Overdue post.

So I just realized that I never posted an update the previous weekend.  I wasn't feeling well and didn't do much.  I have been working remotely (kind of).  The tiny home doesn't have good facilities for this though, this was my desk.

One of the bright spots of two weekends ago was I finally caught the mouse that has been the bane of my existence since I got back.  This mouse was weird.  He wasn't interested in the normal bait that I use (my typical bait is peanut butter and sunflower seeds), but man he loved fats.  I started baiting the traps with butter, and it turned out he was a master of slicking them.  The most amusing part is that he had already slicked the trap that got him.  It is nice to not have to clean my counter every morning though.  

I just did some other odds and ends during the week, like grinding up the chicken I am bringing down.  

Also two weekends ago, I had the first breakdown of my riding mower.  It just threw the belt.  Apparently you have to remove all the guards to put it back on, which was kind of annoying, but it wasn't difficult to do.  It was the first time in over a month that I had mowed, and it really needed it.  

One thing I have noticed is that despite the frequent rain since I have gotten back from the White Mountains, we are still very much in a drought.  My creek is dry.

But we have definitely been getting rain.  The bedliner on the truck is still watertight. 

Last weekend started off kind of soggy.  While I was waiting for things to dry out, I went through and resmoothed the driveway.  I had spun the tires a couple of times in the Ford and made some holes.  

I also went and started to move things into the Ford.  I also replaced the batteries in my old Mag Lite.  Apparently it was well overdue, and they left goo on the sides, but I was still able to get the new batteries in.

The other big project for Saturday was to start cleaning up the areas I have been spraying with weed killer all year.  This turned out to be more work than I was expecting, especially since the weed wacker wouldn't start.  I started to take it apart, and there is a fuel leak in it somewhere.  I will deal with it probably next year at this point.  

Instead I used my hand weed wacker.  I chopped down the knotweed, and anything that had an ounce of green on it got tossed into my burn barrel.  As one might expect, I pulled out a lot of rocks and trash.

I used the tractor to push one of the big rocks out of the way.  

Once I got all that stuff taken care of, I also went and mulched it with the push mower.  And of course found more rocks.  It looks better now.  I don't think I will get any grass here this year, but the stage is set for lawn to reclaim it.  I might need to do some smoothing with it before I can take the rider through there, but the push mower can keep it clear at any rate.

The section took a lot longer than I anticipated, that took several hours.  I didn't really do much else on Saturday.  Sunday was also less than desirable from a weather standpoint, it was some weird misty thing until mid-afternoon.  I puttered around in the shed for a couple of hours, and I finished getting my toolbox and stuff in the truck Sunday, since I am headed down to KY later this week.  

Truck and town update.

So I just got a letter from the town, they caught on that my variance has expired, so I will be going to the zoning board and asking for a one year extension.  Otherwise this fall could be interesting.  

Now that I have driven the truck for a couple of days, a few notes: the gas mileage according to the computer seems to have settled just above 17mpg.  I was only getting 15 if I drove it easy in the Tundra.  The needle hasn't moved on the gas gauge yet, despite there being ~80 miles on the truck now.  I haven't calculated real mileage nor tested highway driving yet though.  

The truck rides a little rougher than I expected, you can feel the shifts, and there are a lot of them; the truck has a 10 speed transmission.  It also lets the engine lug a bit too, which while good for gas mileage, vibrates the truck ever so slightly.  

The truck can actually pull itself at 1000rpm.  

There are some really nifty settings. Like I can change whether the unlock button on the FOB opens all doors or just the driver's door.  But there are also some weird things like it doesn't automatically go back into the driving mode it was last in.  It prompts you when you start the truck, but the prompt doesn't stick around long enough to be useful.  I drove it home in "normal" and have been driving it in "eco" mode to and from work since I am typically the only person on the road when going to work and don't care if it slows down.  It also defaults the dash display to the trip meter when I have been leaving it on the gas mileage screen.

