Clothesline ready to be strung.

Friday night I went and picked up some freebies.  When I came back, I happened to notice that my buddy was still kicking around.  I guess he is living in my yard somewhere, I have seen him three times now.


I got another shovel and a spreader.


Speaking of spreader, the grass is starting to fill in.  It will grow in the crap dirt I have been getting, so I will have a debate about whether to bother getting loam brought in at the end of all my site work. 


Today was hot.  Really hot.  I ran some errands in the morning after I got up.  My septic loan is now paid off. 

After coming back from that I got to work on the clothesline.  I got the base cleaned up.  The primer took it all off, but it was a bigger pain than I expected.


I also got all the branches on and the trunk put on.  The tape was so I didn't have to stand there for 10 minutes with each piece until it set and to make sure they didn't sag before the cement cured.


I also finished installing the screws for the socks/underwear branch. This will allow me to string some rope for smaller stuff. 


That branch is now installed too.  All that is left is stringing and a little painting. 


I also went out and started to do some work in the back yard with the hope of being able to mow it with the currently broken lawn tractor some day.  I smoothed out around the well. 


I also went and started to pick up rocks just chilling in my back yard.  There were a lot of big ones.


But the area is now free of rocks.  I should be able to start bringing up dirt and smoothing. 


After that I was pretty roasted.  I noticed a wasp nest on my way back in though, so it has been sprayed with wasp killer. 


The spindles did arrive today, so I have a project to work on tomorrow.  They are only almost a week late.  I don't intend to be kind to the seller on Ebay.  In addition, the guy thought it was a good idea to put two metal spindles into a single plastic priority mail bag.  And apparently USPS thought "hey, they ripped through our thick mailer, so a thinner bag should be adequate to hold it".  I hope they aren't missing pieces, I haven't looked them over yet.


After I finish this post I intend to take the Nissan out tonight, since it hasn't moved in over a month.  I just need darkness so they can't see the sticker on it.  I charged the battery last weekend though so hopefully nothing goes awry.  I really need to get it out of there so I can get another dumpster up there to start cleaning the pile in the back out.  I might also get a load of dirt dumped directly into the back since it will need at least a truck or two on its own.

Quiet few days.

I apparently whacked my back or something last weekend even though I don't recall anything happening, so I have taken it easy the last few days.  I went and ordered more dirt and just regular gravel for the driveway.  Last year I used crushed stone because it was in the mud, but this is closer to what one would normally use for a driveway, or so I was told.  There is too much dirt for my liking though.  It is a lot cheaper than crushed stone though.  And I love the random can in the middle of the pile.


The dirt.  It has a lot more boulders than the delivery last year did too.  It might be time to start looking for another quarry.


The pile looks bigger than the last one I got too, even though they were both supposedly a full 10 wheeler.


Apparently I wasn't the only one checking out the the pile.  I had a visit from a porcupine.




I did do some more research on the internet front.  Satellite is a no-go.  It appears that they set up dishes to connect to a specific set of satellites, which would be constantly changing if I were travelling.  Most of the providers explicitly call out mobile applications as not being supported as well.  They do make satellite hotspots, but they are atrocious at best for data speeds.

So I went back to the cell phone idea.  In theory, 3G should be fast enough.  3G should give me a few megabit (depending on the technology it uses).  https://kenstechtips.com/index.php/download-speeds-2g-3g-and-4g-actual-meaning

Supposedly remote desktop uses less than a megabit though.  I might want to measure this though.  I know on my current tether which measures only marginally better than 3G it works though.  https://superuser.com/questions/43797/microsoft-remote-desktop-bandwidth-usage  

A few more PVC connections is all that is left.

It was a very nice weekend.  It actually got a little chilly Saturday night (cold enough to snow actually), but that made it really nice working outside Sunday morning. 


I cleaned out the receiver and hosed it down with WD-40.  Hopefully that will make it last longer.




I then got to work on the clothesline.  The first thing I did was install the rebar in the base of the trunk. 


I then got everything ready for the concrete, cutting a base board and getting the concrete out of the shed.


I found a use for the mason jars.


I then had my own miniature concrete party.  The single bag filled it more than I expected.  I ended getting a normal bag because they were out of the smaller ones I prefer to use. 


I then had the fun of trying to mix it inside the drum.  I used one of the pieces of rebar for the handle to mix it.  It was a real pain in the neck getting the PVC in there and level.  Perhaps I should have installed the PVC before mixing the concrete.  Too late now though. 


I then went to finish the painting.  This time I taped it first.


The trunk is now painted.


I then went and tried to get the paint off the end of the pipes that I didn't tape.  I tried hand sandpaper.  It didn't work. 


The file kind of worked, if I wanted to spend another week to clean it off.


So I brought out the big guns.  The bench wire brush I got from Barry.


It cleaned it off without breaking a sweat.  It did damage the pipe a little bit, but not enough to compromise the strength I hope.


While things were drying and went out and mowed.  That Poulan push mower still sucks as bad as I remember.  The back is done, even though I had to go over it 3 times (4 in some places).  This will enable me to bring the tractor around and start leveling it though and finish filling in the trench for the drainage pipe (the last piece of that project).


