Snow Storm!

Our tiny cottage as viewed from the open pasture south of the house.

And here are the mules having their breakfast. It was getting hard to find a dry enough spot to feed them since we had approximately an inch of rain before the snow began to fall. The snow was super wet and heavy.

They watch me come out with the 'hay' sled and follow me to wherever I am going to spread their meals. The three older mules follow me away from the rest as I set out their grain in their pans. It is almost funny as to how routine feeding time has become.

Charlie loves snow. He just loves to romp in it and stick his head under large clumps of grass. His sniffer never quits when he is out and about.

Mr. Sven was not having any of the blustery weather. He watched out his goat 'door' and stayed inside with his hay and nice dry bedding.

Charlie and I walked up to where the hill starts on the driveway to look up the hill.

It looked like a fine day to stay home and let mother nature have her way. The winds picked up and we headed back to the house.

Water was standing everywhere under the snow and the ground was saturated.

That wet spot in the driveway is something I hope to get fixed next year. In fact this section of the driveway needs new gravel as it turns into a mushy quagmire each spring that is nearly impossible to drive through until it dries up.

That brings us to today which is Thanksgiving.

No visitors, no family stuff going on today. It will be the usual fair.
Hubby asked for Lasagna for supper.
Seems when the kids were young we had company and now that the grands are more grown up everyone has their own thing to do.

Photo from 2006 Thanksgiving.

Have a nice day, whatever you choose to do.

Snow dogs...

Snow swimming is fun...

Since the winds are supposed to pick up and the temperatures drop from 18 to -14 this afternoon, I took a short break after the cross country ski adventure with my neighbor and kids ...
and took the dogs for a walk to the creek.

Yesterday's warm sun thawed some of the iced over sections of the creek. I was amazed at how unfazed Charlie seemed to be while hiking through the creek. Dixie could care less, she is an outside dog but during the cold snaps she has a deep nest inside a stack of hay with blankets. She made the first nest and then I made it into an igloo. Charlie, Dixie, and I all fit inside it.
I feel like a kid again, making forts in a pile of hay.


Anyway...

Where one dog goes, the other likes to follow.

Here you can get an idea of exactly how small Charlie is compared to Dixie who is what we would call a medium to large dog. She is about as big as a large Labrador, weighing in at about 55 to 60 lbs.

They are pretty good together. Dixie puts up with his presence and pays extremely close attention to me.
I think she sees him like a pesky little gnat.

Then there are those times when I just smile and adore the two of them.

And then there are moments that I just can't help myself and I laugh...
and

laugh...

The temperatures have dropped 12 degrees in the last 3 hours and the winds are picking up.

I'm going to head out and settle everyone in for the night with plenty of feed and warm water.

Tomorrow may be a day to stay inside. Well, except for chores that is.

Skidsteers, Charlie, Mules oh my

We had a nice snow fall. The NOAA said we were going to have a Winter Storm Warning with blowing snow and then dangerously cold temperatures.

The snow started early Friday and we'd had a couple of inches by chore time.

The mules and 15 waited in the woods for supper with their snow blankets on.

One may think that they would be cold.
However, if you were to stick your hand under that snow, you would find a warm fluffy layer of their winter coat and their skin is warm. I do take my hands and run it up under the snow-coat just to be sure.

By morning we'd had about Charlie Chin High Snow. This is our new measure. How high is the snow on Charlie?

Here Charlie plows through the snow while assisting with chores.
I fueled up the skidsteer and plugged in the engine block to warm it up as I went in the shed to get my sled of hay.

The mules follow me along the fenceline with little grunts and sometimes a little braying. If they hear the sled on snow or on grass, they are coming at the trot.
I used to use this sled to lead our cattle from one paddock to another.

Feed. Animals always follow feed.

Mica has been moved to her own little paddock with Lil' Richard. She eats so slowly that the other mules were limiting her intake of food.
Anyway, Charlie quickly decided that sitting on the porch was wiser. He could watch me walk in the deep snow and he could sit in the sun.

Here is the view from the porch. The heated water tank is to the right outside of the photo and in the wooded area. The one nice thing about living in a hollow is that the cold winds can be dodged just by moving around most of the time.
The mules by noon were taking naps in the sunlight right there were I had fed them.

I started up the skidsteer and everything went very well. I was almost finished when I thought I'd take one more swipe by the house and make it easier to park by the kitchen door to unload groceries. This is a tight area and normally I scoop up snow and back out.
I decided to make a tight turn instead.

[Truth be told, skid steers do make tight turns all of the time, that is the beauty of having one.]
For whatever reason I heard a loud PFFFFT and immediately shut it down. I climbed out and saw that a tire came off the rim. Uh...Oh.

Rich was upset. He got that quiet tone with me and told me how much I messed up in no uncertain terms. He went on and on citing multiple issues about how difficult things were now. How I'd left it in a bad place, how I'd messed up.

In some ways I knew it may have been his frustration in knowing that he couldn't get out there and 'fix' the problem. He went on to tell me that I'd ruined a tire and that it could cost $150 just for a tire. I thought that was odd since that sum of money was not an issue.
I was driven to tears and then I got angry.
Nope. He couldn't be nice.

So I walked out of the house and called my neighbor's cell phone and left a message.
When I came back in Rich demanded to know what was for lunch. I wanted to knock my Halo off and tell him to figure it out. I wanted to tell him off. Instead I took out the dish I'd prepared for him the night before and set it on the counter.

Let him figure out how to warm it up while I figure out how to solve the skidsteer issue.

I must admit. I'd done a pretty good job so far.

And the problem could most likely be solved. Yes it was cold and yes I may have damaged the tire. But these things can be fixed and it was not gloom and doom. Nor was the world going to end because the tire came off the rim.

I went out with a scoop shovel and waited for Justin to arrive.

The issue became this. How to get the metal tracks off with the bucket in the way. Okay we used the boom lock out.

Then we used the bucket to pick up the front of the skidsteer and blocked it to keep it in place with the tracks folded out of the way.

After we figured out all the logistics, we were able to take off the tire and the rim. The bead was broken on the outside of the tire but not the inside.
Justin attributed it to low tire pressure and me turning over and over again.

These are things I wouldn't really know as a novice skidsteer driver. He was calm and explained everything he was doing and his reasoning behind it.
He also told me that I should think of this as a learning experience...he did.

By dark we had the tire off.
We'd spent 2 hrs in the cold working together.

By supper it seemed Rich was no longer upset, in fact he seemed to have forgotten the incident.

Charlie? He was content in bringing peace to the house by snuggling up to the Grumpy Guy and dropping a tennis ball at his feet.

So it goes.

Today it is frigid.
So I think I'll go for a nice long walk down the valley out of the wind.

After all, I have the gear for it and I can't stand to sit inside all day.

Tomorrow I'll take the tire into the shop and hopefully Justin and I can put things back together. I will learn more than I need to know about skidsteers.

Plus this spring I will have the implement company we bought it from come out and get it. It needs an overhaul/maintenance job. I'm not really prepared to learn all about changing filters and fuses, hydraulic fluids, and other things...not yet.