The pedals are very very different to the Tundra.  The pedals have much better stiffness to them.  The brakes are especially strong in the truck.  

The truck does have remote start, though it is through the app on my phone and not on the FOB.  

Back from vacation with a new truck.

My truck came in just as I was heading on vacation.  I picked it up yesterday after I got back. It is a 2022 F-150.  It has all the features that I wanted, the long box, the big gas tank, and so on.  It is definitely longer than the Tundra (though seems to turn almost as sharp), and even having only driven it home and to work this morning it definitely has more low end pull despite gong from a 4.6L V8 to a 3.5T V6.  It actually has good brakes which is a nice bonus.  Here are the highlights:

The truck's back doors open all the way to the bed.

The engine compartment.  Twin turbo 3.5L V6.  It puts out a lot more torque and HP than the Tundra, and it does it at a lower RPM.  On paper at least, this is the most powerful engine that Ford offers, it is more powerful than the 5.0L V8 (which is naturally aspirated).

It has the towing package.  This differs from the Ford rendering in a good way, which only had a 7 pin RV plug.  This has a flat-4 as well.

8' Bed.

The back seat is larger than expected.  While this is nice for interior storage, it also means the truck is longer than I expected.

The rendering didn't have the infotainment center, but this has the basic one.  This was kind of expected since backup cameras are required by DOT now.

The climate control is still a fairly simple system.  It also has some unexpected USB-C ports.  While the picture missed it, to the right of this is the 400W AC outlet.

The interior picture.

The front.  It has the fog lights.

Side of the truck.

The driver compartment.  Manual seat, but I was surprised that it had a telescoping wheel (that isn't listed on the website).

As for warranty, the truck comes with a 3yr/36k bumper to bumper, 5yr/60k powertrain, and the engine is lifetime.  I got it for the original MSRP when I ordered it, so a little over 49k.  

I went on two different vacations.  The first was a housewarming party for Krass down on Long Island.  His place is pretty nice,  I helped fix an electrical outlet while I was there.  I took the train down from Aunt's and Uncle's.  I didn't take many pictures of the place, but here are some pictures I took on the train ride down.

The Hudson river was low.  Really low.

I saw some interesting storm clouds as well.

The other excursion was going north with some of my coworkers to North Conway in the White Mountains (northern NH).  I haven't finished uploading the pictures from the trip yet, but the rental was pretty nice (though we had an errant chipmunk in the house).  It had a hot tub, which was well-utilized.  We did several hikes (including Black Cap and the Flume Gorge), some swimming holes, and so on.  I will post a link when all that stuff is uploaded.

Summer projects:

• Prep truck for trade in
• Determine house plans (modular vs mobile vs stick)
• Get my power service upgraded
• Shed floor
• Shed doors
• Concrete shed supports
• Anti-mouse the shed (seal it, maybe spray with pepper spray or something)
• Level the yard.
• Install windows in the shed.
• Fix/sell the utility trailer.
• Driveway round 5
• Determine the future method of travel.  Build prototype?

Candidates to postpone:

• Build a bridge over the creek
• Investigate retaining wall construction. 
• Clear walking trails on lot.
• Eliminate pile of crap in the back yard.  

Kind of a lazy weekend.

Saturday morning I repaired the water damage.  It took a little bit longer than I expected, the dirt was still very wet and clumpy.  

On the side, I decided to improve it a little, get rid of another dip as well as fix the washout.

I also redid the top of the septic tank.  This isn't packed down (I don't want to drive my tractor all over my septic tank) but at least the tank cover is underground again.  

It is also decision time.  I got to thinking, and I was thinking if I put a retaining wall in over here, I might actually have enough material to raise the side at least a few inches.  I went to Home Depot and looked at PT 6x6, but I am not sure it would be cheaper to do that then to just get another load of cheaper fill (whether it is gravel or whatever, it wouldn't matter as long as the top layer is dirt).  An 8 footer is $30, and I would need a lot of them.  

