lately.
Are folks moving snow out there or just getting tired of talking about it?
I suppose most everyone is pretty sick and tired of all this cold by now but around here in the Northeast it's supposed to warm up a bit on Monday.
The ski resorts here are taking a big hit lately not for lack of snow for sure but because it's too damn cold for skiing. Most all of the trails are shut down.
I went out again today to do some more pushing back. I should mention I never stepped out of the house yesterday. I was almost done and it was time to move one of the cars to get around that. I took the key out of the 102 to do it. Moved the car and then got back on, turned the key- a solenoid click and then I saw a big spark jump off the "A" terminal on the starter generator. I got off to investigate and the terminal was loose. Brother was that thing hot. It must have been getting loose for a long time. Even with the right size lock washer on. Yeah cold weather can do strange things to metal. I broke out the 7/16" socket and cleaned the terminals up and made sure the lower nut was tight (which it was not) and put it back together and she started right up. Phew. I was not in the mood for pushin it out of the way!

No winter pics for me to post yet this year! Several skimpy 1" snows, maybe one 3" job. I feel almost silly scraping the 1" ones but if I don't the asphalt becomes a sheet of ice.

Now we have the mid-winter warm up, but as usual, the ground is frozen down below. This leads to the inevitable with clay here, mud! I was out wrecking my yard tonight to bring wood up to the porch. I used my "lightest" tractor (2182-2, blower/weights/chains not installed yet, but tires are filled... ) and left some ruts, but not too bad. It warmed up enough over the past few days it is starting to drain.

Ken, hopefully you haven't warmed up enough up there to deal with mud early this year!