Hounds of Hell

Yesterday (Thursday, January 13, 2011) was the first time I blew out our driveway this season.
That is, the first time I used our snowblower.
Our snowblower is a fairly large 28-inch Honda (pictured at left), that sounds like the Hounds of Hell when running.
It really hammers.
We bought it 17 years ago, brand-new.
We’ve had various issues with it.
When we got it, our driveway was crusher-run.
The rock ate holes in the housing. I got a new housing and changed it myself. We also had our driveway paved.
It has a pulley-brake that broke a cotter-pin.
The pulley-brake destroyed itself, and I had to replace that.
I also did that myself.
All these repairs were done by me after my stroke. They seemed doable.
It so happens you can install the snow-augers backwards, and that’s what I did.
You don’t see this operating the snowblower from behind, but it was moving the snow out to the sides of the housing, instead of in toward the paddle.
So I fixed that — reversed the snow-augers. But it still wasn’t throwing snow.
Brooks-Gravely, which no longer exists, on Brighton-Henrietta Town-Line Road, where I bought it, suggested it needed a “tune-up;” that is, replace and tighten the pulley. Seems I had done all that earlier including the pulley-wheel.
(That errant pulley-brake destroyed the pulley.)
By then I was thinking I should tractor-mount, like my neighbor across the street.
But the good people at Brooks-Gravely suggested my Honda was the best snowblower money could buy, and a tractor-mount would be unbalanced.
So they “tuned it up,” and now it throws snow 40 feet or more.
It was cranky about starting, as it always is, after sitting for months unused in the bitter-cold of my unheated garden-shed.
But it has electric-start, that is a starter-motor that operates on house-current.
I have a giant 100-foot extension-cord out to our shed.
I plugged it in.
I cranked about five minutes, checking the fuel and choke.
All-of-a-sudden, BRAP-uh! The Hounds of Hell.
Both our cars are All-Wheel-Drive, partly so we don’t get stuck, but mainly so I don’t have to blow out that driveway every time it snows.
My threshold is eight inches; less we can drive through.
It had snowed fairly deep, almost a foot.
But it was powder, fluffy stuff; probably drivable.
But I blew it out anyway.
I don’t know how much longer I can do this. I turn 67 in a couple weeks.
It’s like mowing our huge lawn.
Seems doable, so I ain’t sellin’ my mower or snowblower yet.

• “We” (“our”) is me and my wife of 43 years, “Linda.”
• “Crusher-run” is a sub-base of rock and dust left as residue by a rock-crusher. It’s often used as a sub-base for paving, since it drains well. Driveways often start as crusher-run applied atop a road cutting.
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993.
• “Brooks-Gravely” was a lawn-implement seller.
• “Brighton-Henrietta Town-Line Road” separates the two suburbs of Brighton and Henrietta, both southeast of Rochester, Henrietta south of Brighton. It’s right on the town line.
• “All-Wheel-Drive” is all four wheels driven, as opposed to just two. Our cars are a 2003 Honda CR-V and a 2005 Toyota Sienna minivan.