Some sense of scale can be derived by the cross section at the furthest edge of the hole: The ice is probably 2.5" thick at that point. The chunk that brained me is the lonely-looking one at roughly 10 o'clock from the crater.
The steps were cleared by roomie with a hatchet.
Is that little cleared spot what you spent all your time and effort on yesterday? If so have you considered dynamite as a solution for clearing the rest of the walk?
ReplyDeleteYup, that's about 45 minutes of whanging away with a shovel.
ReplyDeleteWhen we had our big ice storm two years ago, I gave up on clearing my walk and bought some mini crampons that stretch over your shoes. Best money I ever spent and much less labor intensive.
ReplyDeleteThrow down some salt, and call it a day. Chipping ice is just not worth it.
ReplyDeleteGiven that you may encounter ice again, may I reccomend a marshalltown tile scraper. it's like a hoe with a straight blade.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.marshalltown.com/productDetail.aspx?prodID=17303
Allows you to stand and do the same thing you do crouched over wiht an axe.
I dunno...looks more like Mars to me. You should get one of the rovers to expand on that hole.
ReplyDeletewv: litici. Yep, does look a little icy to me.
What Og said. My parents have one of those. No only can you chop down through the ice with it, but you can generally use it to get under the ice at the pavement, lift it, and break it apart. Great tool.
ReplyDeleteOg's recommendation is a good one. We use one for chipping away the packed-down-snow-and-ice in the driveway, which otherwise winds up being over a foot thick by spring. It's the only tool I've found that will do the job so well.
ReplyDeleteLots of gasoline or kerosene and a match would help.
ReplyDeleteOr one of these: http://www.amazon.com/31-Portable-Propane-Torch-Melter/dp/B0027B9DQM:
ReplyDeleteAnyone wanting to knock on my front door should come back in May. Right now there is a massive snow bank and 20 yards of 3 feet deep ice / snow layercake.
ReplyDeleteAt Bastogne, the soldiers fired a clip of 30-06 into the frozen ground before digging in.
ReplyDeleteLooks like my driveway, and guess what the Wife/Boss says I get to do today?
ReplyDeleteAren't you supposed to fight ice with fire? Where's Godzilla when you really need him??
ReplyDeleteAt least you do know your .223 rounds from you AR have a lower muzzle velocity in the acrtic temperatures right?
ReplyDeleteYes I got the movie reference but suspect many readers don't.
It must be real cold that nobody enjoyed the reference of the very cool movie. Cold war getting hot in the Artic with Jim Brown doing his stuff.
ReplyDeleteI know why Tam hacked that hole, its for the conning tower on the sub!
ReplyDeleteOK, stop, she's choppin' and chippin'
ReplyDeleteTam is out and she's got a mission
Something falls from the sky there nightly
Rosenholme is covered up in white stuff oh so tightly
Will she ever stop,yo, I don't know
Stop with the work and the drifts will grow
To the extreme she smacks the walk like a vandal
Cover it with mo-gas and light it like a candle!
Snap, the ice breaks with a boom
Hitting her noggin, raise a knot like a mushroom
Deadly when it smacks upside her melon
Get the walk cleared or be considered a felon
So much ice other Gunnies say Damn!
If ice was a drug, she'd sell it by the gram!
If there's an ice sheet, yo, she'll whack it
Sharpen the axe so Roberta can hack it!
Ice Ice Baby!
Golf clap! :D
ReplyDeleteLooks like you might have to resort to torpedoes; be sure to check the tube.
ReplyDeleteAT
A movie? A MOVIE?
ReplyDeleteThat's like saying Where Eagles Dare or the Guns of Navarone is a movie.
I used to use a ten-pound sledge to break the ice up. Don't swing it, just raise it about shoulder high and let gravity to the work.
ReplyDeleteSee I told ya. You are living in the new Egypt,an Arctic Ice version. They're reduced to using hatchets there as well.Hee Hee.
ReplyDeleteCIII
OK - that stuff is weird looking. Especially the way it doesn't stick to the underlying sidewalk. You Southerners and your wacky weather!
ReplyDeleteHow much salt is out there? 1/3rd or so of 50lb bag feels about right for a first pass. Don't skimp. It looks like you have sun and google says it's almost 30 there. After scraping/shoveling/sweeping off the crusty top stuff, any sidewalk salt should be boring through that by now assuming there's enough to keep the reaction going.
