Catch - up weekend

 The grass was getting pretty long, so I had to get the mower ready to go. I changed the oil, and while it was draining, we cleaned and painted the underside of the mower deck.

 It turned out Ok. It could have used another coat, but we ran out of paint.

The "we" part was some help from Allen. He came down with Sheri for our late March birthday celebration.

And first thing Monday morning, we got a gravel delivery. Another 28 tons added to the driveway. It had gotten quite soft over the winter. This should help. I still have a couple of small piles to spread where the truck couldn't get to.

Flood damage

The water has receded and the culverts are gone. So is most of the backfill that made up the bridge. Heather and I walked downstream about a mile and a half this morning and found one of the pipes and brought it back. The other could not be found. After we repair the fence, we will decide what to do.

Flooding

Today's extremely heavy rain produced quite a bit of flooding. I didn't expect it to take down the fence, though. I hope my culverts are still there. I won't know until the water goes down.

Garden experiment

 Since our spinach seems to drown more than it grows, we're going to try an experiment this year. This will also include the scallions. They didn't grow last year, either. First, you need an old scrap pallet and some scrap lumber for legs.

 You knock the last board off each end of the pallet and attach the legs and something for the end of the box.

 Then add something for extra support in between the slats. Heather had some wire left over from the rabbit cages, so we used that. I stapled it down to keep it in place.

 Add sides, also from scraps I had around. These happen to be 5 1/2 inches tall. Then put in some landscape fabric to keep the dirt in. That was the most expensive part of this elevated bed. It was $8 at Tractor Supply, but I needed it for something else too, so it will all be used.

Then just add dirt. This one held 240 lbs. to fill it to the top - 6 bags of topsoil. They were on sale today at Tractor Supply for $1 per bag. Now we will see if the veggies grow better.

Redneck Snow Plow

 OK, it was just an idea until it started to snow AGAIN. We got another 10" last night. I'm starting to think I'm back in New York.

 I threw it together this morning with what pieces of scrap lumber I had sitting in the shed and clamped it to the front rack of the 4 -wheeler.

It doesn't lift or pivot, but it sure beats shoveling all this by hand. Now when they plow the road, we can get out.

A lot more snow

 This storm took a few days to get dug out from. It just didn't want to stop. Heather and I both missed work on Monday because the road didn't get plowed until Monday night and still had about 12" of snow on it.

 We got the cars mostly cleared out before dark. Heather's truck is still buried. We will get it out this weekend. More snow and some rain are coming in tonight. This probably won't be a fun weekend.

Even the 4-wheeler had trouble getting through it. Maybe I should look into taking it to work. It would be a long, cold ride!

catch up

 We got about 4 1/2 inches of snow from the storm that clobbered eastern Massachusets in late January. It was our first real snowfall of the season.

 Clearing the cars wasn't too bad. The snow stuck together nicely. And it was all gone by the end of the next day.

 Cathryn was here for most of this week. She got in just in time for our Superbowl party/ Mom's birthday get together. She was there to pick up Jerry, her steer from our herd. I hope she has enough room in her coolers to get him home. He went in at 1000 lbs.

 After 12 years of service in my truck, the battery quit Friday morning. No complaints about that. It was a very good battery.

I got another one after work and managed to get it put in before dark. If this one does half as good, I will be happy.