OMG part II !

I'm as shocked as you are!

Actually I'm not that shocked, I mean I was shocked, and am still upset about it, but really, I've almost died dozens of times since I moved here, so what's one more little electrocution? One on going problem is the wildlife that insists upon living in the space, under the soon to be removed room, of what we will soon be calling The Lodge, pretty snooty huh? I think that we should quit calling it the little house and call it The Lodge, it will be more apropos when we get the log siding, Hey, quit laughing, I can dream... I mean who would have ever thought we'd get a foundation poured and the room cleared out? Well okay the room isn't cleared out yet, but it will be! And then look out wildlife, your roof will soon be gone. The main reason they strive so hard to get under there, is that the crap heater hose, which I'm pretty sure was meant to be for an air return, is torn and the heat just blows under the floor. I just discovered that this summer, but as I intend to tear it off and fix the heating issues correctly, I have done nothing about it. I am going to cut it off and seal the passage it uses to get out there, this week though, and see if that doesn't help deter the varmints from getting into the crawl space, and the basement, though other than cats, I don't think anything has been in the basement, yet. So on to bigger and better things.

The floor has cured enough to support the shelves, so they are up and a couple bigger items are inside finally, after nearly a week out in the yard. I also returned the corner post to it's temporary rightful place, holding up the roof of the old entry way to The Lodge, (I really like the sound of that how about you?) I am still looking for an old electric stove to put down there, I have an old, Maytag wringer washer, that works, but a newer model might be nice, so if you are getting rid of either let me know. Meanwhile back at the Machine Shed. I will need to do something about the lighting obviously, so I am going to leave the top shelves fairly empty for now, as they might be good to sit on, while wiring the new light fixtures in. Chris helped me set the shelving units up, it wasn't easy. She couldn't take the banging on the steel parts with a sledge, to seat and unseat them, and I can't lift anything significant above my shoulders. But obviously we prevailed and got them set up, now I am waiting for the rain to stop so I can move the remainder of my good junk back into the safety of the Machine Shed. I still haven't decided to what level I will enclose this area. At least it gets tarps for this winter, and we will see what happens in the spring. As soon as all the good junk is re instilled into the shed, I will have room to get things done in the garage, as that is the big issue. The rest is just icing on the cake. And it will also make it much easier to accomplish the Lodge expansion, as the items I will have ready to use, will hopefully be easier to find when I need them, such as wire, boxes, outlets, lights, etc. All of which I have, and hope to be appropriate for the expansion. The only problem with this plan, is that I was totaled because of emptying the area before hand, by hand and in a hurry. I am so sore I can hardly think at this point. Add to it, the cleanup entails sorting and eliminating quite a lot of items I have decided are never going to be worth the effort, and a few things like the go karts that need to be redirected, due to their specific nature, and it becomes quite an involved process. At the end of which, I need to have a couple specific goals achieved, the ability to maintain the premises, and make improvements. While enjoying the many hobbies I have accumulated parts and supplies for. I have all I can handle at present, and for the future. But back to the mess, I had to use the truck to drag the motor hoist back up the hill to the garage, because I didn't like leaving it outside and in plain view in front of the littl.... Lodge. But, being as it is open ground, and wet due to the rain, I couldn't drag it the 100 feet, uphill, through the wet leaves to the new apron, of course after it was on the apron, no problem. (I think if I was ever to get rich, I would concrete the 1/2 acre the Lodge sits on, just to make it easier to get around. / Don't tell Roy!) YOU know, if you are ever looking for an example of a great brother, I have the guy to check out. He certainly has been terrific in his willingness to help and level of expertise in all areas of getting the job done. And considering the half assed way I usually end up, starting things out, the fact that he even still talks to me, is pretty miraculous. And yet, he is pleasant and good natured and a real joy to be around, even when things get just stupid, or I have made a stupid decision, he just buckles down and does his best to get it to work out as close to realistically as possible, and most often it works out just fine, and I actually can't think of a time it went bad, just maybe not as good as it could. But considering the point at which it went bizarre, certainly he has never been the one responsible, only for getting us that far. I can usually tell when he is wondering, he just gets quiet, drops his head forward and does whatever is required. He really should be running a multimillion dollar construction business, but his choice is to avoid imperial entanglements, and working for morons, I'm glad he makes an exception for me.

I am still amazed at the number of buildings with dirt, or worse, floors in this area of the country, of course the floor we just poured was in a building with trees as the posts, with the bark still on them, only the front center post in the picture above, is even a semblance of finished lumber. And all the cross braces and rafters are straight from the sawmill, full dimension lumber. So getting a "seal" on this building, isn't probably going to happen, but it is already far superior to it's original state.

