Spring Planting

Last week was seven days of the most beautiful weather up on the mountain; clear skys, cool nights, breezy days. I really hated to come back to the big city. Oh well.

We started the week off by planting ten sets of tomato plants. These we started from seed which we saved from years past. The previous weekend we planted 11 or 12 sets at the Atlanta house along with some pepper plants. The leftovers we brought to RW to see if the deer and rabbits would let us have us some :-)



Also, we temporarily planted about 20 tree seedlings of five different varieties that we got from National Arbor Day Foundation. These will be scattered about the property as they are ready for transplant. Among them are Redbud, Dogwood, and Hawthorn.



My main goal this trip was to get the footer dug and poured for the water storage tank. This footer is specifically for a block wall that I will erect around the tank for protection from punctures (tree limbs, stray bullets, etc.) and temperature extremes. I had chosen this site several months ago and already had done some rough grading with the tractor and box blade. However, as I began to survey it for the footers, I started to have second thoughts about whether it would be high enough to provide adequate pressure.

I got up before the sun one morning and used my tiny laser level and camera tripod to once again attempt to measure the elevation. This time I came up with 32 feet above the cabin floor (38 last time). When I calculated the pressure I came up with about 15 psi. Then I began to worry. I knew that the pressure in our Atlanta house was more like 65 psi. So, was 15 going to be enough? Unfortunately, I did not have my engineering reference books nor an Internet connection to find the answer so I decided to give it the old experimental approach.

I had already set up a couple of the rain barrels to provide water for my concrete mixing. I went to town and purchased a bunch of garden hose. When I filled the barrels, the flow at the bath house which is about 28 feet below the tank was 3 gallons a minute - considerably more than necessary for a good shower.

Now its time to get to work. I finished leveling the footer trench. Then I set up a simple bending rig to shape the rebar into approximately circular segments. I cut a bunch of 12 inch lengths of rebar to drive into the bottom of the footer to provide both a hanger from which to suspend the rebar and a depth gauge for the thickness of the concrete.








With the rebar in place and the depth pins set, it was Mix - Pour - Trowel over and over until the footer was filled to the proper depth (4 inches in this case). Initially, I hauled 18 bags of Quickrete up to the site in the trailer along with the generator and mixer. Additional bags of concrete mix were brought up from the shop as needed. I was prepared to work well past dark so I also brought up another extension cord and a floodlight. Fortunately for me, that was unnecessary.




The loose rocks in the bottom of the trench were added as an insurance policy to guarantee I had enough concrete mix. As it turned out, I was able to return 10 bags. This little job required 26 - 50# bags of Quikrete concrete mix and 80 feet of 3/8 rebar.

Nature

Its difficult to not see interesting things in nature. I try to take the time to photograph some of the beautiful things I see as I go about my chores and ramblings. Hover over each of the pics below for a short title.

I'm Still Here

So, its been a long time. Not like I have been sleeping in my den with the TV controller barely hanging onto my fingers. I've been very busy though I have accomplished very little.

Stacking Lumber (Jan 4-5 & 19)

Just another of the many distractions from the stuff I really need to do (or want to do). A great big pile of rough cut lumber left behind by the guys who did the siding on the shop. I really wanted to keep it for future projects or repairs so I had to put it somewhere protected other than the floor of my shop.



First I had to rake out all the leaves that had blown under the shop in the past couple of years. Then I had to put down a vapor barrier of some kind (I used an old tarp that had ripped). Finally set up a rack on which to stack the lumber off the ground.




To keep the wood dry, I cut ricks (rhymes with sticks because that is what they look like) to place between each layer of wood thus providing good air flow.

I can see the floor of my shop again - its time to cover it up again.

Moving Tools (Jan 19)

Some upcoming work in the Atlanta house prompted me to get some of my tools and stuff out of the basement. This is just a fraction but at least it is a start.


Oh, well, so much for having empty floor space in the shop.

Doctoring Trakker (Jan 25-26 & Feb 9 )

I thought the tractor would be a huge time saver for me. Ha!. I've spent a great deal of my RW time and money working on the tractor. It was not exactly broken, it just needed some work.

