Plowing Snow

My snow equipment, I have tried to link a photo, we'll see if it works. If not I posted 3 pics under impelements photos. 86 chevy K20 and an Oliver 1550 utility

I have been plowing snow ever since I remember, first riding with my dad one wooden V-plow behind a team of horses, then driving the farmall C with a plow, up to now when I do 43 driveways and private roads with a Ford pickup.

With a 4 to 8 inch snowfall I can clean most everything up in 6 to 8 hours. This whopper we just had, 25 to 30 inches depending on who's talking, still has me working on it 6 days later. I ran the truck Wednesday from 7AM until I got irretrievably stuck at about 5PM. The next morning I hitch-hiked to town and picked up a JD 410 4WD backhoe with chains, pulled my truck out and opened up the driveways I hadn't gotten to the night before. The owner came at 11 and took the hoe back, I plowed all day with the truck, got struck almost in my own farmyard at 10 that night. Lucked out the town plow came along and yanked me out. Friday my neighbor came down with his JD 970 and loader, I had some old chains that we put on it. He dug out my fuel tank, so I could fill my truck without humping five gallon cans through the snow for a hundred feet. Then he dug a path to my 1010 JD crawler so I could boost the battery with my truck. I had tried to start it with a booster pack the night before, but it wasn't enough. I got the crawler going, unhooked the log arch, and bolted an extension to the blade. With the crawler I opened two more driveways, working until it was too dark to see, because there are no lights on the crawler. Went back later and cleaned up with the truck. Ran the crawler all day Saturday, cleaned up with the truck after dark. Met the owner in town 6AM Sunday, got the backhoe again. He told me that his crew had been working 6 to midnight since Wednesday, "and we've broken equipment I didn't even know I had". Ran the hoe all day yesterday, and left it off 11 o'clock last night. Today I will take the crawler and open up around the farm, service my truck and check every driveway again. Some time by the end of the week, I will have them come around with a JD 544 loader with a wing on it and widen the little slots that are all I could get through most of the driveways. I lucked out on my longest private road, there is a log job going on beyond the end of it, and they were out there ranting and raving with the skidder all day Saturday, all I have to do is clean it up.

Once you get behind on a storm like this it seems like you never really catch up. I was afraid that my telephone was going to melt off the wall by the end of Thursday.

I would post pictures, but I didn't stop to take any, the camera sat right on the seat of the truck with me all the time.

The "East" you're talking about is places like NYC and Boston.

Out here in the puckerbrush, we take care of ourselves just like any country boy.

I do the contract plowing and grading for our township in south central Mn. It has been a very wimpy winter so far as has been the past few years. We have 25 miles of roads with 5 township cart ways which are all a mile long. And at the end of these cart ways live country dwellers, who don't own so much as scoop shovel and expect there yards to be plowed. I go in and turn around and then leave. Today they had 5 cars parked in the way, and it will be the last time I go in there. Legally I don't have to go into the yards but usually it is easier to turn around in the yard than in the middle of a narrow driveway. I plow with a Oshkosh and if needed I run a JD 770B motor grader. The Oshkosh gets 90% of the plowing, the grader only goes out if there is mud underneath.

The fact is that photo was taken 5 yrs ago just after I got the truck. The Oshkosh was the last one Martin County had at Farimont.