Wow!! We got WALLOPED!!

[FCD]

Holy Cow!!  I have never in my entire life seen a snowstorm as bad as the one we've gotten over the past 4 days, and certainly not this early in November!  This is freaking incredible!  It started snowing Tuesday night and it hasn't stopped since.

We spent all day yesterday just getting a path cleared to the tractor and skid loader in the out building and then clearing our drive down to our road.  This morning we've got another 2 FEET on the ground.  We had 3 feet of standing snow and drifts up to 10 feet yesterday, and now we've got another feet on top of that.  This is just unbelievable!

Just the other day I was lamenting about how dry it has been (and hot).  Well, it ain't dry and hot now!!  Jeezus!  Went straight from 90 degree temps to North Pole weather in 24 hours.  I don't mind the cold, nor snow, but some moderation would be nice!  LOL!

[Theatreboy]

I am jealous... i am looking forward to snow camping this winter.

[FCD]

Don't mean to belabor the point, but WOW...we just got hammered! Wife had a surgical appointment today, and we spent all day yesterday digging out just to get to our private road (which is another 1.3 miles) to the nearest Country maintained road. Jeezus, in 50 years, I've never been hit this bad with snow in November. Absolutely unbelievable! Got caught completely with our pants down and flat-footed.

The skid loader was in the barn with the hay forks (great)...except we needed the skid loader with the bucket on it to dig a path to the hay for the cows. The barn door where the tractor was was buried in 7 feet of snow; we couldn't get it out. Worse, we had the disc on the tractor so we had to get that off to even move any snow. We had to manually dig a spot to drop the disc to turn the tractor around to start digging out a path to the skid loader bucket so we could plow.

The cows were out of hay, so top priority was a choice...get hay to the cows, or dig a path 1,000 yards through 3 feet of snow to get out for the wife's skin cancer appointment. Guess which one won?

Snow blower was in the barn, but the gasoline was in the garage. No one could walk through the 7 foot drifts to get to the barn with a gas can.

Honestly, I've never been caught so flat-footed in my life!

Got our UTV stuck in the snow 15 feet from the garage. The UTV is IMPOSSIBLE to get stuck, but it was totally stuck. Got the skid loader stuck 7 feet from the barn door. Took all day to get it out on Saturday....when it was snowing so hard we couldn't see. Finally got the skid loader out, only to get the tractor stuck. By this point, both me and the wife were so tired we could barely walk. Tried to rescue the tractor with my Ram, but got that stuck in the driveway, not even out of the door far enough to close the fucking door. I was like...Gawd-DAMMIT!! I got so angry I was just running on adrenaline.

Got the truck unstuck. Got the UTV unstuck (after some serious digging). Got the skid loader unstuck. But every vehicle we got unstuck we had to back up into safe harbor. The snow was just too deep and too heavy.

The next morning we got the tractor unstuck (by pulling it out with my truck)...only to get my truck hopelessly stuck again.

All day Sunday was spent first on getting everything unstuck, and then working on a plan to keep things from getting stuck again. After this we worked all day on clearing our 1,200 drive and our 1.3 mile road to where we could get out today.

Even this morning...I still had to put my Ram 3500 in 4wd lock to get down our road, and had to pull (2) stuck 4wd pickups out of my way just to do that. I don't even know who owned the pickups, but I was so pissed by this point I just dragged them out of my way so I could get up to the County road.

What a fucking mess!!

Sorry, just venting...but that SUCKED!!@

[FCD]

Just to add more detail...

I got the UTV stuck twice.  The wife got pissed at me the first time...like..."Why did you try to bring the UTV up to the barn???".  Honest answer...because I didn't want to walk; it's too deep!  She went off in a huff and started trying to go to the barn herself (she's like that...just a toughgirl).  When the dogs got so tired they couldn't jump anymore, and she was up into her waist in deep wet, heavy, snow, she turned around and came back.  She still had several hundred feet to go.  One of the dogs couldn't even make it back (this took a while). 

So yesterday, when I got the UTV hopelessly stuck again (not even possible)...she wasn't so mad.  It took the truck and the tractor, with two tow ropes to get it out. 

Anything we could get back into the barn we put chains on.  Once we had chains on the equipment, then we started making progress.  But putting chains on skid loaders and tractors is a royal PITA, and it takes a long time.  But, it was clear the snow was just too heavy to deal with elsewise.  When I'd grab a bucket of snow with the skid, you could see the blue color inside, meaning it was just fully saturated with water/moisture.

If I had to guess, we probably moved abut 250-300 tons of snow yesterday.  I've got piles 15 feet high, which is as high as I can dump with the skid, and not just one or two.  Those piles are all along the 900 feet path between the house and the out building.

After all this, we still had to get feed to the livestock.  This meant another couple hours clearing a path from where the hay is, to where the cows are.  Probably another 200-300 tons of snow to move.  Once we had all that cleared it was a matter of actually getting the hay to the animals.  The direct path is about half a mile, BUT the path we had to go, due to all the snow drifts was over a mile...with a 2,200 lb. bale on the forks of the skid loader, climbing up a snowy hill, (now) in the dark.  And the cows were freaking out because they were so damn hungry, so they wouldn't leave us alone to fix the feeder bunks and cut the bale netting, so that was another chore.  My Gawd...every possible thing which could have been hard, was made even harder.  I won't say everything went wrong which could have because what we did took a lot of planning to prevent this, but it was not easy!!  Not by a long stretch.

