Not only snow.

It's been a couple of weeks since the last update, and most of what has been going is just snow.  The snow two weekends ago was nice and fluffy, and I was actually to just sweep it.

 

As usual, the weekend two weekends ago was doing snow work.  I was finally able to get this area cleaned out.  Without getting the tractor stuck this time.

 

I also discovered that if I park the tractor obscenely close to the shed, I can turn the CR-V around and don't need to back out of the driveway, so I rearranged how I had been parking.  It makes parking the tractor a bit annoying, but its nice to go forwards out the driveway.  I cleaned up this area more than usual too.  

 

During the week (not last week, the week before), I also went out and picked up some rims.  They should fit my Dad's Camry.  

 

My truck went in for the coolant leak.  Bob's couldn't find it, and they couldn't repair the stupid felt skid plate thing either so I just had them rip it off.  

 

The past week was actually really nice most of the week.  One of the days that it got up into the 40s, I decided to try to start the excavator.  It was a no go; it just clicked, so it looks like I will have to charge up that battery come spring.

 

Unfortunately the latter half of the week was a double whammy.  We got about 6" on Wednesday, and it was obnoxiously wet and heavy, which made clearing it painful; it was wet enough that even the tractor bucket was constantly trying to ride up over it instead of clearing it.  

 

Then last weekend we got another 8-9 inches.  Thankfully this was more dry.  It was drifting really bad though, which made for some interesting edge.

 

Monday I finished clearing it.  If we get too much more, I will have a big problem.  My snowbanks are already taller than my tractor can lift, and too deep for me to push.  They have already encroached and consumed a few feet of the end of the driveway.  

 

I actually dumped more than a few bucketfuls across the street.

 

Annoyingly one of my turn signals on the tractor got whacked.  I don't see any damage though, so hopefully they were just knocked off.

 

While I haven't done too much else (I have been really lazy lately), I did start to think about how the "utility room" is going to work in the box truck.  

I did eventually do the math.  It won't all fit, but all the important stuff will.  Barely.  And I do mean barely.  Enough that board thicknesses will have to be monitored when building it.

 

I also started to document everything I will need in the barn I am planning to build in KY.

This is what I will need to have in my workshop:

• Storage Room

• Totes

• Couch

• TV

• Speakers

• Desks

• Hot Tub?

• Freezer

• Bed

• Dresser

• Shop

• Freestanding Tools

• Table Saw

• Miter Saw

• Benchtop tools

• Drill Press

• Bandsaw

• Router Table

• Planer

• Jointer

• Benchtop grinder

• Sanding station

• Shop vac

• Tool boxes

• 2 tables

• Storage for lumber and a few finished goods

You may recall I was going to try to do my own meal prep.  I started to do so, and it wasn't actually all that bad, but I quickly ran out of containers, so I bought a bulk set.  They are cheap and flimsy, but supposedly dishwasher and microwave safe.  I got some two compartment, and some single compartment.  Washing them all was fun; they had oil and smears of stuff on them from the factory.  They are cheap enough too that even if they don't last more than a half dozen uses, it isn't a big deal.

 

Short unexciting post.

Last weekend was cold and snowy, again, so not too much happened.  I finished pulling the tractor out Friday.   I decided to use my shorter tow rope since I don't have a lot of space in the driveway, but it was not up to the task.  Thankfully it failed gracefully, and didn't turn into a whip.

 

It came right out with the regular strap, it just took 10 minutes of winding it around things because it is so long.  Thankfully no flat tires on the tractor since it was rubbing up against the side of the trailer.

 

I noted a coolant leak in the truck a few posts ago.  It has gotten a lot worse apparently.  Time to bring it in.  I don't mind if it loses a drop here and there, but in the half hour it took me to pull the tractor out, it lost what looks to be a lot more significant amount than that.

 

I mentioned in my last post that I had stopped the meal services that I was trying.  Instead I am trying a different approach of just cooking normally but increasing the volumes; like for this cajun chicken pasta, I made 4 frozen meals and had it for dinner.  We shall see how long that lasts.  But I did end up making 6 frozen meals over the weekend.  At least in the winter this should work, since I am not doing stuff in the evenings when I get home from work and have the time to cook. 

 

It looks like we have more snow coming in this weekend, so I am guessing the next post will be equally short and boring. It is at least supposed to warm up, and even might get above freezing this week though, which will be nice.  I never did finish cleaning the drieway between the tractor getting stuck, and running out of diesel.  I did pick up more when out shopping last night.

Time to go woodchuck hunting.