Right now I am leaning towards just getting more fill, but I need to decide soon, since it will make a difference for what I do with the rest of the dirt.  

While I was mulling that over, I went and raked the rest of the gravel out of what used to be yard.  

I used a little cheap rake that I picked up last time I was Tractor Supply.  It doesn't tear everything up like a bo rake does.  We shall see how long it lasts.

Sunday I went and did my normal weed killing.  My fears about the stalks coming back to life seems to be a little overblown.  A lot of the stalks are green again, but none of them sprouted new leaves or anything. 

One alternative to using the dirt in the dip in the back is to use it up here after I dig up the knotweed.  I intended to eventually get this area to be lawn all the way down to the stream.  If I want to do this I should start working on it very soon, time is running low for this year.  I wouldn't be using any of the gravel for this either, so I could still dump that in the back.  

Something that I observed when I was doing the weed killing: down by the road I used a different method of genocide, a method that I believe it was Matt sent me from some agriculture school or something.  Basically this method is let it grow to full size, hit it with a weed whacker and cut it all down in around end of June or early July, and then let it grow for a few weeks before spraying it weekly.  The idea is that once the plant is matured, cutting it down will stress out the root system, the re-growing stalks will use the built up energy in the root system, and then the subsequent spraying will kill those and ideally the root cell.  It is hard to argue with the results, this hasn't been sprayed in a few weeks now, and while there are a few not-dead stalks in the carnage zone, they are severely stunted and barely growing if at all.  It uses a lot less chemicals too which are very expensive.  I have spent several hundred dollars on vegetation killer this year.

I didn't really feel like doing much else on Sunday, but I didn't want to go inside, so I did my chores and finally convinced myself to pick up some trash.  I started with the bag of beer cans down by the stream.  I pulled most of the cans out and re-bagged them so I can take them to the recycling center on my next trip.

I also lit the burn barrel after dinner once it started to get dark.  

That was a mistake apparently.  Normally when I light it is burned down to coals in a few hours.  That wasn't the case this time.  I presume that there is too much ash in the bottom, so it had trouble breathing, and that was coupled with the fact that almost everything in it this time was the crappy half rotted MDF wood, which burned poorly at best.  The piece of T1-11 burned really good, but it was the only part that did.  Since the T1-11 is what I used to space the boards out so that air and fire could get between them, I had to tend it frequently to keep them spaced apart.  On more than one occasion I had to put some branches and stuff in it just to keep it alive.  I also ran out of charcoal lighter fluid (what I typically use to light it and give it a helping hand when the fire isn't doing well) which didn't help matters either.  

I ended up staying up until 2AM, despite lighting it at 7PM.  It did burn all the way through, so I won't have to do a second burn of it just to get it all burned up.  It was still smoking and smoldering a bit when I went to work this morning, but there was virtually nothing left.  It still looked like this at midnight.

I had some company while I was watching the fire, some bats came out to enjoy the bugs.  I saw four or five of them.  Apparently fire doesn't scare them away.  The black speck in the middle is a bat.  My phone struggled with the low light though.

No progress on the checklist. This is going to be a busy week for me, I am headed out to Aunt and Uncle's on Thursday, and visiting Krass for a housewarming party this coming weekend, and then when I get back I am headed up to northern NH for a week with some coworkers.  So it might be a while before I post again.  My new truck should be arriving the week I am gone too.  

Summer projects:

• Prep truck for trade in
• Determine house plans (modular vs mobile vs stick)
• Get my power service upgraded
• Shed floor
• Shed doors
• Concrete shed supports
• Anti-mouse the shed (seal it, maybe spray with pepper spray or something)
• Level the yard.
• Install windows in the shed.
• Fix/sell the utility trailer.
• Driveway round 5
• Determine the future method of travel.  Build prototype?

Candidates to postpone:

• Build a bridge over the creek
• Investigate retaining wall construction. 
• Clear walking trails on lot.
• Eliminate pile of crap in the back yard.