We ’ve made it to March ! It ’s been a long , inhuman winter where I live , but change is coming and the weather has been fond lately — in fact , as I write this , I ’m looking out the window and watching snowfall melting off the roof . Regardless , I ’ve had quite a little of reason to use my large sled this winter for channelize hay bales and provision around the farm . I ’ve already outlined why these versatile polyethylene sledsare such a great pecker for sideline farmersworking in winter weather , and after using them for age , I wish to retrieve of myself as something of an expert on proper sled use and maintenance .
If you own a sled like this , here are a few tips and tricks to get the most out of it each winter .
Keep the Bottom Free of Snow
I habitually list my sled up against the exterior of a building when it ’s not in use so that it wo n’t fill up with snow on speculative weather Clarence Day . But while this helps in one respect , it can occasionally make a problem if the snow is sloshed and later freezes to the undersurface of the sled . As counterintuitive as it might seem ( why would snow on the bottom of the sled be an issue ? ) , the frozen nose candy can do your sled to dig to a halt , making it extremely unmanageable to slide across the ground even under idle loads . Be sure to keep the bottom of your sled free of snow and ice so that it stay easy to use .
Maintain a Steady Speed
When transporting heavy warhead , you ’ll rule that maintaining a unfaltering focal ratio aid , particularly if you ’re pulling the sled behind anATV , UTVor a truck . For example , I oft load my sled with eight or nine hay bales to move them around the farm , and while a loading like this is reasonably static , in unsound snow conditions it ’s not rare for a bale or two to fall off the top of the stack — and once in a while , the whole load will angle over . It seems like traveling as slowly as possible would help matters , but I ’ve actually found an alternative to be true — maintaining a steady pace , not too slow but not too fast , helps the sled ride smoothly over uneven snow and methamphetamine hydrochloride conditions and foreclose the sled from being pulled to and fro by the whims of changing speeds and bumpy ground .
Be Careful on Slopes
Take care when using your sleigh on a gradient . Sleds are designed to slip , and in the perfect stipulation ( such as packed - down snow that ’s immobilize hearty in cold weather ) , there ’s no pauperization to pull your sleigh down a slope — it will travel down under its own exponent , sometimes at a rapid speed , which is something I ’m quite familiar with because I move a fewhay balesdown a side every Clarence Shepard Day Jr. . If you need to send your sled down a mound , my advice is to get behind it , give it a honest push , and let it slide down by itself . Just verify it ’s not on course to go down into anything at the bottom .
Do you have any sled tips to partake in ?
