Getting stuck.

Last night after shopping (I went last night since Monday I did the final snow cleanup), I decided to try and get my saw horses out of the back yard to put the cap on.  Before I take it off the truck (it is currently falling off), I need somewhere to put it, so I decided to pull out the wheeler and have some fun.  

It turned out not to be as much fun as I hoped.  The wheeler started okay considering the temperature was down in the teens, but it looks like the 4WD on the wheeler doesn't work anymore.  It wasn't doing well in the snow, but I figured it was probably just still cold, so I took it to run up and down the driveway some, and it only went down.  I got about halfway back up and that was as far as she went.  I noticed only the front wheels were spinning though; the back wheels aren't driving at all.  

With some sadness, I ended up pulling it back up the hill with the tractor.

I forgot to mention this on the previous post, but I also fixed the elliptical.  I haven't gotten the stain out of the carpet yet though.

My driveway is really bad, but here are some snow pictures anyways.  

Productive weekend.

I think I finally have a handle on the technical issues.  My computer at work seems to be fixed, and the phone started behaving better after a software update.  It really annoys me that Android routinely forces updates by making things mysteriously stop working.  At least this time some of the updates actually improved things, like the camera app is better; they stopped trying to merge everything into one mode and pushed night mode back into its own setting (the way it used to be).  I also went out bowling Friday night.  I got the second highest score of the night, and our last game, since we didn't have enough time to finish, we had a speed competition.  I scored the fastest throw of the night at 22.7mph.

Saturday was abnormally productive, especially considering my arm was a bit sore.  Given the next storm was inbound, I worked on the snowblowers.  I remeasured everything, and sure enough, the old one was 2 inches too short.  So I intentionally cut the new one 2 inches too long.  

Guess what?  It was 2 inches too long.  So I cut it down a little further.  

Then it fit perfectly.  It was still a touch on the long side, but not long enough to damage the PTO or the snowblower, just long enough to be annoying to put in.  Because of how much I was cutting out though, the extra half inch or so of overlap is a good thing though.  

It lives.

The first stage didn't seem to feed the second stage very well.  I will have to clean this out every time I use the machine.  

I also got the metal plate installed on the chute for the walk behind.  

It is reinstalled and ready to go.

I also managed to get out and pick up a free truck cap.  The cap is in really rough shape and will need some TLC in the spring, but since new ones cost north of 3 grand I don't mind.

You also can't buy ones with the bump up that this one has.  Not on an 8' box.  Neither Leer or ARE make them.  Yes, I know it is dirty and needs a bath really badly.

Courtesy of the stupid tailgate design on my truck (the cap came off an older F-250), the window doesn't shut.  

I will fix the back window when I fix the fact that the bottom of it is starting to rot.  I had some trouble clamping it down, partially because an F-250 is wider than my truck by a couple inches, and partially because the bottom part is rotted.  Likely from sitting.  I plan to cut off the bottom chunk, and build a new base with a larger lip to make it easier to clamp.  

It is admittedly an obnoxiously small sample size, but the cap seems to have no impact on my gas mileage.  When I picked up the cap, the average for the tank was reading 21.2mpg, and it increased to 21.4mpg on the ride home.  I don't believe that my gas mileage is higher with it on, but that at least means I was still getting north of 21mpg with it on.

I will probably take it off soon though.  The way it is held on is really sketchy...  Yes, that is a board that is strapped into the lower bed rails.  And one of those straps is a cinch strap, not a ratchet strap.

The side isn't well attached either.  

I also picked up another shovel while I was out. 

Sunday was a snow day.  It snowed pretty much all day.  So I stayed in and played some games.  I did finally get around to assembling the stuff that came in Saturday though, and was put here to dry.  

This is the first attempt at under-counter storage for the bathroom.  It is disappointingly small, but it is one of the largest I was able to find.

I have concerns about its longevity considering that the shelves simply slide because there isn't much friction, there are no bearings or anything, but it did start to organize the underside of the sink,  I ordered two of the cheaper options, the other one hasn't come in yet.  

