The weekend was actually quite nice, much cooler than the prior week. The humidity broke too, Saturday was straight up gorgeous. My gas can might not have felt the same way though. Looks like it suffered from some major shrinkage.
I got my tractor out and put it to work. The first thing I did was take the snowblower off the back. It is too big and long, and makes the tractor not really fit in a lot of situations.
The main goal of the weekend was dumpster work. I started with the pile of old furniture that got moldy.
Surprisingly, there were a few pieces that hadn't started coming apart or disintegrating yet. The table actually still looked pretty nice. I don't think it is a coincidence that the stuff I built with real wood was still intact, and the stuff that was purchased, like the entertainment center, were well into the process of biodegrading.
The former pantry was still holding on too, but it was built with dimensional lumber, which can take being outside for a while before it rots. I don't know what that black thing is though. It is now in the dumpster with the rest of it.
That pile filled the dumpster a bit more than I expected. The dumpster in general is smaller than anticipated.
But all the moldy furniture is gone.
Also in that pile was my grading blade. It is now reattached on the back of the tractor. It is a good counterweight, and isn't half as long as the snowblower.
At that point, it was late in the afternoon, so I just did a little bit more cleanup, including the pile by cap with the pieces I cut off the cap. I also cleaned a bunch of stuff out of the house. The broken TV and pilei of bent racks are now gone which is nice. I can now move the fitness equipment down a bit if I want to. And finish clearing out that corner.
Sunday was less nice. It wasn't hot, but the humidity was on the rise, and the air was smoky and unpleasant, courtesy of the wildfires out west. I started off by pulling out my pushmower while it was still cooler out. I mowed over where the trailer was sitting. It was getting tall.
I also did the back yard where the drainage is going.
Lastly, I pushed the weeds back in the pile in the backyard.
That pile was the task for yesterday. Unfortunately at this point the dumpster was still mostly full, but I at least got the big bulky things I had put back there in the dumpster, the old appliances, the leaky rims for the Toyota, and so on. I also hit the ground with the grading blade in an attempt to smooth it out, though I am not sure it actually made it better, just different. But at any rate, this area can now be mowed with the lawn tractor. It has been reclaimed for my backyard.
I also cleaned up the pile of stuff from when they put the house in. All the stuff they ripped out of the ground, like my old power lines, water lines, and so on were in a pile out here.
I got that all cleaned up, and also tossed the leftover acrylic, which would be too fragile to use at this point, from the failed attempt at a cap cleaned up. It has also been reclaimed for the back yard. The one pipe still there I couldn't get out, the other end was still buried.
I went through and pulled out all the trash and large rocks from the drainage ditch area. Outside of moving the back steps, it is now ready for the excavator.
At this point, the dumpster is full. I still want to put my broken entertainment center in there so that will pretty much be it. I have to admit, it is a bit disappointing that I got a big 15 yard roll-off dumpster, which isn't cheap, and I only got 2 tractor buckets of progress on the pile in the back. The rest of the stuff that I chucked was stuff that I generated. Perhaps I need to be better about getting rid of stuff when bigger things go bad. These dumpsters aren't cheap; this one was $600 and that assumes I didn't go over 1 ton of stuff (if I did, there is an extra charge per ton). The fridge, tires, and furniture could have all been brought to the dump when they went bad for much less than that, even with the borderline insane prices that the dump charges (the tires would have been $15 apiece, the fridge would have been another $15 dollars, and generic waste is $200 a ton).
There were a few other things . For the meal on Saturday (I generally only eat one big meal on the weekends) and since I haven't been able to buy the spaghetti sauce I normally get in several months, I also had a spaghetti sauce roundup. There were 5 entrants: Hunts, Francesco Rinaldi, Ragu, Market Basket (store brand), Hannaford (store brand).
Here are the results:
- Hunt's
- Tasted as if they just put a different label on plain tomato sauce.
- So disappointing I threw the can away.
- Francesco Rinaldi
- Okay, not great.
- Tasted underseasoned, and the blend they used seemed odd.
- Little to no meat in meat sauce.
- Smooth to the point of being odd.
- Ragu
- Okay, not great.
- Tasted underseasoned, though their seasoning was a blend closer to what I am familiar with.
- Kind of runny.
- Did have small chunks of onion and tomato in it.
- Little to no meat.
- Should be noted I abandoned Ragu for Prego many years ago because it was meh.
- Market Basket store brand
- Seasoning they used is weird.
- It was mediocre.
- I have used Market Basket sauce for pizza and stuff in the past. It isn't as good as it was a year or two ago though. In fact, them changing the sauce is why I did this in the first place, I have used the older version of this as a stopgap in the past.
- Hannaford store brand
- This was awful. I threw the jar away.
Not sure I would say there was a winner. While historically I have always preferred meat sauce, I think the three cheese Prego for example was a superior sauce to all the ones I tried.
I also digitized the sticky notes. They can be found at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TPmOZVWpyrdDiDJX1aT6EfcOTY5JMYSiyDgLekX11U8/edit?usp=sharing
This is the general shape I would go with:
There are also a few possible floorplans in there, but for some reason I can't seem to copy and paste them without breaking Blogspot. Only the finest tools from Google. I pasted two of them, and the other is off the page to the side or something.
I guess technically the drainage ditch is started; mowing and getting the cruft and rocks out of the way was the first step, but I don't think I am going to mark it in progress until the excavator is chewing through the backyard. The rubbish removal is done though. I am glad it only took one weekend, which is part of the reason I got a smaller one. I am on the fence about whether to start the drainage ditch. I really need to finish the cap before my trip to Montana which is only a month away, though I suppose it is technically usable in its current state, it should be water tight. What remains is putting some extra fiberglass on top where it is weakened, putting a layer of glass around the base I rebuilt, and then repairing/replacing the back window. For this trip, just replacing the struts is probably sufficient, though I will have to come up with a way of keeping it closed then since the closing mechanism is seized. Part of me thinks I should have just bought a new cap. Yeah, I only have a couple hundred dollars in this one, but also a ton of time. For a measly 2-3 inches of extra height.
Current to-do:
- Design deck
- Build deck
Build armoire.- Install whole house filter.
- Refurb cap
- Access panel upgrades in master closet
- Back yard drainage.
- Insulate the water lines
Take scrap metal to Buffum. Clean up trash.- Close up tiny home. Seal up plumbing.
- Storm doors
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