So I decided to take the day off of work to check out how things are at the cabin. Last week it was reported that the area got three more feet of snow on top of what was already there.

Getting onto the property was the first fun. To get the car off the road into the driveway ( first pic below ) took about a hour in 15 minutes. While digging out one of the plow guys stopped and apologized the the five foot berm that was mostly ice… fun fun fun

once I go the jeep into the space I’d made I tried to back out… found that to be a problem… I had to remove more snow and ice… then I widened the spot… like I said fun fun fun

The walk back to my father-in-law’s place, which is about 150-200 feet off the road, took about 5 minutes. The snow in this stretch was about knee deep… seems like the wind blows down the driveway to a clearing on the other side which seems to keep it from getting very deep.

Once at my father-in-law’s place I had to change. I wore jeans on the ride down and low cut sneaker boots which were soaked through. I keep other clothing down there so I changed into my hunting boots and pants… tucking the pants into the boots was a huge help as it kept the snow from jamming up my pant leg.

Then I got to clearing the snow from the roof. the front side went pretty easily… we have a 20 foot roof shovel so can stand on the ground and get most of it… by the time I got the rear though the shovel got cold enough that the snow was sticking… I only did about a quarter of the back roof before calling it quits. The other problem in the back was the snow was not knee deep but more waist to chest deep… just way to hard to move around.

After putting the roof shovel away and taking a break I wanted to go back and check out my place. The 600 foot walk took about 20 minutes on the way out. The snow through this area was from knee to waist deep. I got back to the cabin and rested for a couple of minutes before going out to check on the solar power system. Everything was still working. The panels were pulling in about 110 watts partially shaded by snow on the lower panel. I had checked and it look like there were periods of about a week where no charging occurred. As there is no draw on the system I guess it does not matter to much as long as every once in a while we get a nice sunny day.

I walked over to the panels and clear the lower one. This brought the total power up to about 160 watts. The sun is very low in the sky and I never got around to adjusting the angle for winter so I guess this is not to bad.

After that I just buttoned things up and headed out. I was only there for about 4 hours but I was beat. Everything looks to be doing ok with this seasons above average snow fall. There looked to be no damage so far.

I hope the big snows are done for the year so I do not have to do this again… I will happily await spring to continue working. Do not expect to many more updates the the snow recedes and we can drive back.

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