Do you think I can run it with firewood? 
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Hey I have been there too, Brother Jan.
The worst is you cannot self recover your self.
Must ask at least one other for help.
And then have to listen to them tease and tell stories.
Hopefully you did have a reasonable neighbor/brother/brother-in-law who could keep his mouth shut.
S.U.
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Better to ask for help than to try and drag a stuck vehicle out yourself⊠I stayed with a farmer in Italy who got a big tractor stuck in the mud when he should have known not to be driving in his fields⊠He was embarrassed, and went after it with a second tractor, and he got that one buried up the axles too. At that point he went for help, (and a third tractor), but the sight of all three of them wallowing in the mud will probably live on in that little townâs local lore for quite some time.
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Iâve had both my tractors buried trying to pull each other out. Itâs not fun. I wound up waiting till summer and drier weather⊠A stretch rope makes a big difference.
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I learned a a young age you get a really long chain or cable and get the second tractor up on high day ground or you wait. But sometimes when your fields are in the flood plane waiting isnât an option. I have only had a tractor stuck 3 times in my life. Once on the side of a grassy hill in the pouring rain as a kid early spring. I stopped about half way around the hill on my way back up with the empty manure spreader and got help because I was sliding around unable to keep the front tires going up the hill. And twice since I came back here brushing hogging the edges I forgot where the bottomless muck holes are on the edge in the old river channels. Dropped my D15 loader tractor right to the loader frame rails and belly on a hole not much longer then the tractor. All 3 times the only thing damaged was my pride as I quick pull with a second person and tractor saved the day. But I have had to dig out the manure spreader before when someone drove it into a ice covered run and dragged it till the 100hp tractor stopped. That was a very bad winter day at about zero degrees Fahrenheit.
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Once I got a Bobcat skid steer backwards about twenty feet down about 30 degree hill and stopped by a tree. With enough cable and snatch blocks I was able to suck that thing back onto the road with a 10,000 lb winch pulling through four parts of line. Mechanical advantage is a wonderful thing.
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Well, I guess I have only volunteered other peoples misadventures, so I should probably recount one of my own. I managed to get my mini excavator boxed into a hole that was only about a foot larger than the machine in each direction, and deep enough that only the canopy would have stuck out if youd filled it completely back in. I was digging clay out of the side of a hill to line a pond with, and for some reason thought I could climb back up the steep slope next to my hole instead of backing out and going the long way around. Nope. It was pure clay and had about zero traction. I slid back down and the tracks went right into my hole. It would have been comical if it was not my machine. It is zero tail swing, so I could rotate the cab, but couldnt reach anything with the bucket. I ended up using a shovel to slowly fill in the pit and use the tracks and dozer blade to slowly jack myself back out. If it had been raining I would probably have cried.
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One of the things that originally struck me about this site was that people would tell you what they did right but more significantly they would tell you what they did wrong. Says a lot.
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Yesterday, I went sailing off the edge off the road way to the shop. I got the front left wheel over a 45â pole and the back left on the opposite side of the pole. Reversing saw me get the left wing of the plow hopelessly tangled in the frame work of the gravel sorter.
Two hours of laying on my back shoveling the snow from underneath the frame, and trying to jumpstart excavator proved fruitless.
Today I had the boys bring two fresh deep cycle batteries out to the excavator. A quick jump start and we were off. Then I had the nice young man lift my plow from the front, and then the back. 5 mins and I was out. I started it up and immediately sailed over the bank in front of the plow⊠again the nice young man pulled me backâŠ
.We spent the rest of today moving all the crap I HAD to have next to the shop, far away up the hill, where I can plow around it.
The lesson? I really need a wood powered bulldozer, that will start on a half dead battery (or even a hand cranked pony motor), so I can handle this kind of thing no matter how decrepit I am feeling.
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And here I thought the lesson would be do a better job marking the hazards before plowing. Sounds like that wasnât much fun. Hopefully there wasnât anything seriously damaged. I always wonder what took the Ford to stop when I see something like that because probably it wasnât designed to stop the entire vehicle.