First of all, I don't think the oil has ever been changed - certainly not the hydraulic fluid. I did both as well as new filters all around. That's when I learned about filling the fuel filter with diesel BEFORE putting it into service. A large air bubble in the fuel line takes a long time to bleed out.



While getting a feel for how the tractor handles with the bush hog attached, I noticed that when I stopped the tractor with the brake and the clutch in, the still spinning bush hog blade was feeding power back into the drive train enough to turn the left rear wheel. That is when I realized that the brake was not working on that side. The left brake was rusted up and the linkage was completely missing. I made new linkage from hardware store parts and rebuilt the frozen brake. Including making new gaskets from bulk material.



Of course, removing old rusty bolts leads to breakage resulting in drilling, extracting, and replacing the broken bolt. I also discovered that the parking brake mechanism was non-functional due to a missing bolt.

I purchased an overrun clutch in hopes of preventing power feedback from the bush hog. Alas, it would not fit. The bush hog drive shaft would not go back far enough to accommodate the additional 6 inches.

Water Tank Site Prep (Jan 25)

My water storage tank has been sitting on the ground unused since November. I thought this would be a good opportunity to hitch up the box blade and do some coarse grading at the site of the tank. It was during this operation that first one of the check chains and then one of the lift arm levelers broke. Just plain old age I guess.



Well, this project gets put on hold.

Trakker Gets Hitched (Feb 22)

Since I already needed new hitch parts and since I needed longer lift arms to work with my overrun clutch, I decided to upgrade the entire 3-point hitch - new everything. Including taking the heavy steel check chain brackets to a machine shop for new holes.

Bush Hogging (Mar 22-23)

The Bush Hog is by far the most useful implement I own. In just a couple of days, I cleared brush from 2-3 acres. This may not sound like a lot, but consider that I am completely inexperienced in this. Oh, yeah, I've managed to clear twice this much with a chain saw and a push mower but it took me weeks.

I have no intention of clearing the entire 40 acres (nor the delusion that I could keep it that way) but I can now manage to keep a decent fire break around all of my buildings and it wont take up a month of weekends.

Windows (Mar 22, Apr 6 & Apr 19)

One thing I have been working on are the windows that I am putting in the shop. These were freebies I salvaged from a trailer that was on its way to the dump. They were standard 2-piece sash windows that slide up and down. My plan is to use them as simple hinged windows.



Because the sash windows rely on springs to hold them in position, there is a deep groove on both the left and right edges (to house the spring). This groove had to be filled to provide adequate strength for the hinge screws. Yes, I could have cut the "ears" off but then I would have lost nearly half the width of the window frame.

I was not able to find suitable stock to fill the grooves so I cut strips out of 1x6 and milled a rounded edge with my router. Then the strips were glued into the window frames and "clamped" with 16 ga finish nails.

Now Carolyn will have a mission while I am busy setting up the water tank. She has volunteered to re-glaze and paint each of the windows before I install them.

It was during this week that I noticed that the Almond tree was blooming. Big white blossoms where nothing else was blooming. At least so I thought until I was driving away  - that's when I spotted this other white blossom.


With Amber's help, it has been identified as Serviceberry.

Forty Acres and a What?!

No. I did not get a mule with my forty acres. Not even an old gray mare. But this past weekend, I did pick up an old gray market tractor. That is what they call an import that was not officially sanctioned. In other words, my Kubota L1500 was never officially allowed to be imported into the country because it did not meet government safety standards. But somehow, it got in and now it is mine.

It was purchased from an individual down below Birmingham and hauled up here on a borrowed equipment trailer with my Trailblazer. Thank you, Randy, for your trust and your generosity.

Getting the tractor and implements on the trailer was pretty easy. Getting them off proved to be sort of exciting. Sorry I do not even have a still of this event much less some video. Then again, it might be best unremembered.




Although it rained almost continuously on Sunday, I did take a few minutes to Bush Hog an access road up to where the water tank is.