Take What We Can Get

That’s the theme of this winter! Here we are…January 22nd and have only had 7.5″ of snow for the month! We have a darn good chance at breaking the record for least amount of snow for the month of January. That record belongs to the winter of 1967-68 when 27.7″ of snow fell. The forecast for this week doesn’t look to bring more than a few inches and maybe a few more over the weekend. The final 2 days of the month next week do not look to push us past the 27.7″ mark for the month.

So that’s the way this month has gone. I should say that I really cannot complain about November or December much. 28″ fell this November, with 80″ in December. These totals are all coming from the Keweenaw County Road Commission, which measures up by the old radar base in Keweenaw County. So I trust the numbers, which can’t always be said for other numbers reported from up here. Not because I think the other numbers are purposely being fudged, just that I have no way of knowing all the rules are being followed when measuring.

Anyway, there is no new snow shots to share with you for this entry, even though we did get a bit of new snow on Thursday. We picked up around 3″ new, while most of the rest of the Keweenaw were somewhere around 2-3″. The NWS in Negaunee Township was the winner of that storm, I believe, with at least 12.5″. I say at least, because that is what they had reported early in the morning and it did snow more after that. I just did not catch their final totals.

The lack of snow has been favorable for the contractors working on the new house. There was not a whole lot done this week. The trusses were suppose to show up on Tuesday, but were delayed a day. There are 205 trusses in the entire roof package and they all could not fit on one load. The storm that gave us 3″ on Thursday gave northern WI around 6-10″ and the trusses were coming from Hayward, so  the second load did not drive in the storm Thursday and arrived on Friday. One of the workers came out on Friday to be here when the trusses showed up and were unloaded.

The trusses that are to be put up first were on the second load, so he pulled a couple off the stack and measured them and marked them, but he really could not do much more. 

So the main event this past week was to have lots of materials show up, but not a whole lot of work. I’m totally fine with that, as I know this is a great crew and they work very hard when the opportunity calls for it. They are coming out tomorrow with at least 4 guys, maybe more, to start setting the trusses, so with a little luck we could be pretty close to having a roof over the house by the end of this week.

Three of the workers cleared the snow from earlier in the month, but then the rains came around a week ago and froze, so we almost could have strapped on our skates and had some fun on the foundation! There is now around 2″ of snow on top of that ice, which actually makes walking on the foundation a lot safer. It should probably stay that way for the week ahead and once the roof is on, I suppose they might want to shovel the snow out and will have to scrape the ice off where the interior walls go, probably scrape all the ice off, as when the it melts, it would not be too good for the un-treated sill plates for the interior walls. Glad that is all up to them, as I really would not know what to do!!!

Here is a shot of the first load of trusses being delivered and here is a very short video of them sliding off the bed of the trailer. Pretty cool how they have the specialized trailers that can first drop the back to get it close to the ground and in the process lift the front so that the trusses will slide off and third, have rollers in the bed that are locked until they want to skid the trusses off the trailer. Makes a quick job of the process.

I guess that about covers it for this one. Hopefully I will have more to talk about next time. I can’t believe it has been two weeks and not much to talk about!

Good Night From the Keweenaw..
JD