As an update issue, which this is of course, here is what stopped me the night before the pour.The initial damage I noticed was due to the broken rod getting whacked into the inside of the piston and deforming the skirt, which I was checking to see if it was within the tolerance for the skirt clearance.

You may notice a crack in this picture. Where there should be no crack, but the totality of the damage is so extensive, it warranted it's own Malfunction Junktion page. So click on the blue name above and go there, and I'll link you back at the end of it. Other wise it is too much for some readers and they just want the quick laughs, and this gets a little technical. This all occurred, at least I realized it was a doomed project, at 5 A.M. 11-10-11 So I had a 30 x 12 area filled with heavy metal "good JUNK" and just over a day to get it ready for a concrete pour. Which of course was prescheduled and going to happen whether I was ready or not. So I went to bed, and woke up 5 hours later, and headed for the phone. I called everybody reasonably close with equipment, or a way to move it quickly, and tried to get another "anything with a bucket" I even tried the local dirt movers, but nobody had any running equipment, or a way to move it, or returned my calls. Well I knew my neighbor Richard has a couple front loader bucket tractors and a skid steer loader, but I wasn't sure about our friendship being on a loaning equipment basis yet. He has sent equipment, along with men to operate it, for snow removal. Which I greatly appreciate, but to loan a piece of equipment is different. But, he did, and it really saved the day, as I mentioned on the last page. But in the meantime my lovely wife was continuing the calls, and trying to find anyone with a backhoe and the time to show up "tomorrow morning" and dig for a couple hours. It wasn't going well. Chris called nearly everyone from Bird's Run Church, and got various leads, but the one that worked out was to a fellow with machinery Too big to use who was in transit to another job anyway so he recommended his Uncle, who" has a little backhoe... and might be interested in coming over, but you have to call him soon, he goes to bed at 9 P.M. Well with the darkness falling at 5:30 it was a good bet I'd be in by then to call, so when I came in at 6 ish, Chris dropped a paper in my lap and said, "call this guy". WELL, at that point, I had nothing to lose. So I called and he said he'd try to make it over in the morning. With everything else that was going on, I didn't hold much hope of things going that smoothly, But it turned out, this guy is golden, what a deal it turned out to be. He was on time and done with minutes to spare and did a great job of all I needed done. Had a laser transit set up, and really did a nice prep job for my operations. It went a little wonky later when I ended up with a few extra yards of concrete, but it certainly wasn't his fault.

The next little issue was the Extra truck load of concrete, now every time I have poured concrete since the Garage on Lake Street , where I came up one truck short of what I needed, and it was dark, and cold, and my "Worlds Greatest Brother, saved my sorry ass, I have always tried to make sure I had enough concrete, a little extra even, because a gaping hole in a corner of a building looks bad. But an extra pad in the yard is often handy. So I ordered and waited until I could definitely order, two full trucks of concrete. I certainly didn't expect the first pour to be so complete, as to make the second truck load unnecessary. I used it all, and it is making a wonderful difference for me already, but I was scrambling to make it work, non the less. THe cost wasn't in money, but in physical distress, to put it mildly, for the three weeks following that day of adrenaline. I was on the razor edge of overdose for about a week, just to keep moving. I guess someday I'm going to have to face the fact, "I'm a broken toy", Chris thinks I'm intentionally ignoring it, but I know it, I just hate to stop. I have seen the effects of stopping. Starting again, gets real hard. So I'm going to slow down, actually I have slowed down. I have backed my days down to a little warmer, a little lighter, a little shorter, and not as much lifting and nearly no carrying. I have even started to install the cranes that I have accumulated, Russ has been a big help there. In fact he has provided all, but the one hand winch I have had forever.

I even rebuilt another set of shelves to fit in the rear of the Machine bay, so every square foot of the concrete, is in use. It was sort of a challenge, as the parts were from different styles of shelving units and didn't fit together. I had to shorten the leg sections, as I did with the orange shelving, but it worked out fine, as they were also damaged by their life in the land of tow motors. I even used some of the removed section to build a metal skid for the 302 Ford engine I am storing. I've created a separate page just about the shelving, as it will only interest some of you as to how it was done. (CLICK HERE) Russ also brought a battery operated hand fork lift, which I have repaired and used to move a couple heavier items a little higher on the shelving.

