Got out and about today with the first stop being Tractor Supply Co, (TSC). The first thing I saw after walking through the door was the 8 inch flue pipe and elbows on sale for 15% off. Filled a buggy with 4 2 ft sticks and 2 adjustable elbows and left it up front. Went to the back where the 10 x 20 shelters were supposed to be only to find none there. Went to the back hallway where they keep some of the heavy overstock and there were 12 x 20’s there but not what we needed. Ask a stock person and they pointed us to the last 2 they had in stock. Got those on the feed cart, paid and headed into Anniston to pay bills. Finished, went to China Star in Jacksonville for lunch, stopped and got some milk, and went to my folks house to pick up some stuff they had for us, then came home.
Took one of the shelters to the kitchen tent and set it up in line with it. We now have a 40 foot long mess hall. Took some pallets and laid down in the kitchen area and screwed osb to them to make a 8 x 10 foot raised platform to do the cooking and serving from. Turned the long metal table across the tent in the middle and it will work for a serving/work counter. Will move the side wall covering that is facing the creek to the other side of the new shelter and then cover the entire creek side 40 foot wall with a piece of 6.5 foot high by 40 foot long canvas from an old SCA pavilion. Should fit perfectly. 😀
Got the fridge and foot lockers of food and assorted kitchen kit moved in after getting the floor in. Gathered a batch of old tarps and plastic and covered the ground in the front half of the kitchen tent then moved a 8 by 10 rug in for them to stand on. Makes it a bit nicer. Will make another table 8 feet long to go in there. Should finish it off nicely.
Darkness fell, Tim, Mary and Bill went their separate ways and we went to the house for dinner. Supper got fixed and finished. Then tie down materials, stakes, hammer, ladder located and loaded into the truck and Cat and I went down and staked down the new shelter. Put up another drop light in the top of the kitchen area, and looked at things a bit longer then came back up here and proceeded to recount the days progress.
Tomorrow will hopefully see the assembly of the other shelter and staking down of the same just west of the barn where the framework of a previous structure is standing or across the drive from it. Will have to see when the time comes. But where ever it goes it WILL be put up so I have a dry place to work on whatever I need to work on at the time. Also gonna start moving the wood burning heater tomorrow. May not get the completely done tomorrow but will get the area prepped and some of the mounting built outside. Gonna use the triple wall and thimble to go through the wall and use single wall inside and out. Hope I have enough but if not TSC is not that far away. 😎
Tired and need to see about the fire so am gonna close for the night. Till I type again…
Had another bout with the stomach bug again today. Cat had problems last night. Not sure if it is the same one or another one or another round of the previous one. Unpleasant whichever. Nothing much got done but sitting in the sun and reading in between trips. Better for now. Will be a early night. Tomorrow am gonna try to do the stuff I didn’t get to today…
The day was a success in several ways. Game play was rapid and with 42 or 43 on the field there was a lot of action seen by all. After getting the propane regulator unstuck with a few well placed blows and hitting it with pressure on and off a few times, the grill worked great. Fed 24 paying, and 6 or 7 staff. The food was well received and seemed to be enjoyed by all. Fare was 2 burgers or 2 hot dogs dress em your self, baked beans, chips, and a drink. Was supposed to include a desert but somehow that part got forgotten and was found at the end of the day in the bottom of the fridge. We will do better next time.
Made enough to buy another shelter to use for the kitchen which I am gonna pick up tomorrow. Planning on getting another one to use as a portable work area too. Whether I get two of them tomorrow or not I haven’t decided. Probably will to be done with it and have no more excuses of no dry place to work in. 🙄
Finished the day with a fire in the big fire pit. Must get pix of it, keep meaning to and then forgetting it. Called it quits at about 10 pm. Long day as it started in the field for me before 9 am and Cat by 9. Got a work day this coming Saturday and may have a game the following Sunday. Have had several ask for a Sunday game day so will see if they are really interested.
Tis late and I am ready for some down time so will close till tomorrow.
Got out on the tractor and moved Tim’s trailer into it’s resting place. Jacked it into some kind of level and blocked and shimmed it into position. Ran the cord for power and he spent a bit cleaning it out.
