I had to drive 40 miles to get to the place and then I had to sort through the available stock and load IN THE FRICKIN' RAIN, but they were giving away a few hundred pallets... mostly in decent shape... so it was worth it. I brought back 24 standard sized ones... 3' x 4'... and four others that were double sized. Also some 4' x 8' and smaller floorboards (you can see a very small one vertically separating some of the pallets), and some foam padding. I'm not sure what they are doing at that place, but they sure had a lot of interesting junk piled up in their parking lot.

The plan is use these and cinder blocks as the floor of some sort of a woodshed.  I really have no idea how it will go...

Cool project.  How are you going to keep the pallets from rotting?

I'm going to have them on cinder blocks, not on the ground.  If I have a decent roof on the shed, they should stay dry.

If I'm wrong... well, it's only a woodshed.  Maybe I can swap 'em out and put in new pallets.

Gravel has been delivered.  Watch the video.  Does that look like ten tons to you?

In fact, it wasn't ten tons.  When I asked the driver to bounce the bed a few times to shake loose what was stuck, a LOT more came out.  Surprised us both.  I'm glad I asked.

Even with "the rest of it" unloaded, it still doesn't look like ten tons of anything.  That must be some dense stuff.

It's called "Sure Pack" and it contains a whole lot of particulate.  It's driveway gravel.  Had I known, I'd have probably ordered something else.  I want conventional gravel - what we usually think of - since it's mostly to be used beneath a shed I'm building.

The shed is going to be a lot smaller than I'd planned.  I checked with the town and learned that anything bigger than 10'x12' requires a permit AND affects my annual property taxes.  No thank you.  I'll make it 10' x 12'.  I'll build two if I need to.

My wife won tickets to a giant yard sale (I'd guess there were a hundred sellers) held annually near Concord's state fair grounds and convinced me to go. I didn't really mind in the least. The scenery is beautiful this time of the year, so it's an excellent time to go for a drive. I do prefer individual garage and yard sales over the really big group affairs with hundreds or thousands of customers. It's easier to dicker and the merchandise usually isn't as picked over. But today's giant sale was what it was.

She suggested we bring extra cash - just in case we stumble across a quality snow blower. That's the key thing we've been looking for of late. "Fat chance of that," I said. "Besides, where would be we put it? They're big and all we're taking is the minivan."

As it turned out, we stopped at two yard sales before reaching the fair grounds, and the second one had a snow blower that looked to be in okay condition.

"How much?" I asked.

"One hundred," the seller replied.

"What kind of condition is it in?" I asked.

"A-One," he said. He started it up and showed me that everything is operating as it should. "We just moved here two months ago, and I bought a new one since the driveway here is larger."

Honestly, his driveway wasn't that big. 40 feet, I'd guess. A typical suburban driveway. But he was a bit older than me and his explanation that he needed a bigger one was believable.

I thought about it and declined to buy it. I told him that I'd just moved here as well. "We're shopping for a snow blower, but my driveway is bigger than yours and uphill. Like you, I probably need a bigger snowblower."

"I'll let you have it for eighty dollars," he said.

And like that, I bought it.

As you can see, it's rusty. It's older and doesn't have an electric starter. Its 24" scoop is the minimum size I consider acceptable. 24" snow blowers start at $600 at Home Depot and run up to $900. The seller says he paid $700 for it when it was new.

This is a 5HP, 6-speed, 24" NOMA snowblower with 12" diameter tires. I think it was carried by Sears. At Lowes, today's 24" snow blowers range from $600 to $1,000. My guess is that the one I purchased is a lower-end 24" model.

Who cares? It works and was 80 bucks. I'll still be shopping for a bigger and better used snow blower. But having two snow blowers isn't a bad thing up here, and today's purchase totally lifts the pressure off of me to buy a big snow blower soon. (Also, I have a snow plow blade for the tractor. It's going to do the heavy work ... assuming I can figure out how to attach it.)

Photos follow.

Now you're in trouble.  Aahz's ninja cats will show up and sabotage your snowblower the night before any big storm.