Oh noooooo, its a 'Polar Vortex'!!!!!.....;)

Rick , I understand how you must feel about winter .
Here it's a typical Montana winter similar to what we'd get back in the 1960's and 70's a lot of snow and wind for wild drifting conditions .

I'd suggest tire chains for your tractor the county road dept finally got smart and chained up the graders when they put the big V plows on the front of them .

A friend of mine bought a military 6 x 6 with a rotary snow blower on the front to clear their driveway and yard so to speak he will even chain up the tires on it too .

I've got friends in Northern Canadian and scattered around in Alaska where they get worse sub zero temps and wind .

Even the Iditarod sled dog race start moved to Fairbanks from Anchorage because of a lack of snow ! Go figure right ??? Ha ha
 
You staying warm or what?
Here in TN we had flooding over the weekend, then snow, and now cold. Should be single digits overnight today and tomorrow. Our dogs love it.
Originally from northern IL, so no biggie for us but the locals...
Local schools are closed due to 2" of snow. People are soft these days.
I f'ed up my knee yesterday or I'd be at the pool hall for a bit today. Glad I can work from home.
 
Biloxi Boy said:
Don't feel so bad. Everytime I turn on the TV and it's snowing in the Rockies, I think about you and your crew. I have a list of tough jobs that I want nothing to do with, and yours is near the top.
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We have quite a few more machines then I mentioned, and that helps.
Four tractor trailer dump trucks and four Larue snowblowers mounted on Cat 950's.
All of our heavy iron has chains on all four wheels so traction is not an issue on these 45,000 lbs
machines. Sand/salt, magnesium chloride and cinders for traction, courtesy of a volcano right next door.
After 40 years of playing alpine hero its close to time to say I have had enough.
 
I hear you Cuebuddy , I worked on water wells and windmills for 30 year's and still have the service rig just in case a friend needs a water well bailed out or a submersible pump replaced .

The constant in businesses like this is the worse the weather the more likely you will get called out to fix someone's problem when it's 112 above or -60 below zero I've worked in it all .

Feeding cows / livestock is another thankless job that I've done more than I care to admit not that I'm complaining but it's a young persons job .
Another is " Yard Backing " for a livestock sale barn , feeding livestock starting before daylight and going like crazy until the sale starts then catch your horse , saddle up and get to pushing livestock to the sale pens , then afterwards to the shipping pens and then to waiting semi trucks AKA bull racks !
One thing about it you learned a lot about animal quirks and the signals they send out before doing something ! Then how to best use a buggy whip ha ha I broke mine over a black Angus bulls nose that wanted to hook the horse I was riding . Those were the days ha ha !
 
Close enough for government work ha ha

Just think I didn't add the part about the feed bunks that were between the two pens of cows that I was feeding I'd walk to the center of each one with a bale of hay held to balance me out as I walked down quite 2" x 6" painted pine board that was covered with frost and loose hay at times .
To say they were slick is almost a under statement !
Thankfully I had the strength to lift a bale with one hand and pop the twine so I didn't have to break up the " leaves " so the cows could eat .
The bales with wire around them just flat out sucked ! Things were worse if they were on top of the hay stack and were wet then frozen !
Oh well I survived all that , the funny part was I lifted weights with many of the football players ( this was in my college days ) and they couldn't figure out how I stayed so strong since they never seen me in the weight room very often !
 
Rusty in Montana said:
I hear you Cuebuddy , I worked on water wells and windmills for 30 year's and still have the service rig just in case a friend needs a water well bailed out or a submersible pump replaced .

The constant in businesses like this is the worse the weather the more likely you will get called out to fix someone's problem when it's 112 above or -60 below zero I've worked in it all .

Feeding cows / livestock is another thankless job that I've done more than I care to admit not that I'm complaining but it's a young persons job .
Another is " Yard Backing " for a livestock sale barn , feeding livestock starting before daylight and going like crazy until the sale starts then catch your horse , saddle up and get to pushing livestock to the sale pens , then afterwards to the shipping pens and then to waiting semi trucks AKA bull racks !
One thing about it you learned a lot about animal quirks and the signals they send out before doing something ! Then how to best use a buggy whip ha ha I broke mine over a black Angus bulls nose that wanted to hook the horse I was riding . Those were the days ha ha !
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I had to replace the pump at my mothers place. I could only find one company that had a rig strong enough to pull 545' of 2" thick walled galvanized pipe out of the hole. The whole truck squatted like a goose crapping before it started pulling the pipe out of the well. 20' pipe sections and I helped by breaking the fittings at each joint and carrying the sections up a steep hill. This was at 9600 ft above sea level.