"Especially the way it doesn't stick to the underlying sidewalk."
ReplyDeleteOh, it only stopped sticking to the sidewalk when I got the shovel between it and the concrete.
The biggest problem with it is that it's an opaque white, and reflects the sun...
Oh, DaddyBear...
ReplyDeleteWhatever you do for a living, your talents are wasted.
Hope your scrambled noodle's feeling better.
ReplyDeleteUlises from CA
Way back when, I remember something similar on the walk at my father's house......which was brick. It turned out to be faster to use Tam's Estwing solution, brick by brick. The following spring I pulled the bricks, moved them to the back yard for a patio, and bought him a concrete walk in front as a birthday present, complete with inlaid pipe to run hot water through by hooking a hose to the laundry sink in the basement. Never got to try that to see if it actually worked, though, because he sold the house a few years later.
ReplyDeleteThe shape charge.
ReplyDeleteThe shape charge indicates that they are technically proficient.
Proficient enough to go in on the prowl.
Get a bag of salt, salt, Baby.
ReplyDeleteIt won't melt it all, but it'll sure soften it. -- Lyle
The salt has finally started rotting the ice on the front walk. Probably in concert with all the salt that was underneath the ice in the first place...
ReplyDeleteThe cure for that horrid VI earworm:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRyolzoi13Q
The Marshall town scraper is a wimp. Now THIS is a scraper!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.amazon.com/Ames-True-Temper-1693600-Multi-Purpose/dp/B000NIR7O6
Literally a straight axe. It is 1/4" forged steel wrapped around the handle which is an oversized, long shovel handle. Has plenty of weight on it's own and will NEVER bend when prying.
I bought this after chopping out 20' x 60" of driveway with 8" of layered snow and ice with an axe, this works much easier.
I have also used this for tree roots after a good sharpening. Much better then an ax for that and you don't endanger your feet.
Ah, Ice Station Zebra, the very first Alistair MacLean I ever read. Was in grade school, mid sixties, found a hardback edition on one of my parents' bookshelves, and was immediately hooked by the drawing of USS Dolphin on the frontispiece. Didn't know if it was fact or fiction but knew I had to read it right away.
ReplyDeleteHated the movie. Almost as much of an abortion as the Starship Troopers film.
The muzzle velocity at arctic temperatures was too low so they used a shaped charge to blow the door off the boathouse at Hereford so they could get to the most powerful transmitter in Europe.
ReplyDelete"Ice station zebra"
ReplyDeleteThe very best VFTP posts have SOME obscure film/music/literature reference, sometimes overt, sometimes subtle- from "ice station Zebra" to "V King Tut" and everything in between. Frankly, that's the primary reason I read here. The rest of the stuff is just gravy. Finding the more obscure references is like finding the solid chocolate egg in the easter egg hunt. Try and keep up, people.
You need a pear burner, What could be more fun than 3000 degrees on a -10 degree day?
ReplyDeleteOf course you'd still get the Estwing workout on anything flammable.
I'll try this again.
ReplyDeleteThe shape charge.
The shape charge indicates that they are technically proficient.
Proficient enough to go in on the prowl.
Run Tamslick... you'll get the phone book but do it anyway.
The hole in the sidewalk vaguely resembles then one in the armored truck.
Bought three bags of 50lb each, rocksalt. Ice ain't the problem anymo'.
ReplyDeleteHowever,the city plowed under the driveway apron with a good foot of frozen slush and snow....so....it's Manual Labore,agin.
Tote that spud, hump dat shovel, whang that steel and toss de snow. May as well have stayed in Minnesota. At least you get used to the regularity of sno-neccesity. And spring is only a good month-plus later in appearance, than on the West End of Lake Erie.
Tam, welcome to learning the childhood chores, so un-beloved by the folks who grew up around this clime. It IS a kind of adventure, for a new-to-it adult. Gave me a good grin to watch y'r progress reports.
John,
ReplyDeleteSome idea of how frequent an occurrence this is in Indy can be grasped by grokking the fact that there isn't a bag of salt to be had for sale in town, the DPW has largely thrown up its hands, and the media is having to dig out twenty-year-old file footage to find an ice storm of comparable magnitude.