18 January 2016

Snowed 4″ overnight, so got up extra early to exercise the Kubota.  All was going fine until I got to the shop door behind our house.  For no apparent reason, the hydraulic cylinder that raises and lowers the snow blower attachment stopped working, with, obviously, the snow blower in the down-on-the-ground position.  The Kubota, she no steer so good (at all!) with the snow blower in that position.  Was able to back up into Kate’s turnaround area, but (after several attempts) getting the tractor around the corner and up the hill in her driveway was never going to happen. Called Champlain Valley Equipment’s Service Department and the helpful person there suggested I check all the things I had already checked.  So I hooked up the trailer, dragged it through the snow out of winter storage, and backed it down the hill.  Amazingly, I was able to back the Kubota up onto the trailer with no problem.  Getting the Tacoma, trailer, and tractor back up the hill… that was a big problem.  Got halfway up and then slid backwards all the way down, which made controlling the trailer, shall we say, a bit of a challenge.  Fortunately, Sonny has a large pickup truck and I have 100 feet of steel cable (for logging).  Hooked Sonny’s truck (stationed at the top of the hill) to the Tacoma and up the hill we went with no difficulty whatsoever.  Will finish the journey to Champlain Valley Equipment tomorrow.  Spent the rest of the day helping Tom Morrissey with wiring the main level of the house, including replacing all the 3″ round with 4″ round ceiling boxes.  Sonny and Doug framed in and installed the track hardware for the pocket door that will provide access to the hot water heater hidden under the stairs (‘cause there isn’t room for it in the too-small utility room).  They also applied ½″ MDO to the half wall at the bottom of the stairs to further strengthen that wall.  Steve was here most of the day continuing the plumbing rough-in.  He pretty much finished all the piping on the main level by the time he left.