Snow Machine DOWN!

Last night we got a matter of fact message from our friend "Little Beard" Tom. Imagine the tone sounding a little like Lumberg (the manager) from Office Space.

"Hey uhhhh big beard and wife of big beard, do you guys have your snow machines? If so, I have a proposition. Um. Mine is stuck in about a foot of running water. Kind of spearheaded in a small creek, about two miles south of here. I've been wondering if one of your snow machines might be able to pull mine out of it, because I'm having trouble finding anyone with an ATV to pull me out of it. So maybe your snowmachines will work. If you are game give me a call. Let me know. Maybe tomorrow. If you have your snow machines."

So today we had a mission. We walked out of town and found the snowmachine. We should add that little beard is 0 for 2 on his first two snowmobile adventures. Friday he got stuck about 300 yards closer to town than Saturday, and had a different friend help him out. (He was too embarrased to call that guy again.)

Anyway, as you can see from the pictures, the snow machine wasn't looking good. But with some chipping of ice with a hammer (which unfortunately was broken in the mission) and some heavy grunting we managed to liberate the snow machine.

Incidentally, I did break through that ice, and I can verify that the creek is much deeper than it looks. And, wow, your feet sure cool off quickly when it's 10 and they are soaked. I'm a new believer in bunny boots. More on those later, when we eventually buy some. If you look closely at Little Beard, you'll see he's wearing some.

We managed to get the snow machine out and fire it up. Unfortunately it stopped running after a few minutes of idling. We were hoping it would heal itself, but it didn't, so we had to leave it out for another night on it's own.