The cold has persisted, so not too much has gone on.  According to the radio we set a new record low last week in Keene.  It dropped briefly to -12, though I had put my phone away by then since I was driving.

 

Last weekend was another indoor weekend.  I finally got around to changing out the shower head in the master bathroom.  

 

It interfered with the basket, but I picked up a bathroom hook to move the basket when I went shopping last week.

 

The big task for the weekend was to get the truck out and finish clearing up top.  The bed was literally full.

 

It got it all shoveled out and cleared off though.  

 

It drove itself out, but it seemingly has developed another few annoying problems.  My locking diff failed.

 

It now does this too, as if the computer can't detect when the ignition is turned off anymore. 

 

I also got the tractor stuck again. 

 

Despite the issues though, I got the truck to at least pull the tractor back onto the driveway.  The back end is buried in a snowbank, but I think if I shovel around the grading blade, it should be fine.  Or just move the car and finish pulling it out.  It ended up over here because of my limited space in the driveway.  I will deal with it this weekend before the snow comes back on Sunday.  It ended up scraping along the trailer.  I really need to get rid of that trailer, though admittedly the trailer is all that protected my septic tank from being driven over by the tractor.

 

I also did a couple of other odds and ends, some cleaning and organizing, and some things like cutting holders for the hard egg cases I got from Aunt and Uncle.  large eggs moved around in the case a little bit more than I liked.

 

So I finished up the new game I bought, and I also ate the last of the CleanEatz meals that I bought.  In general, I found them to be plain, and less filling than the Factory ones.  I will post reviews of them in my reviews document at some point this week (available here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DKy7eu7u7MPrF9hXWjVT1ANctkXLLzsvnxWYXUKmz1w/edit?usp=sharing).  I have been thinking though, and even the CleanEatz which were much cheaper than Factory and actually arrived shipped properly, they are still a little over 6 bucks a meal.  For the cost of two of those meals, I can buy all this and a bag of cheese, and it will make more than 2 meals, and taste better.  I typically add seasoning and cheese to the frozen meals anyways, so why not just make my own?  That way I can portion them the way I like and I won't be rummaging around in the kitchen an hour later.  The biggest problem is it means I have to not be lazy and cook, which was one of the biggest reasons I made the switch to begin with.  Hmmm.

 

The snow is supposed to return Sunday, though this week hasn't been as bad, it has at least warmed up during the day.  Sadly, nobody has eliminated the pesky groundhog, but it really does feel like we are in the later stages of winter, so hopefully he is wrong (though his accuracy isn't any worse than the other forecasters these days). 

Snow. Lots of it.

The weekend was a snowy one.  I did discover something on Saturday though as I waited for the snow.  Apparently the issues I have been having with the water filter are entirely my fault.  I completely forgot to switch it over from external drain to internal.  As soon as I switched it everything depressurized, and there is no more air pockets in the water.  It has been failing to backflush for quite some time too.  My theory is that the pressure was pushing on the bypass valve and the air valve since the system is not designed to have pressure, and it sucks in air during the backwash.

Out of curiosity, I looked outside, and while the top layer was melted through, it has pretty clearly not been backflushing outside, which is no surprise.

 

The weekend was otherwise pretty quiet.  It snowed.

 

And Snowed

 

And have I mentioned there was some snow.  This is a 30 minute timelapse, and you can see the truck bed get fuller and fuller.

  

All told we got around 24"  had a little over 18 inches (around 20) when I went to clear it the first time on Monday.  The tractor started, albeit rather unhappily.  I gave it a few extra seconds on the glow plugs too.  

 

Clearing it with the tractor wasn't fun.  I got the tractor stuck twice (yeah, I needed my chains today, for the first time in years) and it wasn't fun trying to plow with the bucket when the snow was taller than the bucket.  The rear blade was faster though, despite being shorter.  It still took at least three passes over the same spot though before it was clear because it just kept billowing over.  The banks at the end of the road are now in the driveway, and are taller than the tractor can lift, so there isn't much I can do about it. I cleared twice, once during daylight, and once in the evening when the snow had mostly finished.  There was about 4 inches the second clearing.

 

I got drenched clear through.  It was kind of chilly too, I was frozen when I got back in.  The first clearing took about 3 hours, and didn't get all of the top of the driveway.  

 

The drifts were pretty impressive.  The car was becoming one with the house and carport.

Even the truck was pretty well buried.  Despite that though, the car drove right out of it this morning.

 

Outside of snow I did do a little planning on the truck house and played games.  I started to plan out the electronics side of the computer a bit.  Basically I am using an Arduino as an IO board, though I might roll my own depending on whether or not you can put Arduino boards into low power mode since this will be on 24/7.   

