Our Christmas gift to each other was a snow plow for the Polaris Ranger. We have a snow blower, and it will come in handy for deep snows and cleaning up after a big snow. But, having a plow makes quick work of the driveway, drifts at the exit of our property, the parking area at the cabin, and maybe even for the main road to the point it meets with our neighbors. It is especially helpful when we have only a few inches of snow--too much to just ignore but too little to warrant the work of the snow blower.

So, we called the Polaris dealer in Laramie and ordered what we needed. There were four items: a mount to go on the Ranger, the plow frame, a track extension to the plow frame, and the blade. We picked these up on Thursday, expecting a big snow on Saturday afternoon. Installation was supposed to take a couple of hours on Friday.

I put a portable propane heater in the shop side of the barn and warmed it up some. The plow frame and extension could be assembled in the warm, dry shop. I then attached these to the blade outdoors, and had the job mostly done. Only the mount for the Ranger was left, and this was advertised as a 45 minute job.

To mount the mount, I had to work outdoors where it was pretty cold. I put a large piece of 2" thick foam board on the ground and laid on that to do the job. My body heat was reflected and it was actually comfortable. As is typical for me, even after reading the instructions multiple times, there are terms I don't fully understand, I don't really have all the right tools, and I get ahead of myself sometimes requiring work that has been done to be undone and redone. But, after about an hour and a half, I had the mount mounted!

Now on to the big moment. I drove the Ranger up to the plow assembly and followed the mounting instructions. It just didn't work. Parts were not lining up where they were supposed to be. Although I saw that there was no way this plow assembly was going to mate to this mount, I kept at it for a while; scratching my head; trying this and trying that. I finally gave up.

Something is not right here.

On Saturday, I brought the assembly instructions inside and started going over them all again. Suddenly, I noticed that the mount was for a Glacier II plow system and I had ordered a Glacier Pro! I called the dealer in Laramie and had to get a bit testy with them to convince them they'd given me the wrong mount. Finally, the owner got on the phone and we figured out there was a printing error in their catalog. The two mounting systems, which are very different, had the same part number. Sure enough, I had laboriously, in freezing conditions, installed a mount that would never work.

Despite the threat of heavy snow in the afternoon, we drove into town and picked up the right mount. I picked up the tools I needed to make the job easier. We got home mid-afternoon.

I immediately began the process of uninstalling the wrong mount and reinstalling the right mount. Turns out the right mount was very easy to install. But, the wrong mount was hard to install and deinstall. It even had some electrical splicing that I had diligently done that was not needed. Saturday was warmer than Friday, but very windy. Still, using the wood shed as shelter, I got the swap done.

Now the big moment. I drove the ranger up to the plow. Inched forward. Click! I got out to see that everything lined up and clicked into place. I hooked the plow up to the winch on the Ranger and was able to raise and lower it easily. I even plowed the 2" of snow we had!

Everything is working now.

Good thing this got done, too. Overnight Saturday we got 5" of snow, maybe more in a few places. I had a great time plowing the driveway and parking area, and Hidden Meadows Ln down to Wapiti Way.

One has to be careful when plowing as opposed to blowing snow. Plowing creates piles of snow that can easily become snow fences and actually make future snow management more difficult or impossible. I work hard to keep the piles on the north and east sides of the road and driveway. We can get wind from those directions, but the dominant direction is from the south, southwest and west.

Sunday afternoon was pretty and sunny, although windy. At least the winds were from the "right" direction. I think Monday and Tuesday are going to be nice, too. But, then we are predicted to get snow again for the rest of the week. Our Christmas Gift Plow is likely to get a workout!

Here are a few shots of my work early on Monday morning:

Our driveway.

Hidden Meadows Lane from the top of our driveway.

Forest Service Circle / Wapiti Way -- the way out toward town.

