We have had two weeks of cold weather. Today its gets up to the 40s and by Friday maybe almost to 60! Woo HOO!
Last Friday afternoon I had enough daylight to start up the tractor, replace the MX 6 with the box blade and exchange the 4n1 bucket for pallet forks. Then I started moving some logs from a tree I cut down a week previous. After 90 minutes my good warm gloves were not so warm anymore and my finger tips where starting to hurt.


Thankfully I got everything done after 120 minutes just as the sun went down. COLD it was with a strong wind.
I was going to cut up the logs on Saturday but my kids basketball started up. I was a good daddy and watched them play in a warm gym instead of cutting up the logs in the cold.


This morning the weatherman said it would be 18 in Raleigh. We are 30ish miles southwest of Raleigh and usually warmer. The porch temp was 18. Got in the truck and it said *** 13 ***. Drove down the hill to the gate and it was **** 11 ****!.
Usually when we get to town the temp goes up. Not today! Stayed at 11 for 5 or so miles to the river. Ponds are frozen over and parts of the lake I drive across are completely frozen over. Never seen that before.
Ticks and snow.
When we went to close on our land the date was the end of January but we got almost 24 inches of snow which prevented our soil test from getting done. The selling agent said she was out on another property in the snow and found a tick on her!

Our ground is FROZEN hard which I have not seen before either. Up until this cold hit us the ground was so wet it was like walking across a super wet sponge. Not now. Where I process the logs into firewood, the soil and can rut up if I am not careful with an empty tractor much less a load of logs.
Twas not a problem on Friday.


It is time for us to have a big snow storm. The last one was in 2000 and 2003 when we had almost 24 inches out of one storm. During the 90's we had quite a few storms over 4-6 inches which is alot for us. We are overdue and if we get a storm soon the ground is COLD and the snow is going to stick around for awhile.

Later,
Dan