December 2008
Monthly Archive
Gaylord Michigan , 100 inches of snow !!
Posted by doncampbellmodels on 27 Dec 2008 | Tagged as: From the Workshop
GAYLORD HAROLD TIMES NEWSPAPER- I was so looking forward to seeing the new snow totals today for Otsego County today in the paper. I was a little dissapointed when I read we have only recieved 99.4 inches so far ? bummer ! ha,ha,
POURING RAIN TODAY - Would you believe it is foggy and 40 degrees and rain ? What the Heck !! And would you believe I ended up plowing snow yesterday for the 14th time this month . Tomorrow it is supposed to cool down and freeze everything up again so it could get interesting on the roads. (:>).
MY ILLNESS UPDATE- Five days of getting up at 4:45am this week and shoveling snow and getting all sweaty hasn’t helped me cure my illness. So today I am just taking it easy and relaxing and not going outside . Bill is out shooting in the forest with his dad and brothers today having fun . Deb and Nicole are going to a Baby shower this afternoon for another welcome new baby. All these new babies are great !
Wi Games - I got three new Wi games for Christmas , outdoor sports, snowmobiling and Monster Trucks, so we have all had fun playing them too.
FONDUE - Last night we had fun doing Fondue as we do each year for the last 30 years. umm !
SALE SHOPPING - Deb and Nicole hit the stores yesterday and found several bargains . I gave them $200.00 to look for bargains , so they returned with lots of goodies and they said they actually saved over $200.00 ? So is that kinda like they got all that for free ??
NEW YEARS WITHOUT NICOLE AND BILL - This will be our first year without Nicole and Bill . They will head home soon as they used up a few extra days in Italy last month .
GREASE FEAST - I got Deb a Emeril Deep Fryer for Christmas ?
One of those kinda gifts your not real sure about who it is really for?
But Deb was all smiles when she opened it. So last night we fired it up and dropped a few breaded mushrooms in, a few onion rings and a few fries in it . They were great !!
So once a month we will be scheduling a official grease feast (:>).
TOY SHOP - Nicole bought me a very nice sign for my toy shop and I hung it up on the door , looks very cool.
Toy building- Monday I will get back to toy building.
TWO WEEKS VACATION FOR DEB- The preschoolers Deb watches parents all work for the school system so she has the next two weeks off . So that is always a nice break for Deb.
HAVE A GREAT SATURDAY
ELEVEN BELOW ZERO , and 80″ of snow , Don Campbell is still plowing Snow in Gaylord, Michigan .
Posted by doncampbellmodels on 20 Dec 2008 | Tagged as: From the Workshop
ELEVEN BELOW ZERO , and 80" of snow , Don Campbell is still plowing Snow in Gaylord, Michigan .
ELEVEN BELOW ZERO , and 80" of snow , Don Campbell is still plowing Snow in Gaylord, Michigan .
OTSEGO COUNTY MICHIGAN HITS 80 INCHES OF SNOW DEC. 19TH, 2008.- Gaylord , Michigan gets a average of 150 to 160 inches of snow each winter . Ususally it does not start snowing until mid Dec. , and we got a great start to hit our average snowfall.
Todays picture shows me in my John Deere 5400 compact utility tractor blowing more snow out of my driveway. The 84″ Erskine snowblower is getting a nice workout so far this winter.
The snowbanks are getting very high already.
FRONT SNOWSCOOP - Also in todays picture you can see the strange looking front blade on my tractor. It is a reversable snow scoop I invented 11 years ago. Most of my plowing accounts are mom and pop type driveways. With the plow wings folded back I am able to pull within three inches of a garage door and lower the blade and pull all the snow in reverse out to the edge of the road. The wings carry the whole load of snow without spilling it off the sides. Then I turn and engage the snowblower on the rear of the tractor and blow the snow in the front yards.
With larger accounts, I pull two pins and fold the plow wings forward and then I am able to carry snow moving forward and can stack it 10 feet high with the loader arms. I hand built this blade 11 years ago and I designed it with quick-tach brackets for easy hookup to the loader arms. I used to have a blower on the front of my last John Deere and a hydraulic angle blade I built mounted on the rear . But the rear blade left too much snow in front of the garage doors and I had to do too much hand shoveling. This was the perfect invention for me for snowplowing.
Many of you also know I designed and built special brackets on the front axle of this tractor to adapt front fenders off a 6000 series John Deere on my 5000 series Deere.
My latest project is to put metal fender extensions over the rear tires to minimize salt and slush splashing on the cab windows. I currently have the first one cut and bent .
ANTIQUE CATERPILLAR PARTS- Monday morning I will start to design and cut out the last big parts for the half scale 1929 Cat 10 Tractor Model. Then once the whole model will be roughed in and I will go back and fine tune everything. after that I will start the final grinding and sanding .
HAVE A GREAT SATURDAY !!!!!!!!!!!!!