Transistion Time

Well, the snow has been on the ground for about 5 days now. We get an inch or so more every night, then a little melt and settling during the day. We are up to about 6 inches of wet heavy snow pack on the ground. It is time to transistion from ATVs to Snowmachines.
I found it necessary to do some playing the other day before it was time to put the ATVs away and Myra took a bunch of pictures. I had a good time tearing up the yard. You might notice the black straps under my Bibs. There are still Bears wondering around out here, so my gun is still strapped on. I am told that on years like this (late winter arrival)we should expect to see bear sign for another month at least, Oh yea, and they get hungry, tired and discontented.
Today I got out the Snowmachines from under their tarps. They both started right up, as expected, and away I went on the test runs down the trails. All went very well with the little sled,it ran well, handled a little stiff but loosened up and back to the cabin I came. I hooked up to the groomer that I have built and pulled it around a little bit and it works very well also. The snow is so wet and heavy that the short track machine did have a problem pulling it so I parked it and emptied the snow out of it and declared, all is good.
I jumped on the two person 800cc machine and took off down the trail. This machine has a history of bucking, unexpectedly, like a pony we had when I was a kid. The ponies name was Lucky and I was never sure if the pony was Lucky because my Dad did not kill it with the two by four, or if the rider was Lucky that the pony did not kill them? Oops, got sidetracked, back to the snowmachine. Well me and the 800cc Lucky rounded the first tight corner and caught the side of a little mogul and over I went. "Luckily" I had just rounded this corner and was only doing about 2 mile an hour. It was a slow motion tip over, with plenty of time to recall my mistake. I even had time to watch the machine tip onto the mirror on the left side. "Luckily" it was the mirror on the left side because this machine has broken 3 mirrors on the right side. One of them was less than two hours after being replaced from the previous rollover (ask Myra, I can't tell). Anyhow, the left mirror flexed on its' spring loaded mount and snapped right back into position. No Harm, No Foul, the machine is perfect and hopefully it got its' bucking out of its' system for the year. I drove it back to the cabin and hooked up to the "Skwagon" that I built.
Definition: "Skwagon" vowel, meaning; ATV Tow behind Wagon that Roger made Skis for and strapped them to the wheels. Another story, another time, with pictures.
OK, I hooked up to the Skwagon for a test run with it. The Skwagon performed flawlessly but, the snow is so wet and heavy, when I had to run slow with the Skwagon I could not kick up enough snow to cool the radiator and the machine overheated. I caught it quick and again, No Harm, No Foul. Another lesson learned and another challenge to overcome. We had planned on pulling the Skwagon with "Lucky" to haul our water. Now the snow is deep enough using an ATV is not feasible and I can't pull the Skwagon until it gets colder, the little snowmachine has no hitch, a short track and I don't believe enough traction to pull a skwagon full of water up the hills around here. Here in lies the challenge. It is not easy to just strap a full 50 pound water jug on a snowmachine, let alone 9 of them. We have about 35 gallons of water in the barrel and 9 empty jugs now. I have got some "Sifering" to do in the next day or two to figure this one out. Or maybe we will get "Lucky" and we will get a good cold powder snowfall and the problem will be solved. I REALLY don't want to carry these jugs by hand for a long distance and it is a very big slope on the bank of the river to try to strap them on a snowmachine, the machines are tippy enough with out more top heavy weight. The neighbor water is still about two miles away and to make that trip five gallons at a time on the snowmachine might be the only option, we will see.Oh yea, we can always melt snow on the wood burner. It takes about 11 gallons of snow to get one gallon of water (I looked it up). That should only take about 4 hours a gallon. Ya think?
Always remember, Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it. I have been asking for snow, I got it, AND I get a new opportunity to solve a need. I guess this is Gods idea of a Bonus gift ay?
I am really not complaining, just sharing the thought process.
Thanks for listening, and being here with us.
Life is good,
Roger