Did much more, including dragging another power pole across the creek beside a cedar tree that has been down for 12+ years now, to build a foot bridge from. Getting closer. It looks like the beavers have moved back upstream since the water level has come back up. There are dams that they haven’t repaired in 3 days now and their ponds are clear to the bottom so something has happened to them. Will have to keep a watch this weekend.
Game tomorrow. Big game. Gonna call it an early night to try to get ready for it. Will try to catch up and such after this is over. Till the morrow.
Or so it seems. Still not feeling good but am a lot better than yesterday. Didn’t get much of anything done today, but didn’t sleep the day away like yesterday so think that’s progress. Drove to the top of the hill and sat in the sun and read for a while in the afternoon. Came down and tried to crank Tim’s truck but the battery was dead again. Got the charger and put on it. It seems to be taking a charge but as drained as it was left it on trickle overnight tonight. Will try it in the morning and see if it will crank. Had just gotten the charger on when Tim and Bob drove in with the camper that Bob is selling Tim. Got it kinda parked and unhooked for now and will move it around into it’s permanent location with the tractor later. Got dark on us and Bill built a fire which Tom, Cat, Bill and I sat around for an hour or so till it got cold enough to run us all in. Came in, got firewood in for the night, ate, and sat down to this. Gonna read for a bit and try for an early night. Till the morrow.
DIY tractor culture in Poland – we make money not art
Some really cool homemade tractors. Some made from motorcycles. Interesting stuff!
Been attacked by a stomach bug and surrendered for the day. Mostly abed and out of it. Here’s hoping that the morrow will be a bit less explosive. 🙄
And on that note, gentle readers, I will leave you for the evening…
All day sorting and alphabetizing books. And only a few thousand left to go. Most of what was in the parts of the dwelling not the front library area, have been put on the shelves. I’ve sorted and alphabetized through G so far. Other stuff is mostly sorted but not in it’s final resting place yet.
Tomorrow I’m planing on getting the books out of the old trailer and putting them on the shelves. Then comes sorting through the 4000+ in the qhut that are not cataloged already and sorting between keep and sell and then getting the keepers on the shelves.
Long day and tired Dave who is heading for bed. Till I type again. 😎
SMS opens public toilets in Finland – Boing Boing
Guess if you don’t have a cell phone you best learn to hold it. 😯 THE most stupid use of tech I have seen lately. 👿
Figured out what I would need to do the 28 feet of shelves. Found the bits and cut the long pieces in half. Cleaned (kinda, sorta) and dried the steel and started the installation. After a couple of tries decided on 6 shelves and a 12 inch high area at floor level for large and reference books. There is also a shelf a foot from the ceiling so we will figure on 8 shelves per section. As of a few minutes ago I now have all but one shelf in place and that one needs a blue cross piece that is over at the other trailer and I don’t feel like braving the elements (dark) tonight. 🙄
Anyway that figures up to 224 feet of liner shelf space. I counted the books in 4 feet earlier tonight and it came out to 54. Didn’t take an average. But that figures to 13.5 books per foot. So the shelves we have on that wall will hold about 3024 books. Guess that would round off to 3000 or so.
Have decided to move the 10 x 55 trailer with the tin roof up here and butt the back end up to the east most door of the trailer here now. That should give us enough sq footage to house all the books that are in the q-hut now. That way I can move the machine tools into the q-hut and have a real work area with cement floor, instead of fighting the dirt in the barn. Much work remains but it seems to make more sense than any other idea I have had so far.
Doing some rough figuring it seems that using the cross walls and all the long walls we should be able to house 16000+ books in the 10 x 55 trailer. Should be enough for now. 😯 🙄 😎
About had enough for the day so am gonna call it a night. Till I type again… 😎
Or something.
For those (most of you reading this) that haven’t been in the compound here that we call home, the bit I wrote yesterday about shelving and nicknack’s most likely didn’t make a lot of sense. For those that have been here, no further explanation is necessary.
