Post Gordon ~ Thoughts, Commentary & Reflections

6 Below at 7 am

Chilly morning, high maybe 0, pipes froze again. Had frozen during a cold snap last fall and I didn't replace the heat tape that was 'on' but wasn't producing heat last time. Oh, well. It fell off my 'maybe do' list a while back and I forgot about it. Fortunately, thought to water up some gallon jugs so I'm okay for this morning and warmer weather coming Saturday (today's Thursday, Feb 19).

Inconvenient, but 'no problema.'

Gabriel, my neighbor's dog, spent the night on a couple folded up towels beside my bed and has returned to his Yorkie self, though leery of the 'big' dogs--well, 50-pounders, Tika (English black lab) and Freddy (Brittany mix). Medium-sized dogs, really. The neighbor will be by a little later this morning to gather up Gabriel and his meds for Lyme disease.

Haven't gone out to start car yet. There's a charger and brand-new, Rural King battery in the garage, just in case. The plan for this morning is to get the Golden Comet chicks a larger world by re-configuring the box the 5.5 hp Shop Vac came in. When I got back last night with Gabriel, the chicks had run out of water. Oh-oh. Time for a larger waterer and need a larger surround to accommodate it. No problema.

On the way home with pooch, Gabriel, I stopped at the yard and found my trip envelope in the black mailbox, found only the cover sheet inside. At least I know what truck I'll have today. Inside, they said with so many backed up loads on the yard, wanted some to leave before adding another. They'll be loading it this morning. No problema.

First time I've talked with the folks inside, who work for the 3 Initials. Load departs for KY (Kentucky, not that other KY) by 1130 this morning.


//9 am, car started no problem. Thank you, Ford!! I remember having to plug in every night during cold Minnesota winters. Modern cars don't seem to need it. Mack's do, however. Little dog had big dog appetite for Diamond 'Senior,' scrambled egg and just a little elk broth. Beats Beneful hands down!

 

12 Below at 6 am

An odd day yesterday, when I got to the yard and looked for the truck, found it over in the red tag area and no other available truck on the yard. Oh-oh, not a good start! When I checked, inside the door and hanging off the air horn pull-cord was a red tag that a driver had marked, 'Air Froze.'

Yuppo, oh-oh.

Obviously, I wasn't taking THAT truck--but could have, as Asher Fleet Service would arrive in a matter of minutes to start working on it. So where's Reed the Mechanic? Dunno. His Honda CRV was there with snow on it, as was his (also snow covered) shop truck. Oh-oh. Fortunately for me (as will be seen), another truck came in off the road before the Asher service truck pulled up.

The drive out was unspectacular despite the cold, with fairly clean, dry roads and enough plowing finished to make travel unhindered. No 'oh-oh' about it. A little boring, even, except for a brilliantly bright sun that could snow blind you right now. Even with my sunglasses on it felt bright.

Once the receiver took stock of my load, they weren't happy. At all. No room. (Well, sure, been closed 3 days and got trucks coming in one after another... ) THAT wasn't supposed to be shipped, no way, José-soufflé, gonna send that truck right back!! Angry phone calls. And things hadn't gone all too well for our other drivers, who seemed, well, beyond caring... Oh-oh!

Ultimately, since the receiver did order the stuff they had to receive it. "Gonna be a while," I was told. So what's new? That's not even an 'oh-oh'!

A few hours later when I did get unloaded, pulled out of the dock out of the hole, up the cement inclined expanse of the receiving area which drops off from the road above and promptly got stuck in the snow that now with the drop in temp had become ice. My super singles just spun and with no weight in the box, wouldn't hold it down with the differential locked either. Oh-oh...

Don't know whether my work with the snow shovel, snow melt and kitty litter actually helped. At one point had got myself boxed in, couldn't move forward and was angled towards 2 posts about 10 feet from the rear of the truck. Oh-oh. I SHOULD be able to put the automatic mDrive tranny in manual and spin the wheels until they ate the ice or so I thought.

It kept trying to shift, would hesitate, lose momentum and so I sat.

Eventually I got far enough forward to back up past the posts and the other remaining truck (ours) and where I could get a better run at it. Still took a while... but finally! No more oh-oh. I've never had to go home in the jump seat of a wrecker or had a truck I drove put up on a hook. Knock on wood!

When I stopped at the nearby Pilot to fuel and clean up the windshield there was 3-4 inches of uneven ice up through the pump lanes. Only the pull forward area was properly de-iced and I couldn't get lined up on the pump, even backing up and taking a new run at it. Oh-oh. Finally decided, phooey, pulled on through to the clean pavement, cleaned the windshield and left.

