Rolled in with Hannah around 3:30 to some light snowfall. Time to collect the blue ATV and plow for the driveway back home. Hannah was sure happy to be here and got right to work making high-speed laps of the yard. This came with some pretty spectacular wipeouts, though. Thanks to the quick freeze-thaw-freeze cycle over the last few days, the yard is full of glare ice patches hidden beneath the fresh snow. Hannah, for the most part, was unfazed by this and just wanted to keep running.

I went to fire up the blue ATV and the dials went completely dead. What the hell. I’ve had this on the trickle charger, just like the green ATV and the mowers, and none of them are any worse for wear. Then again, I think this battery is at least six or seven years old and probably due for replacement. It’s a shame these require their electronics to function. Even with a pull rope, there’s no way of getting this to run without a battery.

I wasn’t about to go back home without it, though, and the green ATV doesn’t have the same plow mounts. So I got creative. I backed the truck up to the pole barn door so the collapsing ramps could reach the pole barn foundation while the truck was parked as low as possible outside the door. I didn’t want to fight gravity any more than I had to. I then grunted, shoved, dragged, and cursed the blue ATV into position at the base of the ramps and left it in neutral. I then fired up the green ATV and used an old PFD as a pushin’ cushion to shove the dead blue beast up the ramps and onto my truck. Once it was about 90% there, I hit the e-brake on the green ATV, hopped off, and hand-guided the blue one the rest of the way.

I stowed the ramps on either side of the ATV and then lugged the plow over from the other side of the pole barn. With everything in place, I secured the plow with a ratchet strap and closed up the pole barn. Hannah was passed out in the snow, but came sprinting when I called her back to the truck. We headed out shortly after 5:00 as I called the tire shop to order a new ATV battery.