This is how I think it will all end up being connected:

Network

├───NAS

├───PC

│   ├───Arduino

│   │   ├───Analog Input (are there any?)

│   │   ├───GPIO

│   │   │   ├───Back Door Sensor

│   │   │   ├───Exterior box sensors (may be many)

│   │   │   ├───Stair Sensor

│   │   │   └───Tank Level Sensor (4-6 of them, do I want redundancy?)

│   │   ├───I2C or SPI

│   │   │   ├───Accelerometer (level sensing)

│   │   │   ├───Maybe Maxx Air Fan if possible

│   │   │   ├───Power Switch

│   │   │   │   ├───Exterior Outlets

│   │   │   │   ├───StarLink Power

│   │   │   │   └───Water Heater

│   │   │   └───Weather Station

│   │   ├───PWM Output

│   │   │   └───Electrical System Cooling Fan

│   │   ├───Relay Shield

│   │   │   ├───Outdoor Lighting

│   │   │   ├───Porch Light

│   │   │   ├───Tank Heater

│   │   │   └───Water pump

│   │   └───RS485 Shield

│   │       ├───Battery1

│   │       │   ├───Battery Gauge

│   │       │   └───Current IO

│   │       ├───Battery2

│   │       │   ├───Battery Gauge

│   │       │   └───Current IO

│   │       └───Inverter-Charger (EG6000)

│   │           ├───AC (110V) Controller

│   │           ├───Charge Rate

│   │           ├───Power Consumption

│   │           └───Solar Input

│   ├───Peripherals (controller, keyboard&mouse, etc)

│   ├───Picture Display

│   ├───TV

│   │   └───Nintendo Switch

│   └───USB Touchscreen

├───Security Cameras (POE)

└───Starlink

 

Snow and cold.

I was waiting for something to post about before this week's post, but I don't think anything is going to happen.

 

The weekend was mostly just snow.  We got about 6" on Saturday.  I stayed inside and played games most of the day.  Typically every year I get a new game to play, and this year I picked up Sea of Stars.  It will get reviewed when I finish it.  

 

Sunday was waiting for the snow to finish and then clearing the snow.  It took a few hours, since the bucket is slower, but I got the full driveway done.  There might have been a little play time on the tractor too.  

 

Other than that, not too much has gone on.  I did do a little legwork on the water situation of the box truck.  In short, 75 gallons should be enough for 2 weeks, with some to spare (though maybe not as much as you might think).  I had enough room for a 75 gallon tank under the bed.  But this allows me to use water freely, like I do at home. No consideration for conservation, outside of maybe keeping showers short.  It also allows for a dishwasher and a laundry machine.  I don't know yet if I can make the laundry machine fit, but I intend to try.  The dishwasher is already in the kitchen plans, so I can even run those while boondocking safely.  These are the more specific numbers:

• Showers: 5 @ 7gallons = 35 gallons
• Tea: 14 @ .5 gallons = 7 gallons
• Cooking: 14@ .25 gallons = 3.5 gallons
• DW: 4 @ 3 gallons = 12 gallons
• Cleaning: 2 @ 2 gallons = 4 gallons
• Laundry = 2 @ 6 gallons = 12 gallons

I also started to poke around the core computer that will run the house, listing out what I want it to do and stuff like that.  The list is longer than I expected:

• Daily PC driver

• Browser, open recipes, shopping list, etc.

• MP3/audio player

• Compress videos and connect to NAS for photo stuff.

• HTPC

• Connect to and play HD movies from NAS.

• Run emulators for consoles.

• Requires it to run a TV in addition to a display for home automation.

• Run the home automation control.

• This will be a touch display thing on the wall.

• Ideally this will control the following:

• Lights

• Water Pump

• Tank Heater

• Solar Disconnect

• Battery Disconnect

• Water Heater

• 110 AC enable/disable

• Outlet controls

• DC DC charger enable.

• Security Cameras

• Starlink and internet.  

• Can it be a router as well?

• Fan controls for electrical setup.

• Maxx Air vent control?

• In addition, there are sensors that I would like it to be able to read and display

• Water tank sensor.

• Battery Gauge

• Solar Input

• Input and Output power

• Statistics over time

• Back door and stairs sensors.

• Temperature of electrical, inside and weather 

• Level sensors

• Run a picture monitor.

• This is just decoration and might get eliminated.

 

The cold has taken hold this week.  I am thankful now that we got the battery changed.  It is still really sluggish turning over, but it is kinda nice having a car with a remote starter when it is -5 degrees outside.  There is potentially more snow coming this weekend too.