Ray McCune's Website
(if the banner nearly fills the top, that's the best width for viewing, so I can avoid frames)
**************************************(June 2015) If this line is straight it is the proper page width*********************************************
You might have noticed, I'm trying to push "spring is here" a little, by going to green backgrounds, which are my spring , and summer colors. As if i've ever been able to be that consistent, but some times I mean to, if I think of it, through the haze. And the voices they are really not my friends, but enough of that for now. The new shoulder is working good no pain unless I over do it, but also not much in the way of strength. I don't know if I'm too timid about hurting it, or if it just won't do it. I think it's probably a little of both. The rotator cuff is completely gone now, and it is just the major muscle groups doing the work, they don't seem to like it much. But still, if I'm reasonable, and we know how often that is, it doesn't hurt. and it never hurts as bad as before. So, on to the summers festivities. The other skylight, the one in my bathroom, had continued leaking, but I was going to wait until the garage was built, to do all the roofing at once. It seemed doable, until Chris noticed BLACK MOLD! growing where it was dripping. That is not allowed!
Of course this might appear to be a beauty shot of little pickup, but really I'm showing the activities on the roof.
This is the roughed opening, showing the insulation, and lack of wasted space in the manufactured house.
This is the finished installation, far different from the plastic bubbles that leaked for years, as always everything is low bidder on this structure, even so much, as to make it hard to find direct replacements. The bathroom faucets are a prime example but I will finally replace them in February of 2016, prognostication is amazing!
So out it came, and the new one is now in place. And with the new shoulder, I was able to enclose the light shaft myself, this time. The very next day! Which meant a shorter period of blazing hot "attic air" in the main bathroom, and we moved and cleaned around everything for a change.
In preparation to refinishing the walls that were damaged by the removal of the mirrors that were around the garden tub. That's only been about 7 years coming.( And as of Dec 2015 still hasn't happened, but with all the rest, it should be obvious why I haven't done anything that could be broken or displaced during the moving of the house.)
The Sky Light shafts were finally expertly plastered by RUSS, who even removed a couple vents from a wall in the church and finished up the plaster there before going home to his own little hell on earth, A foot operation, which has turned out alright, but taken him off his feet all Summer. Fortunately it has all gone pretty well and he is doing a great job helping on the basement so far, but more of that on the winter 2015 page!
Also today, June 13 2015, I removed the second section of improperly installed footer, from the area that the garage is supposed to be constructed, of course the crooks that took our money and then went bankrupt won't be doing that, (DURABUILT and ALLWOOD CONSTRUCTION, same crooks different names...) so it leaves it up to me, but I do have two shoulders now, so it's a viable possibility. Will the rain never cease? I haven't been able to dig more than a couple bucket loads for a month, I can't even get the lawn mowed.
Did I mention before? That I have to drop back three generations of Mac OS to use the program I post this website with? Well if not, I just did, but that's one of the beauties of Mac machines, forward and backward compatibility, which will be handy later when I find the original disc that came with my scanner, which no longer works due to "upgrade obsolescence" From Canon, not Mac, which eliminates the ability of the scanner to do slides or film. The drivers are proprietary to the manufacturer, Canon, so the Macs can't simply upgrade them as required. And I did find a free driver program , but the free version doesn't facilitate the film and slide capabilities either, that is the $90.00 version, buncha damn Crooks! And the power supply died almost exactly the same time they quit offering upgrades, odd, but not unexpected. I got around that crappy plan , but still need the original disc, (Which as of December 2015, I still haven't found it! ) ( Another weird time out of place info point, I finally got a correct download March of 2016 and it works! What a weird world the internet seems to be.) And the garden is looking GREAT this year. More Tomatoes and Borage and Peppers than it is right for a single person to have access to, and we even put in some Sweet Potatoes, and Cucumbers!
Now you may be wondering, why all of this is so time disproportionate? Well until I get a job of this size under control, I hate to write too much about it. Which in reality means, I may be up to something right now that will make my headlines next Summer, but you could not hear about it till then, so you never know what is really up on NADA FARM, but I can offer you this, you probably won't expect it until you see it, and then you'll go, " Well yeah, he would, wouldn't he?" And of course the bottomless pit of Facebook, wherein all logic and social niceties are exterminated by the arousal of the worst instincts of the participants.
Anyway, this job, has been a doozy! As you'll see, as the pages finally progress. So hang on and enjoy the ride! As you'll soon see the project started as "add a garage", and then it was decided to install geo thermal heating and cooling, funded by the oil companies. Yep we are sitting on shale oil, we have a wee stream of coal that is of no value but has tied up the mineral rights for over 80 years, (and serves only to do that,) the coal I've found is about 1 to 2 inches thick and wet, literally "soft, wet, near clay" that has value for basically nothing. But somebody got $5.00 an acre for it's rights 80 years ago and probably thought they were rich at the time. Wonder if they bought new oil lamps? Anyway, the max system of geo thermal I wanted wouldn't fit in the same closet the original furnace did, so I decided a half basement would be nice and as it only involved moving 6084 cubit feet of dirt and putting up a couple block walls, how tough could it be? Of course the approach and then the support walls under the garage doubles that to 12168 cubic feet of clay, and a few hundred more for the driveway into the new basement, and as the clay weighs over a hundred pounds per cubic foot it involved moving about 1300000 pounds or 650 tons of dirt and replacing it with 40 tons of cement blocks and 40 tons of cement for floors and foundations, it was a heavy undertaking to say the least. And with my back, and damaged body, it wasn't quite as much fun as you might imagine. It was only possible due to my brother Roy, and son Russ, friends, family, and neighbors, who often shook their heads and sighed, and then jumped in, and propelled the project to the next phase.
At this point I have received all the cement blocks and sand, half the mortar, and enough bags of cement to complete the foundations. I still need to dig out a few of those tons of clay to pour the foundations and remove a few more feet of old foundation and block work to make way for the new walls.
As you might imagine by the picture here,
one of the biggest worries has been the support of the house while removing the original foundations, at times a large portion of the house has been supported on hydraulic jacks and tree stumps, and steel pipes and cement blocks, and actual adjusta posts. Posts have fallen out, been knocked out, and been knocked out of place by collapse, but as I'm a worrier, in most areas there have been backups when the situation warranted it. Also the fact that the house is actually a pair of side by side heavy steel trailer frames, with a house built on them, has worked to my advantage, supporting steel frameworks is almost a second nature action for me, and 
the fact that I have hit rock in my digging has given me a pretty secure feeling about the stability of the basement structure it is being mounted on. I can't imagine why anyone would opt for a curtain wall installation for a manufactured home unless they were in an area of flooding or a bog, but that's obviously just me. Of course when the walls are done the real fun starts, drains, electric, lighting, eventually maybe even a dropped ceiling. I don't think there will be many water issues(HAH) of course the water tank for the house, the fluid system for the geo thermal and the springs that run under the house might have different opinions on that score. Yes there are areas of active springs evident as I dig further under the house, of course it is my intent to fully waterproof and seal the basement as I build it, and drain lines are outside each wall and will be tied into the original footer drains (which were ineffectual to say the least) just as an attempt to forestall any future water issues. But we will explore this more completely in future pages.
The happy Nada Farmer, diggin and buildin, and generally pushing the limits of what's left of his parts, original and Titanium. And checking the efficacy of hydrocodone as a long term treatment for repairable injuries refused by the people who, "Just want to get the working man, back to work!" Liars!
Keep coming back, page Seventy One follows......soon.