Well, as I had suspected it makes little sense to try to keep Wapiti Way clear with the new plow. The road runs N-S along some open sagebrush prairie and any wind from the southwest or west will fill it with snow. The other day, I plowed it and it looked like this:

This morning, we needed to get into town for a vet appointment, it it looked more like this:

Actually, this photo is taken after attempting to get up the hill with the Expedition. We got stuck right away. The snow on the road was about 12" to 14" deep. It didn't look that deep, but it was. The problem driving through it is not so much the tires not grabbing, but rather the undercarriage of the truck getting "high centered" on the snow. I was able to back us out of the drift. I walked back to the cabin to get the Ranger and try to plow enough snow from the road to get over it. There was too much snow to get in one go with the plow, so I set it midway so I'd cut 5" to 6" off the top. My plan was to make another pass to get it down to the ground. However, I failed to tell Lynne my plan and she decided to drive the truck up after me, following my tracks. The problem is, the Ranger with tracks on it rides pretty much on top of the snow. So, after a few feet of following me, the truck was stuck again. And, this time I could not back it out. 

I got the shovel (we always throw a shovel in the truck when we go out) and began clearing the snow from around the tires while Lynne took off walking to the top of the hill where our neighbors were waiting for us in their truck. We had agreed to follow each other into town knowing the buddy system is safer.

Our neighbor, David, drove his truck over the sagebrush hill to get on the road behind the Expedition. We then used a tow rope to pull the Expedition clear of the snow drift. 

Lesson learned: don't even try to drive on the road. Instead, go cross country on the hill (we own that property). This works for a couple of reasons. First, there is simply less snow there after a big blow. Second, the gravel hill and sagebrush gives us more traction. 

So, rather than try to keep Wapiti Way "open" by plowing it, we'll just drive cross country to the top of the hill. I think I'll ask if we can park the Suburban there because once we are at the top of the hill, we have the same trek as our neighbors and we can work together to get into town and back. We will always try to coordinate trips so neither of us tries to go it alone.

The good news is that our Christmas cards are mailed. Hailey kept her vet appointment and we have meds for everyone for at least 2 months. We bought our Christmas ham and some wine. So, we are ready to sit here through Christmas if necessary. That does mean we may not get our mail.

We decided to wash the bed sheets yesterday. We rotate through a couple of sets, and needed some clean sheets. In summer, we just hang our laundry on the outside line to dry. But, when it is 21° outside and snowing, we use some wooden drying racks that we place in front of the wood stove. We have a fan on the stove that is powered by the heat of the stove and it provides just enough air circulation to make quick work of drying any clothes hung on the rack.

You can see the blur of the fan in this photo.

Smaller items can be laid across the many wooden bars on the racks. For the sheets, we just drape them across.

We did two loads: the sheets and the duvet cover. 

It was great sleeping in clean sheets last night! The dogs and cat really enjoyed it too.

We had some pretty high winds on Thursday and Thursday night. Sometime overnight two large (dead) trees fell in the meadow. These are trees that were killed by beetles several years ago. Eventually, all the dead trees will fall.

The bad news is that each time a tree falls, we lose some of the buffer we have against the prevailing west winds. The good news is we get a cord or two of fire wood for the next year.

Here is a closer view:

You can see that the larger tree just fell over with its root ball intact and has two trunks.

The smaller tree got caught in another tree and ended up in a strange position.

A closer view of that.

It had snowed and blown enough that we had to use snowshoes to take the short hike through the meadow. Destin was oblivious to anything other than playing in the snow.

I love a fresh, hot biscuit slathered with butter and topped with jam for breakfast. But, making fresh biscuits has always been a struggle for me. Even after all the work of cutting in butter, gently working the dough, cutting out the biscuits and baking them, they'd tend to be flat and not as flaky as I like. Then, Lynne pointed me to a recipe for 5-Ingredient Freezer Biscuits and life changed!

Biscuit and (local) jam breakfast!

You can find the recipe in our recipe database or the original on the budgetbytes.com site.

The beauty of this recipe is its use of heavy cream for the fat component, as well as the ease of preparation. I made a batch the other afternoon. I didn't even have to put them in the freezer. Instead I put the freshly cut biscuits on a sheet pan, covered them with plastic wrap, and put them on the front porch. They were frozen solid in a couple of hours.

Now, they are in a zip bag in the freezer and all we have to do to have fresh biscuits is take a few out of the freezer and place them on a sheet pan. Preheat the oven. Pop them into the oven for about 20 minutes. And, we have nice, hot, flaky biscuits for breakfast!

Frozen biscuits, right out of the freezer, on a sheet pan waiting for the oven to preheat.

Nice, hot, flaky biscuits right out of the oven.