Truck is getting close

Since I sold my ebike, I pulled out my old bike and got that tuned up.  It was nice to have a bike that actually isn't a piece of crap, everything pretty much still worked, even though it hasn't been out in a couple of years now.  On a side note, I pulled the bike to the outer mount on the bike rack, and just tuned it up while it was on the car, which made it surprisingly easy to do.

 

Unfortunately though, I can't fix this, so it will be going in for new tires sooner rather than later.  Those are the original tires (from when I lived in Syracuse) and have thousands of miles on them (the center ridge tread was worn off years ago).  I did ride on it with the tires like that, and they did actually hold up, but that is playing with fire.  All the darker lines are cracks from age.

 

I also early last week went and picked up some tires, not for the bike, but that will fit Dad's Camry.  They were in Wilton.  It is a rather pretty town.  

 

I had some entertainment while I waited for the guy to show up, there were two beavers munching away.

 

I put them in the back for the ride home, but I am pretty sure that they will fit on the bike rack if I get creative with the strapping.

 

Last weekend was incredibly unproductive, but apparently the guy down the road was testing out some fireworks, so I got to see a show.  It was pretty much right down the street, maybe 50 yards from the end of my driveway.

 

 

 

I didn't realize that the audio on my phone was so bad, but these were obnoxiously loud, and I could feel them inside (it is was what caused me to come out in the first place)

I did try to put the legs on the carport, but I didn't like how it was twisting all the plastic connectors.  I think I will need a second person so I can lift the whole thing at once to put the legs under it.  

 

A couple of other odds and ends from last week: my trackball made me angry, got flung, and is no more.  I bought an off-brand replacement that was half the cost, and frankly I like it better.  The old one had the classic Logitech button failure.

 

The bird in the shed had a bunch of little ones.  

 

Yesterday I got a call about my truck being ready, so I went up and took a look at it.  It looks nice.

 

I went and knocked around in the wheel well a bit, and everything is nice.  The deer finished killing it, but it was starting to come apart even before the deer.

 

There is only one missing piece: the front license plate holder.  They ordered one and should be able to get it installed hopefully today.  Other than picking up the truck this week, I need to start mowing again, so I will have to decide whether to push out the mowing and try to fix at least one of the mowers during the week, or just bite the bullet, and do another round with the push mower.  It isn't as bad as last time, so it shouldn't take literally all week like the last mowing did.  

Initial haying, err mowing complete.

It has been a bit slow at work since I am transitioning projects, so I have started working on the front end for the software for the box truck.  You may recall I built a mspaint mockup.  I have now recreated part of it in Python.  Python is on my list of things to learn this year at work conveniently, so I am doing this as part of my Python training.

The mowing went on throughout the week.  I finished up the front during the week.  By the time I finished the thicker and faster growing parts were taller than the handlebars on the mower.  I literally had to mow it by going 10 feet, shaking the mower to get the discharge unclogged, go backwards over it, and then go over it again, then clear the discharge again.  Every ten or so feet in the thicker spots.  And it still came out looking bad.  

Late Friday, I even got the side done.

Saturday was wet and stormy, but I got the back yard done before it started.  It thankfully wasn't as thick as the front so it didn't take as long.

Saturday night I organized the splices and stuff I bought.  I have been waiting for work to refill their stock, but Fastenal seems to be sitting on their laurels about it.  They aren't expensive, so I ordered a kit online.  They didn't pack the container very well, so I was able to fit all the splices (the container in the back) into the spade connector container, so it is one less floppy container to spill everywhere.  It is surprising how cheap the cases have gotten.

Sunday morning I went out and observed the storm damage.  I had a couple of trees come down.  This was the only one in an impactful area though.  I will now need to cut this up before I finish the carport.  Ugh.  That tree was on the list of ones I wanted taken down this year anyways, perhaps I should mark them and get Barry to come chop them down. I was originally going to wait until I got the big carport I built moved out.  

Since it was off and on drizzling in the morning, I decided to take the tractor out.  It has been a while since it ran, but it fired right up.  I got a spot leveled.  This was the the only place I hit a rock when mowing.  It is where the hand dug well used to be; the dirt has settled in and that log and rock were now sticking up enough to catch the blades.  It is now reasonably flat.

The big boulder and log.

I could hear thunder at that point, so I decided I wasn't going to start working on the carport.  So instead I filled in another chunk of driveway before the rain got too hard.