Yes I have been around cattle since I was young, and was taught early about bulls, but an angry cow will stomp the air out of your lungs just the same.
 
Cuebuddy said:
I had to replace the pump at my mothers place. I could only find one company that had a rig strong enough to pull 545' of 2" thick walled galvanized pipe out of the hole. The whole truck squatted like a goose crapping before it started pulling the pipe out of the well. 20' pipe sections and I helped by breaking the fittings at each joint and carrying the sections up a steep hill. This was at 9600 ft above sea level.

Yes I have been around cattle since I was young, and was taught early about bulls, but an angry cow will stomp the air out of your lungs just the same.
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I've got a 8" pulley that I can hook to my elevator hook to lift heavy loads like that , it also helps to get as close as possible to the well casing for a straight up pull on the pipe .

Running the cable through the pulley made my life much easier ! My service rig has 3 forward and reverse gears , it's definitely not a pretty sight but it's a work horse !
 
muskyed said:
Heat wave here this morning. -13, 4 deg warmer than yesterday but still put the booties on the dog this morning. 11 days so far of -10 or lower in the morning. Looks like maybe tomorrow we may finally break that colder than -10 in the morning. Actually predicting daytime highs next week in the 30's, yay. Guess I really can't complain, no grass to cut but I do have to plow a path out to the field for the dog to do his thing. Then there is Rusty's post, dang, makes me think like I've got it made here. There is a good thing about here, and it's I don't think we broke 100 last year, in fact, I'm not sure we got above 95 deg.
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Poor Rusty makes me cringe!!
 
Good Morning Everyone ,
We've got 16 above zero currently with a high around 36 above zero with a 6 mph wind so yes we're done with the sub zero temps for awhile , but we are expecting more snow within a week or so just to keep us humble .

The folks who have skid steers and front end loaders or dump trucks are making some good money moving snow still . We've got snow berms that are more than 10' tall in some places .

The snow plows were out scrapping more snow off of the roads before it turns to glare ice or we get dumped on , the last snow storm was forecast for a foot of snow , we received 3" - 4" if that .
 
Rusty in Montana said:
Good Morning Everyone ,
We've got 16 above zero currently with a high around 36 above zero with a 6 mph wind so yes we're done with the sub zero temps for awhile , but we are expecting more snow within a week or so just to keep us humble .

The folks who have skid steers and front end loaders or dump trucks are making some good money moving snow still . We've got snow berms that are more than 10' tall in some places .

The snow plows were out scrapping more snow off of the roads before it turns to glare ice or we get dumped on , the last snow storm was forecast for a foot of snow , we received 3" - 4" if that .
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Still 1* here in MSP but should warm up as the day goes on. Planning on shooting some pucks this afternoon and the ice should be goooood.
 
Rusty in Montana said:
Good Morning Everyone ,
We've got 16 above zero currently with a high around 36 above zero with a 6 mph wind so yes we're done with the sub zero temps for awhile , but we are expecting more snow within a week or so just to keep us humble .

The folks who have skid steers and front end loaders or dump trucks are making some good money moving snow still . We've got snow berms that are more than 10' tall in some places .

The snow plows were out scrapping more snow off of the roads before it turns to glare ice or we get dumped on , the last snow storm was forecast for a foot of snow , we received 3" - 4" if that .
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Just looked, we're at 21 here in Belgrade and supposed to get up to 37! I think that's warmer than they were saying. Maybe I'll drive into Bozeman this weekend and play on the Gold Crowns at the University. :)
 
Toronto has a lot of mild winters….we are like spoiled brats…..but our chickens came home to roost this year….
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I'm jealous I'd really enjoy playing on a gold crown again but it's a it to far to go this weekend , between Dr appointments then a league pool tournament for the seasons end before the awards banquet .
 
I've been to Toronto during the summer and yes I enjoyed it a great deal !

I'll suffer through winter's here in the sticks ha ha
Go to the Montana Bar and drink a pint for me ! That is if it's still open of course , the Peel Pub put out a darn good breakfast that I enjoyed also !
 
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