Stearless in Endako..
Skid Stearless that is. My skidsteer is broken down and waiting for parts. Just a little nerve wracking as winter is approaching. Turns out one of parts was back ordered. The part was a pin in a gear assembly we're changing. It had to come from Paris, France. Well, la de da, won't I just ride a little higher knowing parts of my Case skid steer came from Paris. We are negotiating with a dealer in Prince for an eight foot snow plow. We are taking in the fork adapter so that they can retrofit it with a quick release plate that modern skidsteers use. I will probably also have to modify the hydraulic quick connects. A snow plow is about 10 times faster for clearing a road than just using a dirt bucket. I could get a snow bucket which is larger, but it still has the same weakness: You can only push the snow straight ahead - a snow plow lets the snow shed to the side.
Haven't made a lot of progress on the shop. I put some blue tarps up to keep the snow out of the shop and glad I did. I have been busy wiring a friend's place and doing some repairs to a remote solar/wind system. Hopefully I can make some progress today. Here I am adding some caulking to the outside lighting and feed for the intrusion detectors and cameras, but that's another post.
Xena's favorite toy, bar none, was her "blue ball". She just loved the thing and raced around the yard with it. While it lasted. The first one was a "bouncy ball" - but after she got a little bigger she bit right through the handle. We tried a "horse ball". It was a lot tougher but she managed to bite through it in short order and now it sits deflated. She still plays with it but it just doesn't have the bounce. Sometimes it just goes to her head.
We took a quick run to the coast to attend a friend's funeral service. We always travel well prepared. In the winter we carry: Emergency food, a stove, winter boots, tow straps, shovel, off road chains - the whole nine yards. On the way back it sure seemed like overkill. It was a beautiful day: bright, full of trees in fall colours. We stopped in Spences Bridge to give Xena a pee break.
It was so nice we decided to stop over in Kamloops to visit a couple of my favorite people, my sister Echo and husband Grant. We stayed overnight and on the way back I was glad for all the preparation and a brand new set of studded winter tires. The road conditions were atrocious.
We counted several dozen vehicles in the ditch. The majority of them tractor trailers and logging trucks. Professional drivers. People who do it for money. We went down one hill where five trucks were in the ditch and another six deciding that now might be a good time to put the chains on. The ones that did have chains. No kidding, and about two hours too late. It was so bad the main highway through Prince was shut down because it was littered with, you guessed it, tractor trailers. Now if you're a professional driver reading this and you take some umbrage, because you are a safe and careful driver and I know that is the majority, my apologies - and pass on what you know, because there are a lot of drivers out there that are not. Just can't see that it's safe for a fully loaded logging truck to be going 120 kilometers on ice covered roads in a near white out. Hope you got home safe. Oh and if you're that lifted four by four that passed six vehicles just south of Prince - in the same iced up, white out conditions and wondered why that white Toyota had pulled over to the shoulder. I was just making it easier for you to get home to your loved ones. And a couple of mine were in my truck with me.
Haven't made a lot of progress on the shop. I put some blue tarps up to keep the snow out of the shop and glad I did. I have been busy wiring a friend's place and doing some repairs to a remote solar/wind system. Hopefully I can make some progress today. Here I am adding some caulking to the outside lighting and feed for the intrusion detectors and cameras, but that's another post.
Xena's favorite toy, bar none, was her "blue ball". She just loved the thing and raced around the yard with it. While it lasted. The first one was a "bouncy ball" - but after she got a little bigger she bit right through the handle. We tried a "horse ball". It was a lot tougher but she managed to bite through it in short order and now it sits deflated. She still plays with it but it just doesn't have the bounce. Sometimes it just goes to her head.
We took a quick run to the coast to attend a friend's funeral service. We always travel well prepared. In the winter we carry: Emergency food, a stove, winter boots, tow straps, shovel, off road chains - the whole nine yards. On the way back it sure seemed like overkill. It was a beautiful day: bright, full of trees in fall colours. We stopped in Spences Bridge to give Xena a pee break.
It was so nice we decided to stop over in Kamloops to visit a couple of my favorite people, my sister Echo and husband Grant. We stayed overnight and on the way back I was glad for all the preparation and a brand new set of studded winter tires. The road conditions were atrocious.
We counted several dozen vehicles in the ditch. The majority of them tractor trailers and logging trucks. Professional drivers. People who do it for money. We went down one hill where five trucks were in the ditch and another six deciding that now might be a good time to put the chains on. The ones that did have chains. No kidding, and about two hours too late. It was so bad the main highway through Prince was shut down because it was littered with, you guessed it, tractor trailers. Now if you're a professional driver reading this and you take some umbrage, because you are a safe and careful driver and I know that is the majority, my apologies - and pass on what you know, because there are a lot of drivers out there that are not. Just can't see that it's safe for a fully loaded logging truck to be going 120 kilometers on ice covered roads in a near white out. Hope you got home safe. Oh and if you're that lifted four by four that passed six vehicles just south of Prince - in the same iced up, white out conditions and wondered why that white Toyota had pulled over to the shoulder. I was just making it easier for you to get home to your loved ones. And a couple of mine were in my truck with me.
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We'll be back. Email me your address and I'll see if my GPS can find you.