Stormy weekend.

Courtesy of Murphy, as soon as I turned on Route 9 to go to Stefan's, the check engine light turned off.  It was still a good visit though.  The car goes in for inspection on Wednesday.

It was kind of stormy this weekend.  Saturday I managed to get some tractor work in before it started to storm.  The drain pipe is now finished.


I also did a bunch more leveling up on the drain field.  I filled in one of the crevices in it.


I might have unfairly judged the dirt.  I haven't come across a single rock yet.  The "rocks" I saw were hardened clay, which I have been chopping up with the bucket. Just like the can I saw in the gravel pile was actually my receipt.  Oh well.  It is amazing how quick the dirt goes though.


The last thing I got in before it started storming was taking out another two buckets full of rocks, and I also smoothed the slope.  I should in theory be able to drive the lawn tractor down it now.


While it was storming, I decided to try breading (using almond flour so it was Keto friendly) some nice Haddock fillets I bought because I did a no-no and went shopping while hungry.  They came out very nice.


Sunday I woke up to another visitor.  It has actually been a while since I saw a deer in the yard.




She really enjoyed this plant.  The top three feet she pretty much stripped.


At that point it was clear that the impact hammer wasn't going to come in (Amazon delayed it), so I decided to mow.  Turns out it isn't hills that push mower doesn't like, it doesn't like a full fuel tank.  I I filled it very full this time, and even just sitting on flat ground it was sputtering.  I almost think it is flooding, if I push the primer bulb when it is sputtering, it gets much worse. Not to mention it was spitting gas out the cap.


Just some status updates: the salt block is a failure.  I might still try the mineral block, since should dissolve faster, perhaps have greater effect, but the salt block was a dismal failure.


The grass seed I planted held promise, but it never filled in.  It has been a month now.  Looks like I will need to get top soil after all.


After that I spent a good chunk of the day mowing.   I mowed most of the front.  It takes notably longer with the crappy pushmower than it did with the Troy Bilt.  And at the end, it looks better, but it doesn't really look mowed.  I know the blade stinks (it only has a little corner bent to create lift, which is woefully inadequate) but the blade is sharp, and it just doesn't cut well.  Considering these spots were shin deep though (even despite the drought) they really needed it though.




At that point it started drizzling, so I puttered around on the tractor for a bit but that was it.

Hopefully the impact hammer comes in soon so I can finish fixing the lawn tractor.  If I continue to have a lot of problems with it, it might be worth buying a nicer pushmower.  I bought that Poulan because it was cheap (it is a 30 dollar Craigslist cheapie) and I needed something that worked now, but it is clearly designed for flat level manicured lawns and doesn't work well on my lot.

Mowing.

It was finally cool enough for me to not melt outside yesterday, so I went out and convinced myself to at least do some mowing that I don't normally do with the tractor.  The push mower has apparently a new dislike for going downhill, it pretends like it is running out of gas when you angle it down a slope.  The gas however was very full, I filled it right before I started.  Ugh.  Some day I will find a mower that doesn't hate me.

All that said, I got the hill down by the septic complete.  There are still tall stalks that only got laid over and not cut, but oh well.  That is what happens when you wait until it is waist high to mow it I guess.


The really thick part at the edge of the driveway is done too.  I usually do some of this with the tractor, but not all of it (there is the beginning of a ditch in there).


I also did up to the shed.  This is usually done with the tractor too, but since I might start parking my car up there so I can get a dumpster on the slab, I mowed it.


One thing that was odd is that all the grass on the drain field is dying.  While my first thought would be that it is just burnt since we had several almost 90 days and are very very dry (my creek is already dry which doesn't always happen and this is the first time before August) it is literally the only spot in my yard that is even showing discoloration.  I guess my leech field emitted something that the grass didn't like or something.  Curious.


I am headed out tonight to Stefan's to get the code cleared in my car and I am going to borrow his sand blaster.  The new pulleys for the mower are supposed to come in today or tomorrow, so I will get another crack at the lawn tractor this weekend.

Another roaster. Time to buy an impact wrench.

Fixing the Nissan was a no-go, the light is still on.  I think at this point I might go visit Stefan and just forcibly clear the code since his reader will actually talk to the Nissan.

Happy father's day.  Sunday was another roaster.  I ran out of paint, but the clothesline is complete, just some touch up painting and I did partially string it today, though I apparently didn't get a picture of it. 


After that I went to the deck.  It is a really good thing I bought two spindles.

The one that was not obviously broken the shaft is stripped and it doesn't actually hold the blade.  It is really getting frustrating that these spindles are all cheap pieces of crap.  Most of the star is ground down and the blade doesn't sit on it anymore. 