Starting at the beginning, the reason I call it a compound is that it’s not just one dwelling even though there are only the two of us living here. There is the original building which I put up 20+ years ago that is the quonset hut. I then built a greenhouse onto the back of it of which half is still here (though not for long) and houses the bathroom and laundry facilities. The next addition was a 12 by 60 mobile home/office building that I moved in at a right angle to the back of the q-hut and is offset to the east by about 4 feet. We then removed half the greenhouse and built a 2 story room that joined the greenhouse half that was left, the q-hut and the mobile home. An additional room 12 x 16 was added to the back of the 2 story part to house the plants, heater, and firewood storage.
The mobile home part is used mainly for storage. The main room is about 24 by 11 and has floor to ceiling shelves around most of it. The bit we moved yesterday was a 12 by 3 foot wooden shelf from a school building that we had on the floor along the south wall under the windows. This was filled with assorted glassware and stuff that we both collect, rocks, old turtle shells, feathers, and ceramic pieces to name a few of the many items. Hundreds of pieces. All of which had to be moved off the shelves, and put elsewhere so we could move the shelf across the room and screw it to the opposite wall above the couch and chair on that wall. Which we did. I went looking for a support for one corner and found a beaver stick that was just right, trimmed to fit and screwed into place. That’s one that they won’t use in their damn dams again! Then every piece had to be dusted, cleaned if necessary and put back on the shelves. After I made a few more shelves that is. Still got to cut two more, and am procrastinating by typing this out. 🙄 But we are much closer than we were.
After getting the last of the stuff back on the relocated shelves will start on an additional 16 feet of floor to ceiling shelves for more of our books. Then we can move the books off the 12 feet of shelves now on that wall (which have to be moved 7 inches to allow for the full 16 feet of new shelves). So much moving and rearranging fun, so little energy. 🙁
And that’s what yesterday was all about. Other than splitting half a truckload of wild cherry to keep the home fire burning. And loading it, then unloading it. And cooking the 12 inch dutch oven full of chicken and veggies. I am quite tired today for some reason, but would like to get at least 3 sections of the new shelves up so we can start moving the books off the existing units so we can dismantle and move them. Multiple sequential vortices anyone?
And I am off to find shelving steel and cut the same. Stuff I have is 12 feet tall so am cutting it in half and making 6 foot shelving units. Then adding another shelf attached to the wall about a foot under the ceiling. Doesn’t look the best but works and has the least waste of anything I could come up with. 😎
Spent the morning splitting wood and the afternoon moving cabinets, dusting and placing knickknacks. Resulting in sore arms/hands/shoulders. Will try to report in full on the morrow. Till then…
Game today, which took up part of the day.
I spent most of the day ripping and tearing trees, brush and vines with the tractor and box blade. Got the big wild cherry to break loose and pulled it out of the creek. Will cut it to straight section and debark some strips on it and leave it to dry for a couple of years. Or if I get the saw mill up and going soon may just cut it to a 10 or 12 inch beam and leave it to dry. Looks like I can get 14 to 16 feet out of it.
Removed the rebuilt section of beaver dam this morning and Bill got in and removed a lot more this afternoon. They should be working all night to repair the damage. Soon they will have cleared all of the smaller stuff along the creek and all the way to the barn. That’s when they either leave or get dead.
Removed most of the stumps from by Bills garden plot. Got one more tree to get out and then fill and level the area.
Cut up all of the dried stuff I had pulled to the camp site. Now to split and load about half into the truck and bring up here for the stove. Several hundred pounds of nice dry cherry heart, good burning wood.
Lakebed is draining nicely. Hope to get back in there before the next rains get here.
Worn out and hurting all over more than any where so am gonna call it an early night. Gonna try to get up and out to the local flea markets and see what we can find. Tell the next exciting update… 😎
Pistol match tomorrow. Not sure what all they are gonna get into.
Spent part of this afternoon putting pegboard and shelving into mongo’s hooch.
Another part patching wind damage in town and digging out the last bit before the drain for the lake. Have water in it for the first time in months. Now see where the low spots are so know where to drag the first loads from the dam proper.
Will try to write more tomorrow. Going to be an early night as I have an early morning tomorrow.
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