There is a crane now in the machinery bay of the garage, on an I beam, and an outrigger. Which allows me to lift the Ranger 8 welder up and into the truck bed with a minimum of effort. He also brought a set of rolling stairs which make moving things in the machine shed shelving really possible, and almost convenient. I also grabbed a couple screw-in (add a plug) adapters for the machine shed light sockets, to allow the near immediate use of a couple fluorescent lights I had in the other garage. (Also a Russell accumulation, and another example of the inherent waste in construction projects.)

As I have been rebuilding the Kohler engine I keep finding little things that would usually cause it to be scrapped in other circumstances, a few years ago the neighbor brought me a cast iron intake manifold. I have tried to repair this kind of part before and had little luck , but I have been told it can be done if you are willing to buy the expensive rod to weld them, well the last time I was in town I bought a pound of the really expensive nickel rod, which is what I have read will allow me to weld the cast iron parts, and make them stick. So when I found the crack in the exhaust portion of the intake exhaust manifold, it put me in the position of trying the rod on something of my own, for a change. The size and location of the failure explains, the issues I have had in the past with an indeterminate exhaust gas leak, which has continued to blast heat and make a considerable amount of noise when the Bobcat was running. Fixing this will help a lot. I finally got all the parts and a couple warmer days in the garage, so I could finally reassemble the Kohler Twin cylinder BobCat engine.

Well lucky me! I had a fifty degree day, that was rain free, and I got the engine reinstalled in the Bobcat! HOORAY!!!!! First thing I did was clean up the dirt around the Littlehou---Lodge, it really looked bad with all the dirt piled around, and crazy scrap wood, and mess, around it. Not that the yard looks any better, still torn up, but it appears to have some progress being made, which is always better. I also started moving the larger items back in to the machine shed, like the Ford engine, and the welder with the VW engine on it.

Russ brought an unusual item down, a commercial floor scrubber machine, that you ride on, it is like a small Zamboni. Now you might ask what the hell I'll do with something like that, (at least Chris did!), well you have to look inside to see the real value! It is a 1300cc Ford engine driving a hydraulic pump, attached to two large hydraulic motors for locomotion, two hydraulic motors driving scrub brushes and a large rotary broom, and pumps and hydraulic cylinders to lift and move said brushes! It is a treasure trove of parts for other projects! And not only that, it is set to run on propane so it could be used as a power source for the house when the power goes out and only that monster propane tank is available for a fuel source. But that's a little ways down the road. For now, I am taking it all apart, and storing the parts on.... the shelves!

Here's a page about the disassembly of the Zamboni. And one picture of the results from the first days efforts. Chris thinks I make a mess when I'm working, but I have a hard time understanding what she means. How else can you disassemble a machine? I had to drain tanks, remove large sections of machinery and get underneath it to do it, how else would you think it should look? And I need to get it moved out of the way of the garage doors, now that it's getting to be nicer weather, I need total access to the front of the garage. And that apron is great! I can jack things up, and they don't sink, or shift, due to the mud, what a concept!

I'm pretty sure this is going to be the best summer yet.

I can use the tanks for all sorts of liquids around here, as I 've found the barrels seem to deteriorate in the sunlight, which I find to be weird. Not really a plus in the world of barrels for chemicals, that they deteriorate in sunlight.

 

And just in case you were siding with Chris about the eyesore issues, this is what it looked like, before I left it for the night. I don't want the place to be an eyesore either, in fact I intend to do a major clean up in the next week of nice weather. I want all the roadside views to be neat and clean. Now that I have nice shelving, and an option for an attempt at organization, I intend to make it "Farm Beautiful" around here. I also have a "remote storage area" that I am utilizing. And I might get most of the projects done this year that I have been putting off, because I now have some room to work.

I know, big plans huh? But I gotta keep trying. It will soon be time to start the gardens and that takes real toll on me.

 

 

 

Oh and about Oscar, you know the Goat. Well Oscar wasn't keeping up his end of the bargain, wouldn't eat the invasive plants, and actually did quite a bit of damage to what was a "finished" stall area in the back of the machine shed. Actually ate the wallboard, and knocked planks off the sliding barn door, not to mention the double roll of fencing he continually tore his way through. Well we found a lady in town, who wanted a goat for Thanksgiving, and Oscar filled the bill. So just remember, you get a job on the farm, you better do it well, or, there are no freeloaders on NADA FARM. Now about those cats, I better not see anymore mouse activity around here and the moles are going to have to move out into the woods to be safe, or we start thinning the herd.. I wanted One Cat, Chris thought two, now there are six. And the moles are tearing up the front yard..... short rations till I see improvement.

Man, are we happy out here!

 

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