[RHClarke]

I woke up this morning to the snow gently floating down and covering everything in a nice white coat. After shoveling the driveway, off to the barn I did go, just as the weather switched to rain from snow. This being a weekend, the roads do not get the attention they usually get. The rain came down harder as the temperature rose. This made the roads very slippery and full of slush. It took an extra 15 minutes to get to the barn.

The first order of business was to rid the shelters of their now very heavy snow load. It is interesting just how much weight the rain added to the snow. The shelters seem to "inhale" as the snow/slush is removed. Bob took care of the shelters near the barn, while I cleaned those on the side of the barn, and of course Clive's shelter, which always seems to suffer the most.

After removing the slush in front of the barn doors, Bob and I (Grant was AWOL) jumped into his truck for quick visit to Embrun (a little town close by) to look at a CMP that was converted into a front end loader/welding support truck. Neither Bob or I brought a camera - the photos would have been rain spotted anyway. After chatting with the owner for a while, we learned that there were a few CMP wrecks in the bush just north of Ottawa. We will see where that lead takes us. After a quick coffee at the local Tim Horton's, we headed to Greely to visit our friend Bill Clairmont.

Bill owns the yellow CMP based snow plow previously shown on MLU. The reason for our visit was to discuss some custom work Bill is doing for one of the Rotters, and to pump him for more info on CMP wrecks in the region. Next weekend, we will be kidnapping Bill and heading south west to look at a CMP with a winch on it.

After Bill got tired of us, we headed back to the barn to do some administrative chores. Neither of us felt like taking on any more projects for the day, so Bob headed home to take care of his "honey-do" list, and I headed back to Ottawa. The rain was still teeming down and the roads were just a little more dangerous than usual. The freeze thaw cycle really affects the roads here. They tend to bend, buckle, break, crumble, heave, dip and split open. On some roads you spend as much time going up and down as you do going forward.

Could be worse...