comedy of errors

this is posted elsewhere, but for the benefit of others.

once upon a time

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Blimey it was cold on Friday, minus 7, and a short sharp fall of snow
left 40mm covering everywhere. Weird snow too, as daft as that may
sound, like caster sugar and as slippery as hell.
Normal snow flakes stop traffic too, but this stuff was hard to even stand on, I left the car in the barn.

The
weather forecast on Saturday morning was all doom and gloom, they said a
blizzard was on its way and to expect several inches to fall quite
quickly.
I made the decision to take the car out early, stock up on
calor gas, milk bread electricity and get back in before the roads
became impassable again.
It was still minus 7 and she didn't really
like starting, but start she did and I slowly headed off down the steep
hill that leads to the farm. So far so good but the car felt weird and I
touched the brakes, suddenly nothing happened
I
tried the police method of braking, but I was gaining speed and heading
rapidly toward the main road. I also tried steering, but the last 50
yards of the drive is steeply banked and, in these conditions, resembles
the cresta run.
With 20 yards to go, and with me considering jumping
over the seats into the back, the wheels found a little grip and I
crashed into the hedge and came to a stop.
Reversing off the bank and
cursing I applied the hand brake. What a waste of time that was, the
car just slid gently to the edge of the duel carriageway and came to
rest, thank the lord [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Its probably difficult for aussies to believe, let alone comprehend, but black ice is the stuff nightmares are made of.

Anyway,
I got all the stuff I needed, most of the roads had been salted but
within an hour, snow was falling heavily and I headed back for the farm.
Touch
and go, but she sailed up the hill and back into the barn, the fresh
snow the normal kind, and until compacted its possible to get grip on,
as I said, its weird.

Hope you're not getting bored coz this is a bit of a war and peace job

Checking
the cattle it soon becomes apparent that the water tanks have frozen,
not surprising I guess, and all available hose pipes are now under 6
inches of fresh snow so I have to hatch a plan. To be honest I wasn't
sure how to cure the problem but a couple of cups of coffee later I have
a brain wave.
The big tractor is reluctant to start, no glow plugs,
but a little squirt of quick start (ether) and it springs to life. The
only straw I can get to is new wheat straw in large round bales and soon
one is lifted on the front loader and deposited near the cow shed a few
paces from where the water pipe enters the shed.
I cut the netting
off and took a few fork fulls and placed it on the snow against the tin
side of the cattle shed and set fire to it. Everything was great, a nice
controlled burn, soon the snow was melting and I scraped around the
floor and found the water pipe where it came out of the ground before
entering the shed. Obviously, I kept the fire off the pipe itself, I'm
not that daft, its 15mm plastic. Walking round and into the cowshed I
find theres a fire burning inside, ohh bloody hell, straw had fallen
between the twin walled shed and had ignited. Now there was no water
left in the tank and I'm beginning to think I should have stayed in bed.
Its a case of putting my arm between the outside wall and the inner
tins and pulling it out by hand. It was pretty smokey in there, but the
cows didnt seem bothered by my jumping on mini fires as they sprang up,
within half an hour I had everything under control, water pipe freed of
ice and water tank filling nicely and all sign of fire gone.
Time to
snow plough the drive. 5 hours later I have reached the road, its dark
but it has stopped snowing and I decide not to go out again anyway. I
look at the cowshed, all AOK and then decide to cover the exposed water
pipe with the remaining straw from the big bale to avoid it freezing
again, that done I head back indoors for a well earned meal.

I bet you can see where this is going [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Lukes got a few mates round, I'm now fast asleep in the chair and its 11-30pm, suddenly I'm aware of people shouting at me.
FUCK .. the barns alight.
I'm
now out there in jogging bottoms and a tshirt, grab the fork and spread
all the burning straw across the lawn and I become aware that its now
raining, bloody weird, its still minus 7, but wait, course its not
raining, the fire has melted the 15mm water pipe and a jet of water is
going up in the air some 20ft.
Shit bloody bugger.
Even worse,
although the fire on the outside is now completely out, the timbers that
hold the inner twin wall are burning nicely, on the upside, the water
tank is full of fluid water [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.] so having located a bucket I bail a hundred gallons or more into the skin and by 3am I'm back indoors.

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just in time to watch the cricket


ice art

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Only you Mugs, only you. But that Saturday of snow was quite spectacular. We had about 4" in an hour and then the compacted ice to deal with in the aftermath. Nightmare stuff, sounds like you had a good little adventure though!!!

Ya clumsy old coot.
TH

.....I love those stories!! [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]