Since that one only needs a new shaft, I was able to pull the shaft out of the other broken one.


Unfortunately though, there isn't a good way to get the pulley off.  Usually I just hold the blade and wrench on the big nut.  So I tried to put a screw in the hole in the pulley, and the nut apparently welded itself in and I broke the screw.


So I went and brought out the vice grips.  And now the pulley is destroyed, so I need to buy another pulley now.  The teeth stripped right off the inside of pulley.  I think it is time to buy an impact wrench which probably would have taken everything right apart.


Something else I discovered when I took the deck apart is that one of my blades is slightly bent.  I am sure this has nothing to do with the various branches I have run over or the rocks that I have trimmed...  I think I have a spare blade still kicking around somewhere.


After cooling off and convincing myself that the yard wasn't bad enough to warrant mowing with the pushmower in 90 degrees and high humidity, I decided to spend the rest of the afternoon on my tractor.  I started fixing the back yard.  Most of former ditch is done now.  I also built it up a little (the ditch used to be in a small dip).  It is amazing how the piles of dirt that were dug out of the trench diminished to nothing when I pulled all the crap out of them, I ended up bringing up 5 or 6 buckets of dirt for this.


This is all that is left of the ditch.  There is still a little bit left.  There is dirt behind the trench.  I tried to drag it in with the tractor, but the bucket didn't quite reach far enough unless I wanted to put the front wheels in the trench.  That wouldn't be a problem normally, the front bucket can lift the front of the tractor out of the ditch, but it would crush the pipe.  So I will be shoveling it back in manually.  Or possibly just bringing up dirt to fill in the trench so I can get to it, and then using that dirt for other leveling in the back yard, which sounds more appealing. 


I may have accidentally ran over my shovel.  Oops


I will order another pulley today, and hopefully it doesn't take 11 days to come in.  I might order a spare just in case, since the other one is pretty chewed up as well, and I am sure I will be replacing another spindle before too long. 

Clothesline ready to be strung.

Friday night I went and picked up some freebies.  When I came back, I happened to notice that my buddy was still kicking around.  I guess he is living in my yard somewhere, I have seen him three times now.


I got another shovel and a spreader.


Speaking of spreader, the grass is starting to fill in.  It will grow in the crap dirt I have been getting, so I will have a debate about whether to bother getting loam brought in at the end of all my site work. 


Today was hot.  Really hot.  I ran some errands in the morning after I got up.  My septic loan is now paid off. 

After coming back from that I got to work on the clothesline.  I got the base cleaned up.  The primer took it all off, but it was a bigger pain than I expected.


I also got all the branches on and the trunk put on.  The tape was so I didn't have to stand there for 10 minutes with each piece until it set and to make sure they didn't sag before the cement cured.


I also finished installing the screws for the socks/underwear branch. This will allow me to string some rope for smaller stuff. 


That branch is now installed too.  All that is left is stringing and a little painting. 


I also went out and started to do some work in the back yard with the hope of being able to mow it with the currently broken lawn tractor some day.  I smoothed out around the well. 


I also went and started to pick up rocks just chilling in my back yard.  There were a lot of big ones.


But the area is now free of rocks.  I should be able to start bringing up dirt and smoothing. 


After that I was pretty roasted.  I noticed a wasp nest on my way back in though, so it has been sprayed with wasp killer. 


The spindles did arrive today, so I have a project to work on tomorrow.  They are only almost a week late.  I don't intend to be kind to the seller on Ebay.  In addition, the guy thought it was a good idea to put two metal spindles into a single plastic priority mail bag.  And apparently USPS thought "hey, they ripped through our thick mailer, so a thinner bag should be adequate to hold it".  I hope they aren't missing pieces, I haven't looked them over yet.


After I finish this post I intend to take the Nissan out tonight, since it hasn't moved in over a month.  I just need darkness so they can't see the sticker on it.  I charged the battery last weekend though so hopefully nothing goes awry.  I really need to get it out of there so I can get another dumpster up there to start cleaning the pile in the back out.  I might also get a load of dirt dumped directly into the back since it will need at least a truck or two on its own.

Quiet few days.

I apparently whacked my back or something last weekend even though I don't recall anything happening, so I have taken it easy the last few days.  I went and ordered more dirt and just regular gravel for the driveway.  Last year I used crushed stone because it was in the mud, but this is closer to what one would normally use for a driveway, or so I was told.  There is too much dirt for my liking though.  It is a lot cheaper than crushed stone though.  And I love the random can in the middle of the pile.


