Yeh, if you're a single guy with a 4WD, there's no compelling reason to own a shovel. Back in the 70s my father bought a small parcel of land that we cleared ourselves/pulled the stumps with a '33 International tractor. Steel studded wheels and hand-crank start. The thing was a tank.
Ha, I've seen those steel-wheeled tractors from yesteryear, but have never driven one. But my uncle and others from when I was a kid had (I'm guessing, all were post-war) a Massey Harris and numerous IH, the biggest being a Super M, a two-lung JD backhoe, and I drove all of them -- some when I was so young I had to squish down in the seat to push the clutch in, lol. And one IH my uncle had I didn't even have the leg strength yet to push the clutch in. We used to ride on IH "H" and "Ms" and they had no fenders, we were just kids and the rear tires were rotating right there next to us, and whatever implement behind the tractor that would have squished us had we fell off, but we never did, never got hurt. Ah the good old days, when you could have fun with no nanny government controlling and ruining everything. Ken, FWIW, we had a few flakes in the air today but nothing more.
Mostly Cloudy 43°F 6°C Humidity 68% Wind Speed Calm Barometer 30.17 in (1021.9 mb) Dewpoint 33°F (1°C) Visibility 10.00 mi
@Bruce Andrew My uncle, living on a farm given him by his parents, next door to theirs, was working the ground with steel-barred wheels in the Michigan sand. The damned thing turned turtle, pinning him by the legs in the soft sand. Upside down, the hot engine oil ran out narrowly missing his face. His mother came to check on him for being late to lunch, and found him thus pinned. I would guess he was hardly over 20. Really close call. Frank
Sunny and bright! It's that awkward time of year when if you dress for the given air temperature you're immediately too warm in the car, and then too cold again when you get out.
Locally, year-round, it's chaotic like I said to a neighbor a long time ago- it's like no matter what you wear when you walk out the door, it's wrong by the time you get across the street. By the time I get to the bus stop, I'm almost always thinking either "I shoulda worn a jacket!" OR "I shouldn't have worn a jacket!" Weather report: currently 30 degrees.
We are about the same, @Hedi Mitchell . Here is is 43 (feels like 39) wind blowing hard from the north, and raining. I am bundling up with warm clothes and slippers, and the puppy dogs went out before it started raining, and are very happy to be back inside where it is warmer.
Wow. Tractor flips, with someone on them, are nearly always fatal. Yes, he was lucky. One farmer I knew as a kid had a migrant worker every summer help him, who wintered in Florida. One time he parked a tractor at the top of a hill and didn't set the brake correctly. He got off to do something and the tractor started rolling. It went down the hill and ended up flipping; that was the point that I saw it, after the damage was done. It was amazing to see. You're right, it looked like a flipped turtle. It was a long time ago, but as I recall it broke the front cast iron axle, among probably smaller things.
We have a tiny bit of snow here at the ski resort where we're spending the week. Not much, though. I didn't even know it was happening until I looked out the window.
We had a killing frost this morning with a low of 29F. There will be more of that tomorrow. The weather man predicted sun today. If you only count the 1/2 hour this morning, he was right.
It's pretty warm today, in the 50s, which I attribute to the fact that we drove a gas-combustion-powered vehicle a few hundred miles to a timeshare and I ate a few things that didn't have the word "sustainable" on the package. Sorry about driving that global warming up, guys. I'll try to do better.
Today, 75, then the bottom drops out for Monday. Tomorrow, high of 58. Funny, but there are some in Denver that are wondering when their first snow will happen. We had our first snow last Monday, the 1st. I got iPhone video of it coming down pretty heavy, but none really stuck. My wife told me, "how beautiful", as she was working in our spare bedroom for her job. It can always be "beautiful" when a person doesn't have to drive in it. The last time, when we were living here in 2006, people in Denver metro wondered, and wished, for a White Christmas. Many wanted it. Well, those folks got what they wanted and much, much more. A few days before Christmas, a wrap-around blizzard hit us. Wrap-around meaning the blizzard started out over the Rockies, came in over us and into the Plains, looped around, back over us, back into the Rockies, looped again heading back over us and then heading east and continuing east. Darn near 6 feet of snow fell with snow drifts higher than our Durango. In the Weather Channel archives, this blizzard is called The Holiday Blizzard and we experienced every bit of it. But, where we live, blizzards and/or snowstorms are just part of the weather.