I also tried digging in the back yard.  I will need to scrape an inch or two off this area before I put down the landscape timbers and whatever finish I decide to use (river rock or whatever) so it is all lower than the slab and thus drains into the french drain I installed instead of running under the house.  I am undecided about what to do with the tanks.  I could probably lift them with the tractor, but to be honest, I don't particularly want to disturb the propane.  I will need to put down landscape fabric underneath them though, so I will have to move them.  They should be lite enough at this point though that hopefully I can at least tip them if needed

This week thankfully is supposed to be nice.  I can probably go another week before I need to mow again.  I can dig out the Troy Bilt mower (the Craftsman is behind the excavator, which I do need to pull out and tune up), so I might pull the carb off it this week and see if I can figure out what is wrong with it.  It basically bogs really really bad under load, and then doesn't really recover when you unload it.  It can take up to a minute to clear up.  The current theory is a sunk float and it is just flooding itself real bad.  It also has issues with the solenoid shut off; if I don't turn the gas off via the shut off in the line, it will leak out an entire tank in a day or so.  The leak likely means a gasket is bad.  I had debated just selling it and buying another one (that Troy Bilt doesn't owe me anything, I got several years out of it and it was a cheapo), but cheapos are surprisingly hard to find this time of year (most were sold off in April/May), and until I get my truck back I can't pick it up anyways.  The truck is still claiming end of June for completion.  I believe everything is done but the door, which Ford has on backorder.  I might stop by their parking lot and see if the truck is outside so I can look at it.

Putting the push mower to work.

Not much during the week last week.  I finally sold my e-bike.  I got a gelato to celebrate.  I noticed the place the last time I took my bike out, and I really like the random gelato I got on one of my prior trips (gelato is basically soft serve ice cream made with milk instead of cream).   It was a touch expensive, but was really good.

It was a bit slow at work, so I started poking around at setting up a Raspberry Pi for the software controls for the box truck.  I came up with a crude mspaint home screen.  I am still on the fence about whether to use something like HomeAssistant for it (the software used for Smart switches and outlets), or just write my own program (probably in Python) for it.  

 

 

The main goal of the weekend was to get the yard mowed.  Saturday sucked and didn't appreciate that goal. 

 

So instead I went and found a free dryer, they let me snarf the lint filter out of it.  It should fit the dryer for Jess and Heather, since their lint filter was coming apart last time I was there.

 

Sunday started off cold, but nice enough.  I started with the push mower.  The oil in it was fine; it was still translucent, so I just cleaned the air filter and put some gas in it.  I remember trying to pull the blade off last year and I couldn't get it off, so I didn't try this year.  To my surprise it fired up first pull.

 

So I started mowing.  It needed it.  It was literally up to my thigh in a few places.  

 

It was really bad.  I didn't get very far before it started drizzling on me. 

I stayed out anyways and finished the big section of the front.  The grass was already wet anyways from the snow on Saturday.  It started clogging up a lot more though.  

 

It looks bad because I waited waaaaaaay too long to mow it, and some of it (okay a lot) just flattened over instead of getting mowed, but if I mow on time next time it will clean up just fine.  Hopefully that next time will be with a rider and not a push mower.  I have an awful lot of yard for a push mower.  Here is a before and after.

 

After that was all done, I had some visitors.  One of them was really good sized too.  Lots of little white wrappers...

 

 

I am hoping to finish up the mowing during the week this week.  Despite the fact that it snowed Saturday, we will be back in the 80s before too long. and the moisture combined with lots of sun will make it grow fast.  I really need to get the other carport set up so I can move stuff out of the current carport.  As it is right now, I can't even get the Craftsman rider out to start working on it.

Back from the spring LAN.

As mentioned in the last post, most of last week was been getting the car camper loaded back up.  It is ready.  The drawer still slides out if I corner too hard, so I will need to make a front shield thingy for it, which I expected to anyways.  It doesn't need the strap holding it upright anymore, which is nice, it is rigid enough that it doesn't twist real bad.  This was it all loaded up for the LAN.  

I have been doing some of the loading at night, and I don't know what these are (some kind of roach I assume?) but we have them by the thousand this year.  They are really obnoxious too.