The dirt.  It has a lot more boulders than the delivery last year did too.  It might be time to start looking for another quarry.


The pile looks bigger than the last one I got too, even though they were both supposedly a full 10 wheeler.


Apparently I wasn't the only one checking out the the pile.  I had a visit from a porcupine.




I did do some more research on the internet front.  Satellite is a no-go.  It appears that they set up dishes to connect to a specific set of satellites, which would be constantly changing if I were travelling.  Most of the providers explicitly call out mobile applications as not being supported as well.  They do make satellite hotspots, but they are atrocious at best for data speeds.

So I went back to the cell phone idea.  In theory, 3G should be fast enough.  3G should give me a few megabit (depending on the technology it uses).  https://kenstechtips.com/index.php/download-speeds-2g-3g-and-4g-actual-meaning

Supposedly remote desktop uses less than a megabit though.  I might want to measure this though.  I know on my current tether which measures only marginally better than 3G it works though.  https://superuser.com/questions/43797/microsoft-remote-desktop-bandwidth-usage  

A few more PVC connections is all that is left.

It was a very nice weekend.  It actually got a little chilly Saturday night (cold enough to snow actually), but that made it really nice working outside Sunday morning. 


I cleaned out the receiver and hosed it down with WD-40.  Hopefully that will make it last longer.




I then got to work on the clothesline.  The first thing I did was install the rebar in the base of the trunk. 


I then got everything ready for the concrete, cutting a base board and getting the concrete out of the shed.


I found a use for the mason jars.


I then had my own miniature concrete party.  The single bag filled it more than I expected.  I ended getting a normal bag because they were out of the smaller ones I prefer to use. 


I then had the fun of trying to mix it inside the drum.  I used one of the pieces of rebar for the handle to mix it.  It was a real pain in the neck getting the PVC in there and level.  Perhaps I should have installed the PVC before mixing the concrete.  Too late now though. 


I then went to finish the painting.  This time I taped it first.


The trunk is now painted.


I then went and tried to get the paint off the end of the pipes that I didn't tape.  I tried hand sandpaper.  It didn't work. 


The file kind of worked, if I wanted to spend another week to clean it off.


So I brought out the big guns.  The bench wire brush I got from Barry.


It cleaned it off without breaking a sweat.  It did damage the pipe a little bit, but not enough to compromise the strength I hope.


While things were drying and went out and mowed.  That Poulan push mower still sucks as bad as I remember.  The back is done, even though I had to go over it 3 times (4 in some places).  This will enable me to bring the tractor around and start leveling it though and finish filling in the trench for the drainage pipe (the last piece of that project).


I did a chunk of the front that I can't do with the lawn tractor until the push mower ran out of gas.  Saw a butterfly.


I went and checked on the salt block.  It appears to be kind of sort of working.  They aren't dead (I only put the block out a week ago or so), but the knotweed that I chopped down near the block isn't really regrowing.  It didn't appear to affect a large area though, so I would need a few dozen blocks.  I will let it go for a bit longer.


I also started to assemble branches on the trunk.  Since the pipe has been ground down a little bit, they take a lot longer to set (I have been putting extra cement in them) but they appear to be solid. 


I was pretty tired by then (mixing concrete and push mowing was a good workout), so I went and did some research.  One of the things I found out made me a little sad.  Purple primer dissolves paint, so all that work I did to clean off the paint on the PVC was completely unnecessary, the paint would have come off when I put on the primer.  I was curious because painting PVC is actually quite common since leaving PVC in direct sunlight damages it.  So I tested it, and it sure enough it came right off.  Sigh.  I feel dumb.


I also poked around some coverage maps.  I was originally planning on using my phone as a hotspot, but you may recall my last trip to KY I had large swaths of road where there was no coverage.  Looking at the coverage maps, if I want to go out west, coverage may well be a problem. 
Here is the Republic coverage:


Google Fi:


Cricket:


And just to see if I was being unreasonable in thinking that at least all interstates would be covered by 2020, I pulled up Verizon.  Turns out I was in fact being unreasonable.


So using my phone for internet would require meticulous planning.  Most interstates are covered for calls these days, but a lot of the west only has 3G, which I don't think will run a remote desktop session.  If I wanted to take any more scenic routes out west (like route 1 or 66) I would be up the creek for a lot of it.  And possibly have to drive several hours to get signal out in places like Idaho or Nevada.  So I looked at couple of satellite providers, and it looks like Hughes net is the top competitor there.  Viasat has better speeds, but they have very draconian data caps.