Digging out

Yesterday was a lot of work. With our plans to move within the next week we had some digging to do to get the trailer out from under the snow & ice.

There was about a foot of hard crust snow on top of 1-2 inches of solid ice on the roof of the trailer. It took about an hour or so to get most of it off. In the process of breaking through the top layer of snow I forgot where one of the skylights was and hit it with the broom edge, promptly breaking it and sending a foot of snow and ice through the window and screen. It all ended up in the bathtub inside the trailer (thankfully). I replaced the cover with a new one and I am in the process of gluing and reinforcing the screen cover that also snapped in half. You forget how brittle everything becomes when it is only 10 degrees outside.

The drivers side of the trailer was buried pretty deep. About 2-3 foot of hard packed snow. The snow piled up between the trailer and barn as snow slid off the roof of the barn over the past few months. We unburied the tires and went on a search for our dump hose which we thought we might have mistakenly left hooked up last fall. Turns out that the hose was not buried - a wonderful discovery after 30 minutes of hard digging.

At this point the trailer is free from the ice. We dug out a path to the driveway for the wheels and threw down some dark soil on top of the remaining ice to help melt it over the next few days... Unfortunately, we got word that it may snow again this afternoon, so I may be up on the roof once again to sweep off snow before it melts somewhat and becomes ice encrusted again. Sunday and Monday are supposed to be nearer the average temperature for this time of year (up as high as 22 on Sunday and possibly 39 on Monday - currently it is 7 degrees outside and windy). Hopefully the higher temperatures next week will help melt any remaining ice on the roof so I can reinstall the solar panels before we hit the road.

I bought the supplies to mount the 2 new solar panels yesterday. The wire and water tight strain reliefs will be shipping from Oregon (how ironic) and hopefully will arrive a few days before our scheduled departure date so I have time to finish the wiring on the roof. There are not enough holes in my junction box to wire the panels directly, so they will have to be wired in series through two of the existing panels. That will actually save me some money on wire as it is a shorter run to the existing panels than to the junction box.

Work at the shop is progressing. I have almost finished all of the bears that I blocked out this winter. I think there are about 5-6 left that need detailing and finishing. I should be able to get them done over the next few days after it warms up a bit.

There's a lot to do still before we can hit the road. We have to move back into the trailer and clean the apartment. We have batteries and solar panels to install, shelving to be built in the trailer and much more that I don't really want to think about all at once... We're taking things one project at a time and focusing on the 15th of the month to hit the road. I hope that the weather cooperates.