I did a chunk of the front that I can't do with the lawn tractor until the push mower ran out of gas.  Saw a butterfly.


I went and checked on the salt block.  It appears to be kind of sort of working.  They aren't dead (I only put the block out a week ago or so), but the knotweed that I chopped down near the block isn't really regrowing.  It didn't appear to affect a large area though, so I would need a few dozen blocks.  I will let it go for a bit longer.


I also started to assemble branches on the trunk.  Since the pipe has been ground down a little bit, they take a lot longer to set (I have been putting extra cement in them) but they appear to be solid. 


I was pretty tired by then (mixing concrete and push mowing was a good workout), so I went and did some research.  One of the things I found out made me a little sad.  Purple primer dissolves paint, so all that work I did to clean off the paint on the PVC was completely unnecessary, the paint would have come off when I put on the primer.  I was curious because painting PVC is actually quite common since leaving PVC in direct sunlight damages it.  So I tested it, and it sure enough it came right off.  Sigh.  I feel dumb.


I also poked around some coverage maps.  I was originally planning on using my phone as a hotspot, but you may recall my last trip to KY I had large swaths of road where there was no coverage.  Looking at the coverage maps, if I want to go out west, coverage may well be a problem. 
Here is the Republic coverage:


Google Fi:


Cricket:


And just to see if I was being unreasonable in thinking that at least all interstates would be covered by 2020, I pulled up Verizon.  Turns out I was in fact being unreasonable.


So using my phone for internet would require meticulous planning.  Most interstates are covered for calls these days, but a lot of the west only has 3G, which I don't think will run a remote desktop session.  If I wanted to take any more scenic routes out west (like route 1 or 66) I would be up the creek for a lot of it.  And possibly have to drive several hours to get signal out in places like Idaho or Nevada.  So I looked at couple of satellite providers, and it looks like Hughes net is the top competitor there.  Viasat has better speeds, but they have very draconian data caps.

One step closer to concrete.

I didn't really focus on a project until this afternoon, just kind of doing whatever came at my whim this morning.  One thing I realized about my clothesline design was that I didn't have a good way to move it, so I decided to try to bend a piece into a handle.  After a handful of dismal failures trying to bend it, I brought out the big guns, or so I thought.  I decided to just put it in the receiver of my truck and stand on it.  That was tougher than I expected.  It took several minutes of pounding just to get the pin to move.


Once I finally got the pin out, I found out that the drop bar had rusted into the receiver.  Sigh.  After a couple minutes of beating on it, I said screw it.  While I couldn't help but feel that this was going to turn into a redneck fail video, I decided to pull it out with the tractor.


It started to drag the truck, but then popped free


The receiver looks pretty bad inside.


The idea worked though, kinda.  I stuck the rebar in and was able to bend it.


At that point I had the tractor out so I decided to play with it some.  I got above the leech field leveled off a bit. 


I also did a spot by the edge of the driveway since I got tired of being jostled.


I started to put some over by the sharp dropoff, but I think I need a plan for how do I do that without rolling the tractor.  I think I should build up the left side first, and then build up the middle and make it meet the slope.  I would like to make the slope a lot more gradual eventually.  I am almost out of dirt at this point though. 


I also went over and dragged the small remaining pile of gravel from last year to smooth it. 


While I was down there I decided to drag the failed plow experiment out of there.  This was the cheapo plow I tried to put on Dad's wheeler a couple years back.  I tried to sell it afterwards, didn't get any bites (the angling mechanism is broken and apparently only fits Polaris wheelers) so it just kind of sat there.  I couldn't lift it high enough to get it back in the truck, so it just kind of sat there.  The tractor can lift it though. 


With that out of the way, I have enough space down there that I could make it two cars wide if I wanted.


I dragged it up the hill and when I went to put it down, I was backing up too slow and it tore up another small patch of kinda-pavement.  Oops.


I decided to leave the rope attached to the tractor.  It will get far more use that way.  I wanted to replace it as a tow rope anyways.  This is the lighter duty "tow" rope I got from Matt with the CR-V.  I am not sure I would trust it to pull a car out of a ditch, but it should handle anything the tractor can lift.


At that point I decided to switch back to getting the clothesline finished.  I got all the end caps I bought put on.  It appears that I miscounted when I bought them since I was one short.  D'oh!


I also started to get them painted.  Despite the picture, it is closer to aqua in color, there is a little green in it. 


While that was drying I made a Home Depot run, and got some more rebar, the piece I had was intended to be used in the PVC to anchor it into the concrete.  I got another longer piece and bent it.  This time instead of jumping on it, I just stepped on it to get the bend started, and then just nudged it with the tractor.  It came out better. 


The last missing cap is now installed too.


I realized when I did the painting that I missed the most important piece: the base of the trunk.  I won't be able to paint it well after I pour the concrete, so I got that painted too.


At that point I was starting to run out of light.  With any luck, I will be able to get the concrete poured into it tomorrow.  One thing I didn't think about until I started writing this post: I may need to scrape the last inch of paint off these pieces.  When I finish the assembly the PVC cement needs to contact the PVC to do the chemical welding.  Sigh.  I also need to finish some mowing tomorrow.  The new spindles didn't arrive today like I hoped they would, but the area I need to mow I will have to use the push mower anyways.