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Toothbar vs snowdrift

Wildman1 Join Date: Sep 2003 Posts: 196 Chugiak, Alaska   Pics

2004-03-15          79920

I got in some quality seat time yesterday digging out a buddy's JD455 FEL that got buried in 100mph windstorm snow drifts. When he described where it was and how the snow was like concrete I just sorta figured he was over dramatizing it. WRONG!!

6' high and the FEL was a good 30' into the drift..and it WAS hard as a rock..almost.

I tried every technique I could dream up and what worked the best was curling the bucket down vertical, dropping the bucket 'til the front started to come off the ground, backing away and shaving slabs off, then loadering them out. The key was the toothbar. The bar sometimes had to be dropped several times while moving the bucket sideways a little at a time before the snow fractured. A toothless bucket would NOT have worked...I'm sold on dentures.

So, 2+ hours and I finally got it out. I will admit that early on I began having grave doubts that this was gonna work. I had forgot just how hard a drift can be.

My bud treated us to a fine steak dinner afterwards.

Towing the Deere on wet roads (35f) got the Green Dragon dirty..so I had to wash & wax her upon my return...but that's another issue on the tractor waxing thread.

And..probably another thread deals with this, but..we watched the tractor pulling contests in Indiana tonight. Hmmm..I'd need 30:1 compression, dual turbochargers, a gear change......and a CUT class to race in. (The Green won the super farm class)

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Toothbar vs snowdrift

TomG Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 5406 Upper Ottawa Valley

2004-03-15          79930

I had much the same experience. My neighbour well line froze several times last winter. He got really aggravated after the guy with the steamer was out three times and he got me to use the loader to cover the area with snow. His idea may have been a little bigger than necessary and we ended up with an 8' mountain next to his house.

A month later and he started wondering if he'd get water in the basement so I tried to remove the snow. What worked best is what Wildman descried (I may have used a bit of bucket curl as well). However, I don't have a tooth bar and the idea would have taken all day--at least. We called it to a halt after about an hour and waited for warmer weather to soften the snow and then took it out with a blower. A tooth bar would have made short work of it I think. ....

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