why aint that new generator hooked up to nuttin yet?? and wow, y'all got doors that open out? Is there any way to build some kinda well, not really a porch but maybe sumpthin like that, but that has a solid front away from the doors so the snow will drift up against that instead of up against the house?
The new generator isn't hooked up yet because the power company wants $350 to install the cutout switch and connections and I don't have it yet. The generator I bought last summer will handle this whole property, but you cannot just plug it into the wall without risking electrocuting some poor guy working on the wires down the road. And... well, comments with the attached pictures. As for the doors, the main doors do open inward, but there are screen doors to keep the bugs out and I have never seen a house anywhere in this country that has screen doors that open inward. I have, however, contemplated building some short fences upwind from the doors, but the eddy effect will still create drifts in front of the doors. More on that with pictures below. I managed to get Bob started after breakfast today (YEA!) and cleared the driveway and made a decent path to the barns. Lannie took the following pictures
from the house... a couple out the doorway and a couple looking out the windows.
OK, this is the driveway after I pushed all the snow aside. It is approximately 50 yards from where Lannie took the shot to the gate. The piles I made along the side of the driveway are at least six feet tall, pushed up against those lilac hedges. Note the edge of the building on the left. That is the garage with the main doors facing the gate. After I got Bob started, I couldn't open the doors until I went around front and waded through a three-foot deep drift to shovel away the snow that had frozen the doors shut. That is also the lee side from the storm's wind direction, so all that drift piled up against the doors by eddy effect, which is the same problem that would occur if I made wind fences next to the house doors. Using the Bobcat, by the way, took nearly two hours to clear 2-3 foot drifts out of the driveway from where this picture was taken out to the highway.
This was taken from the same doorway, looking north toward the barns. I am creating a path to the two barns, which took another couple hours. The piles immediately in front of the camera are because of a path I had to make to get into the shop (out of picture on left). The snow in front of that door (also on the lee side) was four feet deep. Need a tool? Tough 'cuz ya can't get in there until a path is cleared. Even if the snow blower wasn't broken, it would not work in this snow. It has been wind packed and breaks off in chunks like concrete. One other point about this picture: the power pole you see on the left is where the meter is and that is where the transfer switch will be installed when I get the money. I was going to build a nice box near that to house the new generator, but the snow drift that blew around that corner of the shop would have totally covered that box. I am going to have to come up with a way to run the generator
inside the shop and pipe the exhaust outside but
above snow accumulation level.
OK, this one is out the kitchen window. That is a 500-gallon propane tank and it is almost buried by the four-foot drift of snow blowing through the dog yard. Yes, they have to go out there to potty. Would you want to? Note the drift just beyond the last tree in this pic. The fence it has covered is four feet high. The peak of that drift is about eight feet, and most all of that is from one day of snow and two days of wind. By the way, the foggy look here is blowing snow, which is already trying to fill in everything I plowed out today.
OK, one last pic. This is out the living room window, more or less looking at the front gates again. This drift is a continuation of the drift next to the propane tank but around the lee side of the house, still the dog yard, and you can see it goes right over that four-foot high fence, so the dogs could just walk right out of their yard if they wanted. That same drift continues right across the driveway, but reduced to only three feet high at that point.
All this from one day of snow that the National Weather Service told us would be only 5-8" accumulation? Yeah, right...
Plenty of Farms and Land to be had. 
could be in person.
Tell Emmy I miss her!!