I woke up to a lot more snow than I expected this morning.  When I went to bed, the forecast said that the storm was mostly done, and there was only an inch, maybe two outside.  I came out to a little over 6" this morning.  And it was wet heavy snow.  

The tractor snowblower made very short work of it though.  I clearly need some practice and it is awkward to clear with, but it cleared the main part of the driveway in about a half hour (the walk behind takes 2 hours roughly, and this is one of the faster walk behind units I have had).  It threw it as fast as the tractor could back into it.  It did occasionally have an annoying habit of pushing the snow instead of throwing it though.  Usually when it started doing that I would just raise it a few inches, and then drop it down on it.  

I can definitely see why people who use these have cabs on their tractors though.  I got completely covered, and it wasn't windy out. 

As noted before, I do have to clean it out when I am done.  Oh well.  

Just because I was curious, I tried to back it up the hill.  Much to my surprise, it actually started to go up.  I didn't think the tractor would drive up it, much less snowblow it.  

One thing I noted is that I forgot to adjust the feet.  It dug a bit more than I would have liked.

As I was clearing off the truck, I noticed that the corner of the cap has come completely unfastened.  I will probably try to get a couple of people together tomorrow or Wednesday to get it taken off the truck.

This completes the ASAP portion of the to do list, the snowblowers were the last piece of it.  The cabinet upgrades are now in progress with the first bathroom shelf in place too.  We have a stretch of nice weather coming up, so hopefully I can get working on the armoire for the front entry and the new entertainment center.

Current To-do:

• ASAP
• Shorten PTO shaft for snowblower
• Final mowing of leaves?
• Winterize equipment
• Winter projects: 
• All the cabinet upgrades (bathroom, pantry, and kitchen)
• Design deck
• Build armoire.
• Install whole house filter.
• Shelving upgrades in master closet.
• Access panel upgrades in master closet
• Install cube organizer in living room.
• 2024 Projects:
• Back yard drainage.  Complete Mortgage.
• Insulate the water lines
• Take scrap metal to Buffum
• Close up tiny home.  Seal up plumbing.
• Deck
• Entertainment center
• Storm doors

Frigid weekend, technical issues.

There haven't been any posts in the past week primarily because of technical issues.  Randomly last week my phone decided it wasn't going to talk USB, which makes getting the pictures off it a lot more difficult.  I have also had pretty much every computer I have at work break down which doesn't help, since I frequently write the posts while I am in meetings.

In addition to all that, I haven't really done much.  The past week has been really frigid temperature-wise. We did get a few more inches of snow on Tuesday.  I went to improve the gorilla tape patch and learned that gorilla tape doesn't work in the cold.  It came off almost immediately.  

Since it wasn't that deep, I just decided I would drive over it.  It has turned everything into ice and I now require 4WD to get up my driveway though.  

Because of the aforementioned computer issues, I sketched up a quick camper concept while I was watching IT not fix anything.

Saturday was brutally cold, not even making it out of single digits so I didn't do anything outside.  Sunday wasn't quite as frigid though, so I decided to do something.  I got the tractor unstuck, since it had frozen into the ground again, basically pushing it out with the bucket.  

I didn't get a good picture, but I at least cleared down by the road with the bucket on the tractor before my fingers got numb.

I left the tailgate of my truck open all day, so the sun melted a lot of the snow out of it.

Once my fingers warmed back up (and after a slightly unplanned nap), I also got the discharge chute removed and brought inside so it will warm up enough to repair.  I go shopping tonight and will pick up a piece of something to repair it and make it a bit more solid then just tape.

The last thing I did Sunday was more formally draw up and measure the camper plans.  Man building a truck camper is really tight for space.  This is the floorplan.

This is what the kitchen side would look like.  

And the bed side.  I am not sure what I would do with the space at the back, but I would still need a place for the heater and Jackery and whatnot.  

It was designed so that it would sit inside the bedrails of the truck, and the tailgate would close.  This eliminates the need to remove the tailgate (or allows me to use the tailgate kind of like a porch).  Sitting inside the bedrails minimizes the funny angles I need for aerodynamic purposes.  If I need to, I could remove the tailgate and make the floorplan maybe a foot longer without increasing the footprint of my truck (my truck already doesn't fit in parking spaces).  For simplicity sake, I am planning on making it basically a box.  The only angles are the part over the cab.  I intend to use extruded aluminum to build the frame, and then skin it with aluminum on the outside, and 1/4" plywood on the inside.