I finally heard back on the truck.  It was originally expected back June 1st, which has since been delayed to June 28th because of Ford putting parts on backorder.  I also got the quote.  Geico might want to work on their presentation a bit.  At first glance it made it look like it was going to cost me 11k, but that is what they are paying.  I am only on the hook for the 500 dollar deductible.  Unsurprisingly the door and the headlight were the two most expensive parts. I did notice there was a line item in there for removing duct tape.  Yeah, my bad.  

 

Before I left, we had some really vicious storms.  It blew over my garbage can even though there were bags in it, and the blanket that I left out on the sawhorses to get washed and dried is gone (I assume in the woods somewhere) and it wrecked one of my sawhorses.  The others look okay.  

 

It was definitely the wind, because nothing got into the garbage cans, so it is extremely unlikely to have been a bear or something. 

 

I brought a couple of projects with me to the spring LAN, but as expected, I didn't get much done while there.  I had a good time though, it was nice to see everyone again.

 

I think my top priority at this point is mowing my lawn.  It is already shin deep in most spots.  The push mower should just be an oil change and a filter wash from working, so I might do that during the week and try to get it mowed.  The two riders both need more work.  I only had to mow something like 6-7 times all last year, but this year looks like it will be more.  I didn't do my first mow until mid-June last year.  I also need to finish up the temporary carport; that is holding up the garage, which is holding up the back deck.  Sigh, the project overload is on for the year.

Cleaning and car camper upgrades.

This post is a bit overdue, but I have been kinda lazy since I got back.  We lost power a couple weekends ago, so I finally put in a extension cord so I can move the plug to the Jackery if needbe.  

 

I have been doing a lot of cleaning since I got home.  I left the house in a pretty rough state, with tools and stuff just everywhere.  

 

The main project two weekends ago was to clean it all up.  

 

I also gathered up all the parts of the carport.  Winter had deposited some of them in new homes.  

 

Speaking of homes, when I got home, I had to evict some birds.  Kind of makes me wonder - if I put bird houses on the outside or even the inside, would they use those and leave the rafters and my tools alone?  This nest was built on top of my sledge hammer while I was gone.

 

I also had to empty out the truck, it went in for the deer repairs last Wednesday.  I haven't heard anything yet, but I expect it will take a few weeks.   

 

I took my e-bike to ride home that evening.  It didn't go well.  It got about a third of the way home and quit.  Hub overheated again, despite the fact it was only 50s outside. There is a big steep hill to get there, but that hill isn't even half the hill of the one in Sullivan, so I just got a ride (thanks Anx).  

That does beg the question of what good is it?  I don't trust it enough to take it traveling.  I couldn't imagine what I would do if I were riding the rim road of the Grand Canyon and it just died.  It is good for riding the rail trails (flat) and around town (also mostly flat), but I can do that (albeit a bit slower) with my regular bike.  Where I wanted the help most was the hills, which it can't do.  The only thing it is good for is when I drop off a vehicle at Bob's and want to ride into work, riding the rail trail back I can average 20mph on it, as opposed to 8-10mph for my regular bike.  So I decided to sell it, see if I can get anything for it.

In the time since I got home, everything is in full bloom.  The biggest surprise is my yard; it needed mowing when I got home.  Last year I didn't have to mow until June.  And presently the only mower that I expect to start and work is the push mower.  Stay tuned for how bad my yard gets before the first mowing...

 

Last weekend was focused on the car camper, since I need it this coming weekend.  So Saturday I cleaned out the car and made a plan. I didn't realize how much crap I had shoved in the car; when I cleaned out the truck for the trip, I just put a lot of the stuff in the car apparently.

 

Sunday I went up and picked up some more elk.  It is only a dollar or two a pound more than lean beef at this point.  When I got home, I put the plan into action. Some parts took a while, like tightening up the slides for the drawer.  I couldn't find the ratcheting wrench I put these in with, so I had to improvise.

 

But the improvements are done, and it is back in the car.

 

I made the bed side a bit better as well, so it doesn't rub and damage the car as much.

 

I have done a lot of cooking since I got home.  Turns out I can get 16 meals using these containers.  I wanted to evaluate the bulk containers versus the sandwich meat containers.  I think I can stack those better since they are more square.

 

The weather this year has been obnoxious.  Sunday it was well up into the 80s, and two days prior I turned my heat on because the house had fallen into the 50s.  And tomorrow might push 90.  I really wish mother nature would make up her mind.  The only good thing is that the bugs are as confused as I am.

This week is mostly getting the stuff back in the car camper.  I am headed to the spring LAN this coming weekend for Memorial Day.