XMAS ARRIVES EARLY FOR WILLIWAW

My husband had his 4th surgery of the year recently - he'll be fine - and will be "out" until March-ish. . . meaning I've had to do all of the outdoor chores myself, like getting ready for winter this fall (brag: my wood piles are works of art) and winter itself now, like splitting all the wood and alllll the snow clearing: shoveling around the house and blowing the snow on our mile long road/driveway, no small joke in the high Colorado mountains.

Our old snowblower attachment for our Toolcat is almost 20 years old and had a whole host of problems, including a hydraulic system that kept going kaput (see: https://mltshp.com/p/1Q1B3). Alas, we can't just haul it on a trailer to the mechanics so last year we had the Bobcat people here twice to fix problems we couldn't do ourselves, which was a thing considering the nearest Bobcat dealer is 3 hours away. . . a very expensive thing. Grrr!

SOooooo after realizing I was going to have to do all the snowblowing for the winter alone and, not wanting to spend hours in <0 degree temps swearing at whatever broke this time, hoping that a little grease gun action would fix it or desperately applying JB weld to holes and blah blah blah - doable when we were splitting the work but now has turned from "just irritating/part of life" to actually problematic - I asked for a new snowblower attachment for Xmas. Had to take a loan for it (thanks Trump tariffs! JFC!!) but now it's here! It's here!!!

It's A M A Z I N G. The skid-shoes haven't been re- welded on multiple times at multiple levels. There's no holes in the chute so it actually blows out at a distance instead of falling out. The auger doesn't freeze whenever you look at it wrong. The two stages actually work in parallel. The chute itself is on a sprocket wheel, not a chain, so you don't have to stop every 10 minutes and clear ice chunks out.

Our push/walk behind blower - a lovely Honda 2 stage, self-propelled blower with treads/track drive which throws snow 50 feet and starts when it's 20 below that I also love - is called Odin because it's so powerful and our troublesome old Toolcat blower was Loki. So obviously this new one is now Thor.

THOR!!! All praise THOR!! We received Thor in time for a snowstorm which dumped 4 feet of snow in 3 days and I already LOVE LOVE LOVE Thor. I never want to be without Thor again. You can have your awesome tech doodads and cooking geegaws and music fun widgets and things your kids made for you for Xmas: all I want is Thor. And I have him! I'm soooo lucky!!!

I'M SO HAPPY.

edit: the machine is not new, just the attachment!