Well on a lighter note I found an old half hatchet of my grandfatherâs in the basement the other day when I picked up the box plane to do some work. I decided that old hatchet deserved a new handle and some cleaning up as it was rusty dull and the hammer head was well used. So I cleaned it up grabbed a chunk of oak from the wood pile and made a handle. It was the first time I tried to make a handle from firewood my uncles always just kept handles around for tools. It came out pretty nice but I do wish I had choose a longer chunk of wood to start with. It is 11 inches long which makes it just slightly longer then the old drilling hammers for stone drilling which I also find too short. Didnât really think I would have sucess the first time out so I didnât worry about the length at the time. It is hanging in the shed now I am sure it will work just fine for my goal which is busting up sawmill scraps to fit into the wood stove. Those tend to be pretty narrow and split easy anyway.
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Flagging is senseless here. I have seen it done in places with less snow. I also see the road grader driver puts out 12â whips with reflectors. He knocks them down, after the first pass. Every year I get something stuck, or some other fool does.
Itâs not getting stuck that scares me. Itâs the incredible helplessness I feel when all that complicated technology fails. Too much snow and the wheeled machines are stuck. Too much snow and the little snow mobiles are stuck. The big tracked vehicles take a lot of life support to get their engines started.
In 2014, we got 12 feet of snow in the county road on Feb 21. We were snowbound for three weeks. We snow shoed out to where we could get picked up. We used sleds to bring in gasoline, propane, and food. It was the stupid simple things that worked that winter. Those old white army snow shoes, and sleds.
Now me knee is bad and snowshoes could be a problem. I think I am ready to go back to wood powered engines. They start in the cold.
The wood fueled H always started in the windy cold.
Dunno, maybe it was just nostalgia.
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We get a lot of snow as well Bruce. The average at the county garage where they keep the measurements is 164 inches over a long stretch of time. The year you spoke of was a 212 inch year. Largest since Iâve been living back here was 265 in 95-96. I have a half mile of private drive from the county road to my house. For years I cleared it with first with a full sized Bronco with a Western plow and then with a 3/4 ton Dodge with a Blizzard plow. Usually by February the banks at the side of the road were too high for the plow to push snow over and Iâd have to get a loader to come and knock the down. The plow truck finally wore out a few years ago and I didnât have the money to replace it so I bought a Snow blower and started doing the road with that. Bear in mind that Iâm 73 but still in pretty good shape. I hated plowing. Now I run that snowblower out to the road and back twice to clear a 10 foot path. Takes about an hour and a half with anything less than a 12 inch snow drop. I have cleared a 20 inch over night drop several times. That takes about another hour. People around here have commented that Iâm nutz but Iâve found it not much more difficult than following a lawn mower around and I donât have a lawn so donât have to do that. Now The snow get blown thirty foot off the road. No banks. Wish I would have went that way years ago. We have not had much snow this year. I have only cleared the road once and that was just because the UPS guy wonât even drive up to our drop box unless the road is totally cleaned. Iâd like to have all the hours back I spent digging out the truck after pushing into a bank and having the plow drop back down and lock itself into the bank. Gotta admit I like not having much snow this year.
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My uncle has gone the same route with a snow blower over a plow. They are great with one exception if you have a gravel driveway make sure the shoes work because those flying stones are sure to find a window to break. My uncle did that more than once when I was a kid. I use a 4wd tractor bucket myself because I own the tractor and because I dont want to own the window company. I have 2U shaped driveways with building all over the place so no good place to blow the snow.
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Ya tom,
Friday was the first time I have had the blower out this season. I let the blower engine warm up, and the drive engine as well, for a long time.
16 gallons of high octane gasoline! Those Ford FEs sing, and I love it.
No shear pins blown, no stuck, no broken chains, no problems.
Itâs fun when you win one!
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Todayâs important local news - âDonât mess with reindeerâ 
HĂ„kan om rendramat: âTrodde jag skulle fĂ„ en pĂ„ huvenâ | SVT Nyheter
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I sure did not notice anyone getting out of their cars to get a video, It was cold outside. Burrrrrr. The roads looked like ice, even the reindeer was having trouble standing and battling it out. Cool video.
Bob
Males have no antlers this time of year and apparently they know about it and donât even try to lock horns
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The weather really feels strange here . It is after 7 pm and 70 f ( 21 C ) I hear thunder in the distance 
Raining 1/4â today, 31 this morning and a high of 41
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