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Well on either last Monday or the Monday before that, we got some snow. The official total for our town was 11 inches. It was one of those snows where it just snows all day long. I was at work for it, but the boys had a blast going out and playing in it. I believe that in this picture they are making some snow ice cream (I have not had any, but have been told that it is pretty good). I would imagine that this is one of the dishes that you must eat immediately after the snow has fallen, and not trust having some a few days later.

As much as the boys enjoy being out in the snow and playing with it, I really don't care for it in these quantities, you see it turns everything to mud. And up here the mud is extreme. After the snow has fallen, then comes the dealing with all of the after math. I had to start parking on the concrete drive way to avoid plunging the oil pan into the depths where I may not be able to retrieve it from.

One of the worst parts of this snow is that I don't own a snow shovel. I know they aren't that expensive, but to purchase one is to admit at some level that I live in a place where I need to use it. The other problem with a snow shovel is that they don't have any other use but to shovel snow. This is something that I don't enjoy nor do I want to have to do. So I don't own one of these shovels, and it gives me some pleasure not to, but now comes the downside of such ownership. When it snows (and accumulates to a measurable amount) I am stuck with removing it such that I can drive in and out of my drive way. During this last time, I had to resort to a push broom and a spade.

This may sound pretty easy to deal with, but in fact it is actually harder to remove snow with these tools. As with any job, if you don't have the proper tools to complete the job then you will have to work almost twice as hard to complete the job with the inappropriate tools. I suppose that it would make some sense to just break down and purchase one (I mean we are only talking about $15). Well I guess that is enough of that ranting.

I only shoveled (and I use that term loosely) the concrete where the car wasn't parked. After the hour that it took me to shovel the rest of the drive way, I just couldn't bring myself to move the car and then shovel what was underneath it. Although, if you look at the neighboring picture you can get a good profile of what the lowest spots under the car look like. You can see where they scraped across the snow and gave a good imprint in the snow. I was shoveling the snow during the snow. After I had finished, there was about another inch that fell, but again I was done with that chore and moved on. I figured that the sun would melt the remaining snow and eventually it did.

The day or so after the snow was starting to melt, I attempted to leave for work, and found a rather long ice sickle I was able to interest Ethen and Terra into taking a look at it. I don't know how tall Ethen is, but I am just shy of 6' so you can get a good idea of how long this particular sickle was. Another note, it was cold out there that morning, and when I came home that evening I found this very same ice sickle laying horizontal on the deck - broken into about 15 pieces, and all melted to the wood. It then took some time to try to remove it again. I assume that after I turned around to head for the car, Ethen dropped the ice sickle and then the two of them headed back in doors for warmer weather.

Yesterday I took on the task of making dinner. Now dinner making is in itself an easy chore. However, at our house there is no such a thing as an easy chore. You see, any time that you get involved in a "easy chore" you get the help from Ethen and Kyle. Terre decided that she would like some chicken noodle soup, which was an easy make. Especially since we had just cooked up a chicken a day or so prior and had saved the broth from it. So all I really had to do was to heat it up, add some chicken and then make some noodles. That doesn't include the first item of sitting Ethen and Kyle down and going over the agenda at hand - explaining the process and letting them choose what they each want to do - and then helping them rearrange their choices such that each one of them feels they have won and got the best job. Here is Ethen turning the crank (he was first) and Kyle adjusting the thickness of the noodles (that was my job) mid stride. Nevertheless the noodles turned out and tasted fine.

Some more excitement that happened around the house was this: Dad has lost the single ball that acts as a bearing on his hand operated wheat grinder. From what I have been told, this ball goes between the bolted on crank and the rest of the grinder. He contacted me and relayed his problem, and then asked if I could find a single steel ball about .5" or smaller. After thinking about it for a while, I decided that the best replacement for his loss would be to get a ball bearing and then dismantle it and take on of the balls from the bearing race. Not only would this be a good round ball, but it would also be incredibly hard and probably up to the task. Since I work in a place where we do many bearing changes of many different sizes, I picked a recent pump rebuild that yielded two bearings for my choosing.

This particular bearing is a SKF 6309-2Z. I brought the bearing home and started the dismantling process. This process if nothing else shows how hard it is to put something together and how easy it is to dismantle it. This particular bearing probably only costs around $1,500 and is expected to last a long time if properly installed and lubricated. To remove on of the balls from the race took me about 8 minutes with an angle grinder using a cutting blade that costs about $1. At any rate, the ball was removed only to find that it measured .687" and would not work in Dad's application. Ethen and Kyle however really liked it and want the rest cut out such that they can have more weapons in their arsenal in which they can attack each other with.

Maybe, I will do it just for the entertainment. But for now, it is back to the drawing board to find a smaller bearing on a smaller pump. On another note, Terre has been asked to spend the majority of her days in the horizontal position, and to take blood pressure medicine in order to keep her blood pressure low (diastolic <100 mmHg). It has had some effect on helping her stay out of her typical preeclampsia prior to delivering. She is due the end of March. I was hoping for 2-29-08, but it would appear that if she even makes it that far she will be lucky. If she doesn't make it to March, this local hospital wont deliver her here, so we may be back down to Tucson for round 3...

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