Just a parts day.

I didn't get much done yesterday after working late, so I went out and got parts and  some freebies I found.  I snagged some mason jars, a propane camping stove, and a toaster oven.  The stove I was thinking I might outfit for outdoor cooking on the camper.


I know Jess has said yes to mason jars in the past.


Not really sure why I grabbed the toaster oven.  It looks pretty beat and needs some cleaning, but if anyone wants it, they can have it. 


On my way back, I stopped at Home Depot and picked up the PVC caps.  I had a smidgen of daylight left when I got back (it is definitely summer) and I got the rest of the drum primed.  The second coat is kind of thin because I ran out of primer.  I thought I had another can which is why I didn't pick any up at Home Depot, but oh well.  It is ready for me to build a base and put in the concrete.  I will paint it at the end.


After it got dark I went and cleaned my filter on my AC.  The little hand vacuum struggled with it, but it is cleaned. 

And another spindle too for good measure

I decided to finish the mowing last night.  I got most of one side done in the front.


I was apparently feeling too bold so I decided to mow the rest of the slope to the right.  I have been steadily doing more with the rider every mowing, so I decided to go for it.  I got most of it knocked down.  There are still some tall stalks, but they will be gone next time.


Apparently it was a mistake though.  I found a rock.


And it caused this.  My first spindle of the year is now toast.  2 mowings in.  I haven't dropped the deck yet to see if the blades are busted too.


At that point this was all that was left.  I got the scary part of the hill.


So I went and worked on some other things.  On the way back up the hill, I checked on my grass seed.  It is hard to tell from the picture, but it is starting to sprout. 


I completed the trunk (except for the caps, which Home Depot hasn't restocked yet)


I also put the charger on the car, since I haven't started it in far too long.  Hopefully this weekend I will take it out and run the rest of the 93 and injector cleaner through it.


I also started to prep one of the drums.  I got the first part of priming done, and should finish up the priming today if the weather holds.  I don't plan to paint the inside until after the concrete filling is done.  Normally you wouldn't do anything, just pour the concrete, which will seal and prevent further rusting, but I don't plan on completely filling them.


I also picked up a couple of free chairs from work today that were destined for the dumpster.  I need to come up with a better storage mechanism though.  This is obnoxious.

Mower steering.

I decided to do some long overdue mowing yesterday, the back was really bad.  I thought it was about shin deep, but when I started mowing it, some of it was over the hood of the mower. 




I got the far back done without issue.


I only got part of the back yard done though.  This is the first time trying to mow it with the lawn tractor since I dug the drainage ditch (I used the push mower last year because of deck issues with the lawn tractor) and it appears that I will have to continue to use the push mower. 


One of the disadvantages of a floating deck.  It floated into the body of the tractor (yes, the area is that rough).  It doesn't help either that the plastic shielding for that area has been "forcibly removed" with a reciprocating saw.


Given it was that rough, the tractor had another issue.

I was able to get it out, the lawn tractor is light enough that I could lift it and forcibly turn the front end, and once I got it out of there, there was enough teeth left that I could still steer it, so I will just avoid the back with the tractor for now.

Not much done over the weekend

Rachel came out for the weekend, so I didn't get too much project work done over the weekend.  I did get some time on Saturday though and started to get the trunk of the clothesline assembled along with the rest of the trunk parts. 


I didn't quite get all of it completed though, there were a couple pieces left.  Mostly because of this:


As I was reviewing the camper designs with Rachel I realized that I never drew the final tweaks I wanted to make the last 6x12 design I made (the one with the murphy bed), so I whipped those up real quick.  This is the floorplan I am continuing the designs with.  The couch got swapped out for closet space and an armchair. 

A little bit of outdoor work done.

I finally got a nice day, even if it was really hot out.  I got a bunch of the clothesline pieces pulled out and cleaned up.  I didn't quite get all of them done before I moved on to other tasks.


I started getting them assembled and relived the glory of my hatred of PVC.  To be fair though, out in the open like this it really isn't bad.  Plenty of ventilation, no weird angles and things not fitting right.


I had an unusually high number of watchers last night.  The salamanders were everywhere.


I also went and put out the salt block for the test on whether it kills Japanese knotweed.  This looked like a good spot to try it.


I tried to chop the block in half.  It didn't go well.


Not even a serrated knife would go through it.


So I put down the whole block.  It rained last night, so hopefully it will start dispersing.


I also cleaned up a few obnoxious branches that whack me while I mow.  The side is clear now.


As I was running out of daylight, I also got my hosed set up finally. 


Rachel is coming over for a few days, so I don't expect I will get much done over the weekend.

Didn't dodge the rain.