Unproductive weekend.

Sorry this post is a day late, I forgot my phone yesterday.  

I didn't do too much over the weekend.  I woke up Saturday to all slush.  So I employed the best manner of clearing it possible: I did nothing and let it melt off.  It was in the 40s and rained most of the day.  It worked surprisingly well.  

A little before sunset, I got the snowblower that I picked up before the storm pulled out of the truck.  That was an exercise in disappointment.  I picked it up thinking tires and chutes were pretty standard.  I was wrong.  Very wrong.  There isn't a part on this thing that I can use.  Sigh.

On the plus side, it being warm enough to rain means the extension cord for the carport finally thawed out.  I have lights in the carport again.

It was actually a very pretty sunset.  I went down and shoveled the bit by the road that was left by hand.  I didn't get the picture until after most of the colors were gone though.  

Sunday was a lot more snowy than anticipated.  I was getting restless though and went out for a bit in between the squalls that weren't in the forecast.  I did another survey and brought my clippers out this time to start clearing some of the smaller stuff and wandered further up the hill this time.  There is still some concerns about rocks, but I think there are enough spots back here that it shouldn't be a problem.  My research indicates you need about 2 feet of soil for an apple tree.  Being on the hill I am less worried about the drainage.  I have a lot of pine back here so the fact that apple trees like slightly acidic soil should be fine.  

I am planning on planting them in clusters of 5; 4 fruit bearing trees in a square and a crabapple in the middle.  The idea being that the crabapple is considered a good pollinator, and I read online somewhere (so obviously it must be true...) that crabapple is more attractive to deer and insects so they will go after those and leave my apples alone.  For starters I plan on planting three of these clusters; 1 macintosh (good for cooking and eating) and 2 honeycrisp (last longer, a bit sweeter and juicier but less tangy than macs, make really good cider).  That is the plan anyways; gardening is not exactly my forte.  Here is a wonderful mspaint diagram.  The green outline is what I currently mow: this would be next to that.  The rock shelf noted on the left is where the pile of junk is (it is sitting on the rock shelf, which you can see right behind it today).  The apple trees are the brown dots, the crabapples the orange dots on the inside of the two rows.

While I was outside, I took some nifty cliff pictures

And some creek pictures.

There were definitely some high level winds though, the clouds in the sky were hauling.  There was a breeze at ground level, but it wasn't blustery.

Then I found out what they were hauling.  I got ushered back inside because of of this.  Less than five minutes before this my driveway was almost completely clear and there was even some sun poking out.  Sigh.

It started snowing last night (the next storm is here).  I think I need new tires.  They weren't great in the snow last year when they had <5k miles on them, but now that they have 35k on them they are worthless in the snow, I was all over the road this morning.  

I have been doing some thinking about the next truck camper idea.  I started thinking about what trips I will be taking in it, and here are ones that I came up with:

• Colorado
• Central Northern Tour (Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota
• I would probably hit up Indiana and Ohio on the way
• Northeast tour (I still have never been to Acadia, despite living just a few hours from it)
• Southeast Tour - Shenendoah, Great Smoky Mountains, New River Gorge, etc)
• Florida - Everglades, Dry Tortugas, and Key west
• Grand Teton, Yellowstone, and Glacier parks (those three are enough to be a long trip on their own)
• Pacific Coast highway and CA parks.  
• Northwest (Redwoods, Cascades, Mount Rainier, etc)
• Southwest (Saguaro, Valley of Fire, Death Valley, Hoover Dam)
• Alaska.

Most of those I could do with just a cap, and just keep some minimal provisioning in the back of the truck; just like Utah last fall; just stay in hotels instead of RV parks.  Some of those, particularly Alaska, I would more or less need a camper in the back for.  Several of them a camper would make them easier.  So I am still on the fence of the whole cap vs DIY camper.