During the weekends and the winter break, we found ourselves sledding quite a bit.  When we need to walk the dog, we drag along the sleds and hit the hill on the road near our house.  The snow season this year has not been as deep as we are use to in the past We have about 18 inches of standing snow in spots, but when we first tried to build on the property, we had 4 feet of standing snow at the beginning of April that year.

We had a lot of fun making this video and enjoyed the hill that day.  I also decided to pull an old broken sled we had in the back shed and repair it afterwards.  One of the rails broke, and I used some metal brackets to repair it.  The sled is an old Topedo #550 made in Canada.  I can barely find these anymore.  We bought the Tropedo at and antique store for $25 a few years back. However, this is not the sled shown in the video, we call that sled the General since it was painted green and the previous owner placed three stars on it.  It’s slower than the Topedo, but is a more comfortable ride.

If you stick around for the entire video, I show my slight frustration at the end with the inner tube.  Needless to say it was a sledding day and not a tubing one.

Much of the Northwest this year has received record amounts of snow, but Northern Idaho has been neglected from receiving our usual portion.  However, the snow we received in December and early January was a nice powder.  We have found our temperatures hovering in the teens and low twenties during the day and negative digits at night.  Mid-January has proved a little different as we received rain on top of our snow when the temperatures were in the twenties. Now, slush is everywhere and moving it has become increasingly difficult.  The plow truck is down.  I tried to fix it, but the entire pump and motor need to be overhauled.  Since the season may be almost finished with new snow, I am saving my money for the barn/shop build this summer and will repair the plow when I can be undercover and out of the elements.  At least, that is the gamble I am taking as of the end of January 2017;  I hope it pays off.