Hunting Season Approaches!

Not really a concern to me, other than I have a couple friends who are interested in removing some of the large rodents from my Nada Farm area, and I say go for it.

Now, back to what I am actively getting done. The ditch, which you can see here, with the 2" conduit angling out of it toward the south, is now filled with large diameter electrical wiring! Which will allow me to (for the first time ever) operate all my equipment simultaneously! My only true fear from here on, is that I might overload the electric bill.

 

 

 

 

 

You can see in this picture, it is now filled. Though I created a big muddy mess out of the entire back yard. And with the incredible rate of growth we have experienced in everything we have planted, it is likely to remain that way until at least next spring. We'll see.

 

 

 

 

 

I had initially intended to leave the power connected, while I replaced the power lines, but a little too much exuberance with an entrenching tool ended that plan. It also provided a test for the main 100 amp breaker in the new breaker box, it works. Oh well, live (thanks to fast acting breakers!) and learn.

I love the entrenching tool for anything having to do with moving or even rearranging dirt. It's the one "Dirt Tool" really designed for it's intended use, and it just works great for me.

 

 

The down side is, that once I chopped the power line to the garage, I'm reduced to hand tools to create the connectors I need to adapt the power boxes to the connections I am using. The picture shows it best. I created the lug/adapters from solid aluminum, they connect to the cables with set screws. There are also set screws holding them where the breakers would have connected, to the copper forks you see between them. After they were in place, I wrapped them in electrical tape, just so there would be less exposed metal. Some how that shiny metal seems to attract that accidental touch, that invariably leaves me holding a screwdriver, minus a tip. Though here, an allen wrench is more likely to suffer.

I'm told there is an actual box designed for this sort of installation, but it costs about twice what I paid for these boxes, and I already had these. And in keeping within the guidelines for NadaFarm operations, I'm stuck fabricating what I need, but by hand.

 

Here's what it looks like when you open the door on the box in the basement now. Not too hillbilly, I hope. When I get time to look for it, I think the center has a cover as well, and there are a couple boxes of breakers for this panel. For now the 100 amp breaker, at the top left, feeds the 'other main panel', that the rest of the little house is fed by. And of course, those magnificent lugs, feed the garage panel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I foamed the cracks around the door and the place where the Hornets were traveling in and out. Wow that stuff really expands, I may end up trimming the door a little bit, it got kind of snug, but that isn't all bad.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's what it looks like from the inside now, I would show how it stopped the light leaks, but the resulting picture is just a black square, so I guess it worked pretty well. I'll trim and paint it next year, as no one will ever see it anyway...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The panel in the garage (FrankenBuilding) looks a lot better and even might get it's face plate installed now that the power lines are coming up from the floor, rather than "dangling in" from the side. The gray wire, through the top left, will be replaced by a piece of the original supply wire and run underground to the mechanical building next week. Then the Chicken Coop will be 'sans electric', and as soon as I get rid of the go karting supplies, it will be removed. And I intend to replace it with a 'glass green house'. I'm still researching ways to make the green house most useful, and hope to incorporate a lot of solar energy project opportunities into it. Most likely next spring for that project. I seem to be running out of summer somehow, and in some ways I feel like I've accomplished so little. Oh well, such is the life of an X fireman. At least I finally have enough power to run everything.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I started welding together this table top. It's a steel 'cap' for my green workbench. The idea is, that with all the welding that I do, it makes sense to have a steel table top to work on. It will help by being conductive, and by not catching fire as easily as the wood topped benches have, though they haven't continued to burn, they do get their paint scorched on occasion. I'm incorporating an airspace. But the downside of that is the preponderance of nesting insects that take advantage of any unguarded opening to start building. So I'm considering that I might also insulate it with some of the fiberglass I'm accumulating, just as a nesting preventive measure, still in the works.

 

This is the wire I removed, from the trench, it is destined to be relocated to Akron to wire the garage.The rest of it is going to wire the mechanical building. It's good for 60 amps, which is plenty to run battery chargers and hand tools, just never was enough for the real tools a recreational welder requires.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am also about to launch operation WOOD STOVE, which is where I begin gathering the sticks and limbs from the wooded areas and chopping them down to fit the wood stove ( and the FIREPLACE, maybe, I'm still not sold on having a fire in the house, don't like candles, still a bit leery of wood fires in the living room, I'm working on it). Well, that is about it for this week, it has finally stopped raining, and I can get back outside, to the issues at hand. It's all about keeping moving, I could "seize-up" if I stopped too long, starting to feel like a cross between the scarecrow, (if I only had a brain) and the tin woodsman, (I rust solid if I get caught in the rain for long).

 

 

Man, are we happy out here!

 

The Chores, Fresh Air, Green Acres is for ME.