24 November 2013
Five inches of fresh snow overnight. Plow truck went up and down the road early,
sanding as it went, but still leaving very dicey driving conditions to be
negotiated with a light pickup and heavy tractor on a big trailer. Surprisingly, made it the five miles down the
hills (in 4WD low range and 2nd gear for the worst parts) to the
paved road with no problems. As always,
drove to Fern Lake via Burlington (going around, vice over, the Green Mountains
with the Kubota in tow). Stopped en
route at Pete’s RV to pick up another replacement battery for the Storm King portable
generator… this one (#3) guaranteed to fit. When I arrived at Fern Lake the tractor,
trailer, and truck were all nice and white… completely coated with road
salt. Absolutely couldn’t put the Kubota
and trailer to bed for the winter in that condition, so, in spite of the
temperature only being in the mid-20’s, washed them off with a hose. Got at least some of the salt off before the
ice coating got too thick. Feeling in my
fingers should come back any day now.
Perry came over shortly after the ice sculptures were complete. We used the backhoe chained to Perry’s
Chinese finger (look it up on Wikipedia if you don’t know what that is) in an
attempt to pull back out of the ground the ½″ PVC pipe that Alex and I had buried in July (but
that now won’t be needed to convey water down to the disapproved waterfront
sauna building). Retrieved some of the
pipe, finding that the strain had broken one of the couplings at the 30 feet point. Perry then helped me tarp Dolores… no mean
feat in the strong, gusty winds that were present. Tucked the Kubota into the shed garage (which
was nice and warm, being mostly underground) for her long winter’s nap, having
put nearly 100 hours on her Hobbs meter this year. Found that, once again, the Storm King
replacement battery was too big. So much for “guarantees”. A fabulous repast and very comfortable
overnight stay at Hotel Pirkkanen.