Normally, we would have taken a shortcut from the hay barn to the cow round bale feeders directly through the pasture, but we couldn't do this because the snow at the corrals was over 7 feet deep, and below that was bottomless mud.  So, we had to go around the long way and bring the 2,200 lb. bales in from the west all the way through the pastures and uphill all the way (steep stuff)

My Gawd, everything I've done, erm "we've done" over the past (4) days has been murderously difficult.

This storm just caught us totally off guard...which is really rare for us.  Normally, we're really well planned, but these past (4) days I've never worked so hard since I was young and dumb in my teens.  

And, I'm an old geezer now.

(sigh)...I need to rest!

[FCD]

When you jump off a piece of equipment, the snow, mud and water is 7-8" deep, so you need muck boots on.  Okay, no problem, right?

Well, in my case, those boots are size 15 boots, and I'm 6'-5" tall, so getting into and out of a skid loader is a challenge...on any day.

The common way to get into a skid loader is with what is known as a "three point stance", meaning you always have three (3) points of contact so you don't lose your grip and fall.  If you fall, it will be a broken leg or worse for sure. 

So, when you get in, you open the door and grab two grab handles (with both hands), then you step up on the bucket (contact point #3).  Then you rotate around backwards towards the seat, and step inside wth one foot (usually your right foot).  Then you reach around inside and grab one of the grab bars inside the cab while clutching the door under your right armpit.  Then you reach behind you with your right hand and grab one of the grab bars on the inside right of the cab.  At this point, your right foot is inside the cab and your left foot is still outside (somewhere...usually on the bucket or implement).  Once you have a firm grip with both hands inside the cab you pull you left foot inside the cab. Now, keep in mind, there are two deep foot-wells inside the cab, one each for your right and left foot.  Your right foot is still on the hump between these two deep wells.

Okay, so now you're sort of inside, but not sitting down yet.  Now you have to put either your right or left foot down into the pedal wells.  The left pedal well controls the lift of the boom, and the right pedal controls the tilt of the bucket.  Once your feet are down inside, you can now slowly release the rest of your body back down into the pressure sensitive seat (which sets off an alarm inside the cab).  It's an air-ride seat, but the alarms signal weight in the seat (which locks out all the controls).  After this you have to fasten the seat belt and make sure the door is fully shut (i.e. latched).  Once this is complete you can release the "brake" which allows the boom to go up and down, and the loader to move. 

For controls, you have two joysticks, right and left and these control your direction (forward, reverse, left, right).  You also have other controls depending on what attachments you have on the machine (but those aren't important here).

Skid loaders are made for people who are about 5 feet 5" inches tall.  For people taller than this (like me) the process I've described above is a very gymnastic maneuver.  Particularly the part about getting your left foot into or out of the machine. 

Still with me??

So, getting your left foot into and out of the machine is a bit of a challenge on a good day.  But getting that same foot into the machine on a mucky snow day, with huge muck boots on your feet is especially difficult.  For me, I have to pull my left boot into the cab, and lift it out of the cab to enter and exit. 

When you look at the consequences of doing any of this wrong, and falling, it's an automatic broken leg or worse.  When you do it fifty times in a day, you get tired, and it gets harder each time, and you get more clumsy at it (at least I do).  This all causes you to use your shoulder, back hand and forearm muscles at like 10,1000% all day long, so when you come in at the end of the day you're exhausted.

Skid loaders are awesome pieces of equpment, but they DO make you work for what they can accomplish.  And, they will hurt you if you don't give 100% attention to them every single time you get into and out of one.

Yes...I'm still whining...but man, this has been a tough past few days, and this old geezer has paid the price, dearly!

[Nugget]

That sounds rough, FCD! I hope you get some relief soon.

You've brought back memories of a five hour walk in thigh neep snow at night with a three y/o and a seven y/o. Makes me shiver just thinking about it.

Are you by any chance in Colorado?

[Ksihkehe]

You've brought back memories of a five hour walk in thigh neep snow at night with a three y/o and a seven y/o. Makes me shiver just thinking about it.

Nugget is so old she remembers crossing the land bridge with her children after the last ice age.

What was the story to this five hour walk in thigh deep snow?

I did some crazy camping in winter, but I never had kids with me.

[FCD]

...

Are you by any chance in Colorado?

Yes, sorry ass Colorado.  I gotta' get outta' this rat hole of a state.  Bunch of commie traitors around here.  Love our place, but can't stand the state governance.  Blue bastages!

[Nugget]

Nugget is so old she remembers crossing the land bridge with her children after the last ice age.

What was the story to this five hour walk in thigh deep snow?

I did some crazy camping in winter, but I never had kids with me.

To be honest Ksihkehe I am older than dirt; always have been.

I should probably not derail FCD's thread with my tale of Christmas tree hunting gone wrong. 

[Ksihkehe]

To be honest Ksihkehe I am older than dirt; always have been.

I should probably not derail FCD's thread with my tale of Christmas tree hunting gone wrong. 

Christmas tree hunting gone wrong.

That's enough of the story to satiate me. I couldn't think of scenarios where I'd be caught that lost in the snow with children. I was thinking a car breaking down or skidding off the road.

I remember metro Atlanta got hit with an inch or two of snow a few years back. Can't remember how long it's been. I guess over a decade now. There were miles of cars just locked up on the highway, people abandoning cars and being stranded... in an inch or two of snow. Pretty wild. It was a real emergency for them.

Nothing against Atlanta and their driving, really. The first storm of the year in New England there were always people with four wheel drive in their billy bad ass SUVs flying off the highway like they'd never seen snow before. Some of the people around Atlanta may have been seeing snow on the roads for the first time in their lives.