I didn't make it home early enough yesterday to dodge the rain.  It started off pretty light though, so I decided I could at least put down some cheapo grass seed I picked up at Tractor Supply and let it get rained on.  What sold me on it was the tolerates poor soil conditions.  The places where I had used the fill last year still haven't grown back in well so hopefully this works better.  The problem is that the fill wasn't really dirt, it was a mix of silt, sand, and clay


You can't tell from the picture, but the whole area is seeded now.


After that, I did a little more work on the camper electrical as I alluded to in the last post.  As near as I can tell, I need 3 110V breakers (4 if it requires a source breaker) and 8 12V circuits.  I also came up with a WAG of needing a 50A minimum charger/converter (so that it charges the battery even when most of the 12V stuff is running).  I will probably get a 55A or 65A unit, which is a common size.  I don't want to go much larger than that since it starts eating into the available 110V power (most campers and generators only have a 30A plug).  I think the limitation will be more on the number of breakers/circuits. 

Text update. Truck not as bad as expected.

I didn't do much yesterday, I mostly made a run up to tractor supply and Home Depot to get supplies. 

Today at lunch I went up to see a mechanic.  He said the code for the truck in combination with the symptoms and situation that I shouldn't be too worried.  It needs to be fixed, but it isn't fatal.  He thought there was a >90% chance it was just that the tranny service dislodged something and it got caught in the solenoid.  When it settles in the fluid, it goes off, when it warms up and it gets back into the torque converter, it comes back on.  While it makes me question the value of the filter (it sounds like it isn't doing its job to me) the most important part though is that driving it won't destroy the transmission.  So good news on that front.  He is booked up for a couple of weeks, I might bring it back to Bob's (he said Bob was a good guy and might just redo the servicing on it to try to fix it).  So that is good news. 

So I have done a little bit of research of late on power centers (how a traditional camper bridges the 12V and 110V circuits, things like this: https://www.amazon.com/WFCO-WF8955PECB-Center-Converter-Charger/dp/B004BC6WQO ).  It looks like I might need to complete some more of the electrical design first.  You have to get very large and expensive ones if you want more than a couple of breakers in them, but I don't know yet how many circuits I will need (some only have 3 breaker slots, and one is needed for an inlet...).  Perhaps that is something I can think on tonight or tomorrow.  I also need to decide on the microwave as well.  Traditionally a camper doesn't have microwave access when only on 12V, but I will need a ready and quick way to reheat food if I take that approach.

Now that I have parts, I will hopefully get some more stuff done tonight, as long as I can dodge the rain.

Almost finished the drainage. Lots of wildlife.

I got a bunch of stuff worked on yesterday, but I couldn't quite finish anything.  The first thing I did was cut up the 3" PVC for the clothesline.  I noticed something odd with the PVC I brought home from KY though.  It is the one on the bottom.  You may notice that the inside of the PVC looks different and less dense.  Both are schedule 40 though so it shouldn't be a problem. 


I also sanded them and angled the edges.  I don't care about the fluid flow inside, but this will make it easier to assemble since 3" stuff can be hard to muscle together.  I am thinking something is weird with my belt sander though, it keeps falling out of alignment.  I had to adjust it twice.  Maybe it just doesn't like the belts I bought?


All the 3" pieces are ready to be cleaned and installed.  All the 1.5" branches were cut to size when I brought them home from KY.


I went to go grab my PVC cement, and found out that I don't have any.  I would have sworn that I bought a bottle when I assembled the final 3" drain, but I couldn't find it.  I apparently have two bottles of leak detect though.  Ugh.


So I decided to finish up the license plate holder for the trailer.  I got the new bracket installed (the angle is intentional).


Unfortunately the extra bolts I had lying around were too big for the license plate.  Ugh.


So I went for a quick win, and taped up the handle of my bo rake.  It is kind of sad to think that this rake is only maybe three years old, but the handle is starting to come apart.  This will at least allow me to use it without getting blisters and splinters until it finishes breaking. 


After that I decided to work on the drainage ditch.  I went through and checked level on the trench.  I ended up digging the trench a fair bit deeper, this was the closest to level spot in the trench.  I tried digging it with the tractor, but the large number of rocks I hit made the tractor less than ideal. 


The joint was a real pain, everything was caked in mud.  Cutting the net and stuff was a real pain. 


The entirety of the pipe is laid though, all that remains is filling in the ditch.  And I had to make sure the tractor got in at least one picture.


While I had the tractor out, I also filled in the pits in the driveway.  I have some leftover gravel too.


I have also seen a bunch of wildlife the last couple of days.  Yesterday there were turkeys checking out the dirt pile.




This morning I was late for work since I had my first moose sighting.  This looks like a young'en, smaller than the one whose tracks I saw (you may recall the ~8" hoof marks).  He saw me when I peered out the window with my phone and hopped away. 


I got a better picture of him walking around out front.