[RHClarke]

It was a quiet weekend at the Hammond Barn. Bob headed south to spread the wealth at Acton, and Grant was kept busy elsewhere. The last few weeks have been "taxing" for myself. A new job, family health issues and finishing the accounting for my business forced a absence from the hallowed halls of Hammond.

This morning I put all that on hold and took a nice peaceful drive out to the barn. Once at the barn I took a stroll out to the back 40 to see if any of the trucks needed some attention or if they had received attention from non-authorized visitors. All looked to be in order. The sun was shining and the wind was gentle - the perfect combination for melting snow. I took a few minutes to clean off the tops of some of the trucks. Each had about five inches of ice and snow covering their roofs. Most of the snow and ice came off in one large piece which I slid over the side.

After working up a sweat, I headed back to the barn and fired up the HUP. After a brief warm up, I took the HUP for a jaunt around the Carriere homespread. I drove up to the main house and noted that there was a very large and heavy overhang of ice slipping off Bob's back porch. After parking the HUP, I helped Mother Nature by disloging some impressively large pans of ice and snow from the metal porch roof. The chunks hit the ground with a very threatening thud. I can only imagine what would happen if someone got nailed by a chunk of that crap.

Back in the HUP I made my way back to the barn along the road, which now resembled a skating rink. It was glare ice from the main road in Hammond all the way down to the barn and out to the back 40. Four wheel drive sure makes a difference. The driving was fun despite the perils that the ice presented - going down the gentle sloping road over the culvert is somewhat different when the road is iced over. With the truck in low gear and with the engine at idle, she made the trips back and forth with no issues whatsoever.

The trip out back was interesting. The snow had a thick ice crust as its top layer and had soft snow beneath it. It took some effort to get the HUP turned around in the snow, but the aggressive treads of the tires and the four wheel drive proved effective again. It was now approaching noon, so I headed back to the barn to see if anyone had arrived. All was quiet, so I put the HUP back into its shelter and shut her down until next week.

It is kind of a downer switching from an old cross country truck to a newer small import car, but I enjoyed the trip back home replaying the fun I had this morning in my mind.

Photos:

1- Bob's hangover
2- Some chunks of ice from the porch roof
3- The Hammond Ice Road
4- More of the same
5- etc...