About all that snow in my driveway-

I've dug almost all of it out. I even took out a flat utility shovel to break up the ice around the mailbox so the mailman and I can reach it without climbing the snowbank. I am so glad that I got the camper moved back behind the carport before it snowed because its parking spot in front of the carport is now piled high with snow that I would not have had room for if the camper were there.

So far I have been unable to get the borrowed-from-Loc snowblower operating. The carburetor was varnished up badly and so I've had it off and cleaned and pushed wire through every port I can find with no results. It will start right up if I pour gas into the carb but won't continue to run when that fuel is used up.

I also went to work on neighbor Leonard's big 11 horsepower snowblower that stopped working in my driveway a couple weekends ago. Leonard was clearing out both our drives when something caused his augers to lock up and so he had to put it away broken. I talked him into bringing it over yesterday and buried up in the top of the discharge auger drum, I discovered what made it stop- one of my rugged, aluminum flashlights! I don't know how it ended up at the entrance of my driveway but his snowblower ingested it but couldn't pass it. It took a bunch of hammering on a piece of 1/2" pipe to free that flashlight! I also fixed the wheel that wasn't driving and took the machine for a test drive down the driveway. That's when I discovered that it didn't really self-propel all that well.

I took off the cover plate, (yes Kenny, I took it apart) only to discover that one of the chain sprockets was worn beyond use. Sears even has the jackshaft part listed on their website so when Leonard got back I showed him the problem and he gave me the go-ahead to order the parts and fix his machine.

Of course I'm hoping that once its fixed he will leave it with me to keep both our drives cleared off. When he arrived on Friday he had to pay somebody 45 bucks to get his driveway cleared since all the snow that had fallen for 10 days was still there waiting on him. If he leaves me the machine, I can keep both our drives cleared saving him some grief.

Anyway, there's cold temperatures forecast for this week but no new snow. So maybe I can keep the driveway cleared a few days!