Screw this!!

The frontage road felt like driving on greased rip-rap (good-sized rocks cemented into a mass to form a solid, lumpy, bumpy piece). Wasn't sure if I stopped whether I could get going again. Just more 'oh-oh.'

Happily, up on I-64 a hundred miles later, THAT Pilot had a clean lot (but darn cold in the wind). Then, on the yard back in Bloomington, was another 'oh-oh.' Sunday Driver had a trailer across the entire yard and was pulling the tractor off with his big pickup and a makeshift pull strap. Oh-oh!!

Seems the same truck I'd been assigned in the morning continued to have its air freeze up. This was 3x for Sunday Driver and he was, surprisingly, all smiles, seemed to enjoy the challenge. "Hey!! Funny hat!! What's going on?" I asked. There were pallets on back of the trailer that needed moved over to another and... Hey! Where's the yard dog??

Isn't this yard dog business? Dunno. But it got done, wasn't much I could do to help other than shine my headlights. Kudos to Sunday Driver!!

It was 4 or 5 below.

A last 'oh-oh' for the (rather long) day...

 

How cool, Bright One!! You're invaluable sometimes. Got out of the dock okay, it was the 5" of unplowed snow on the drive above that had turned to ice underneath and got me. Slippery, slippery, slippery!

So you thread one chain for each drive super single (4) and just thread through (1) wheel opening (not the one with valve stem), over tire and secure with locking pin... Sounds simple! Even if stuck. Maybe longer chain through more than one hole? What about damage to rim?

Couldn't find a YouTube or Google specific reference, though.

Here's an old boy with a crap yard making DIY tire chain and even into hole by valve stem! [video=youtube_share;EMgjVMMZlMQ]http://youtu.be/EMgjVMMZlMQ[/video]

 

Most Snow of Season

Last night's heavy, wet snow is the kind that worries me for my Golden Comet chicks, with tree limbs and power lines under heavy blankets. My natural gas furnace requires fire off the grid to run the fan and without the fan the furnace is a dead weight. Right now I don't have much of a plan than to cover the girls' cage in blankets and hope we don't have an extended outage like last year.

Last year we had 3-5 day outages around here. Have a couple wood stoves and plenty of wood but nothing hooked up so far. On my 'maybe do' list, one of these days. One of these unvented natural gas heaters is an idea, too. We'll see. Have some propane and a Coleman. Dunno. Not much that would reliably pull the chicks through an extended outage.

Power's still on so far.

I-70 looks clear of it, snow down to just around I-64 (Indiana above Evansville) and rain south of there--a good thing for them as will wash away what they would otherwise have to plow. Now, if we're waiting for the higher power that brought it to take it away, we could be stuck with much of this through next weekend when things supposedly warm up first week of March.

The Comets need it warm, upwards of 85-90 degrees. What a day for my neighbor's wife to come home from Brazil, where it's still summer (opposite seasons), eh? We've piled up at least another 3" on top of the 3-5" we had from last week and still coming down thick and clumpy-like little lumps of flakes. Means the snow is wet and sticky, unfortunately.

The plows have left me a large snow berm to shovel out and I was hoping for rain to wash it down. It's started to not look like it. Oh, well...

 

Dayton/Cincy-tucky

Well, Blu, no big hurry from Brawley needed. In Owen County we're on an Orange Advisory Level which means essential traffic, emergency and to/from work. Snow has stopped and from the weather map looks like finished here for this storm as it moves further east. Milder weather for rest of today and tomorrow and then cold again Monday, Tuesday.

Still snowing in Dayton, though and I-70 has closures.

Our Dayton receiver's closed today and Boss asked (emailed) if I would run today's load tomorrow at 0700. Regular window is 0500-0800 to depart and arrive by Noon (now I know... ). Not excited about it but weather has been jumbling my work days. Was a mistake to agree to run last Sunday.

Really have no good reason to say, 'no.' Just more to do, I guess.

Very possible receiver will stay closed tomorrow, too, as snowfall here was pretty heavy and moving that way, towards Dayton. Means I need to start car and shovel an opening out through the mound along the fog line dumped off by plows. Now, you just watch. I get an opening plowed, then they come through again and fill it all back up!! G-R-R-R-R!!

They (State plows) like to wait until snow stops, then plow. I like to wait until they've plowed the fog line clean and then shovel. Or not. As they say in Kentucky, 'The Lord brought it, the Lord'll take it away, too."

Yeah, probably late next week...