Time to switch to snow tires. It should melt by next week, so not putting the plow on the quad yet.
Category: Projects (Page 2 of 3)
After 8 hours of stump grinding, I’m knackered. It isn’t hard. The grinder does all the work, just sweeping back and forth, chewing up the wood. It’s the low-level attention that wears a guy down. At the end of each sweep, lower the wheel just a bit. Take too big of a bite, and the wheel chatters, the machine bucks and the clutch starts squealing.
Sparky says that he is protesting some damn thing, but I wasn’t listening. Early on, he made it clear that he likes pooping on stumps. That was covered in the Poop wars post.
Next walk, he crapped on a stump.
This photo is taken from the headwall we just built, facing downstream. This shows why I went with a stacked bag wall, rather than something more permanent. This photo may save me a lot of effort. Do you see it? [Hint: It’s not Sparky. ]
Sparky was being very patient as I worked on the bridge wall. Well, that’s what I thought.
When we built the stacked-bag wall yesterday, we hosed it down, but not so much that the paper bags fell apart. Every morning and evening, I will hose down the wall, with the hope that more of the concrete will get wet enough to cure. At some point, it will rain, and we will see what happens.
I like to bring Sparky along for outdoor projects. He keeps the rabbits and coyotes away so I don’t have to worry. I do have to watch that he doesn’t wander too far, but this time, for the 45 minutes it took for me to water the rocks, he sat patiently.
I hopped on the quad and started up the hill, but Sparky didn’t follow along. He’s pretty good about following the quad if he isn’t working on his own project.
I went back to check on him. See the problem?
It’s a mystery how he can get his leash stuck so easily.
Sparky was perturbed after being stuck for so long. There is disappointment in those eyes. I think Sparky bears some responsibility for not giving some indication that he was stuck, and I told him so. He remembered that he doesn’t speak English, so was unpersuaded.
There is a project I’ve been dreading for three or four years. The land bridge over the creek has been eroding, and there are too many options for a solution. Also, there is a chance that the culvert pipes are too small, and would need to be replaced.
Sparky is a sap for love, so he wanted me to take a photo.
Look, I don’t spend all my time screwing around with Sparky, but I’m not going to post about cutting the grass, changing the oil or doing the laundry. Nobody cares about politics because our current president has dementia, and Trump will be elected or the deep state will cheat sufficiently to elect a diversity candidate. No new movies or TV shows seem worthy of comment and I’m deep into a science fiction book series that isn’t boring enough to quit or interesting enough to care too much.
Rather than open my mail or pay bills, Sparky and I went for a long walk that included a visit to the tree fort. Joe and I built it 20 years ago as a deer blind and it seems to be holding up well.
When I was a kid, we used to roam around in the woods and play at the old boy scout camp. We called it that, but who knows if that’s what it was. Now, at some point, neighborhood kids were sneaking up into my deer blind. They didn’t leave any trash laying around, so I don’t care. Plus, that must have been years ago.
The ongoing battle of wits with Sparky doesn’t take all of my time. I am occasionally productive.
A friend had a maple tree taken down, so we diced it up. Now is a good time of year for putting up firewood because the weather has been mild. Even with a good system, it can be strenuous work.
I’ve got a good system, so can handle 24″ diameter logs without busting a nut. Big rounds like that take some muscling, but yield a better wood to bark ratio. My best trick is to elevate the trailer ramp so it’s at about the same height as the splitter rails. The trailer, towed by the quad, is positioned on the other side of the splitter.
If the logs are close to round, I can roll them up the ramp, muscle them onto the splitter, chunk them up and toss the firewood into the trailer. If it works right, I never have to lift a round, and only touch the firewood to put it in or take it out of the trailer.
That trailer-load yielded a half-cord of firewood. Next summer, I will move that into the wood shed, and burn it the following winter. That half-cord will heat my house for about a month.
Sparky isn’t being exploited, he is part of the reason the camper seats needed to be updated to version 2.
Last year, I re-imagined the seats in the camper and posted about it. Camper seating version 1.
The design was flawed. Seats are more comfortable when they slope down a bit. These were horizontal. The seat backs tilted back, but weren’t very sturdy. In bed mode, the sleeping area was bigger than it needed to be, but there were too many steps to get to bed mode.
I could have lived with it, but Sparky wasn’t satisfied.
It’s 10o F and windy, so the wind chill is -9o F. The wood stove is going full blast. To get the fire going in the morning, there is a bin of scrap wood to throw on the hot embers. That gave me an idea for inside fun.
A couple of split logs and a bunch of scrap wood makes a good course for the DeadBolt. It’s a live course because the scrap wood moves under the car. To improve FPV visibility, the car body was removed.
While driving DeadBolt, Sparky kept coming over. The sound of the RC car always meant he had a chance at snatching some food.