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.