12 October 2012
Took
Dolores up to Kampersville for her final $15 purging of the season, then ran
though the RV winterization checklist in record time. Had her snuggled under the big blue tarp and
was on the road south by noon plus 15.
Stopped at Giddings Equipment en route to offer personal condolences to
Bob and discuss the reincarnation of my tractor. That was quite the fire; there was nothing
left of the Kubota maintenance building but four totally gutted walls. Arrived back in Springfield just after 9:30
pm, having fought my way through rush hour traffic in Morristown, New Jersey
(of all places) and a major disturbance in the Force caused by an accident on
I-95 just north of Philadelphia.
11 October 2012
Spent the morning and early afternoon loading
stuffing the van. Moved Hopea Kanootti
into the shed and rigged up a two fold purchase (block and tackle) to hoist her
up, up and out of the way. Ran errands
in Middlebury (most important of which was getting some more Ben &
Jerry’s 5/16″ choker chains at
Champlain Valley Equipment) en route to Lynne & Perry’s, where Perry and I
moved a new 400 pound woodstove from the back of his pickup into his
basement. Good thing we’re both kinda
strong! While we were working on that
little project Bob Giddings called. His
maintenance shop burned to the ground at noon today… with my new tractor in
pieces inside when the fire started.
Bob’s people managed to drag all the major components out of the
building before the fire got to them, but it’s going to be awhile before they
can put ‘er back together again. Perry
and I then drove over to ∆□Ο to load my radial arm saw into the van.
I knew the saw table was just a smidgeon too long to fit athwart ships,
but the van was so full that the saw wouldn’t fit with the table fore and aft. “Why don’t we just cut an inch off each end
of the table?”, said my brilliant brother-in-law. Duh!!!!
(…and why didn’t ole sawdust-for-brains think of that solution two years
ago????) Sawing done, the saw fit
perfectly in the space remaining.
10 October 2012
Spent most of the day packing up all the stuff in
the shed and RV that has to go back to Virginia this trip and verifying that my
inventory spreadsheet accurately shows what will be left behind and, more
importantly, what will need to be brought back next spring. Late morning took
my credit application down to Giddings in Pittsford… and got a call from Bob a
few hours later saying I had been approved for the Kubota financing program.
9 October 2012
.JPG)
.JPG)
Let the church bells ring! Sing out loudly and joyfully! Start the parade! Got an email this morning from Chree saying she was fine with my buying, not only a new Toyota Tacoma pickup truck, but also the Kubota loader / backhoe / skidder that I described in the 4 October blog posting. Then Jody Baynes called and said that he took my sawmill quality logs to a different mill, where they not only were paying $35 more per thousand board feet, but were using the International ¼ Scale (which favors the logger) instead of the Scribner Scale (which favors the mill for smaller diameter logs) to calculate the yield from the load. What a great day!!!! On the way from picking up the carpet shampooer from Lynne & Perry’s, spotted a couple of trailers beside the road with a For Sale sign on one of them. Unfortunately, the 16′ tandem axle trailer that I would have wanted was not for sale, and the one that was for sale was too lightly built for what I will need. On a sad note, the carpet shampooer quit sucking while I was cleaning the RV carpets, so had to turn off the furnace and open the windows and main cabin door all day to dry the place out. Got the toe caps on the wood walkway between the third and Halfway There landings. Because I had plenty of lumber to work with, had minimal trouble cutting the triple compound angle today (of course). Late afternoon went down to Pittsford where Bob Giddings (the owner of Giddings Equipment) and I negotiated over the B3200 tractor, reached agreement for a few hundred less than I had expected to pay, and started the procurement paperwork process. Did I mention that this was a REALLY GREAT DAY?!?!
8 October 2012
Knew I had just enough 2x4x12’s for the railing between
the third walkway landing and the Halfway There landing, with maybe two inches
to spare. Where the last two pieces of
railing in that section joined was a three axis compound joint… never an easy
task. Must have walked up and down the
walkway between that joint and the radial arm saw a dozen times, cutting the
angles wrong and wrong again.
Ultimately, the last piece of wood became too short to use, so I gave up
in disgust until next spring. Someone is
NOT a happy camper!!!! At noon tried to
send a simple email to Chree and Verizon, in their infinite big-brother-is-watching
wisdom, declared it to be spam and refused to send it. Then, when I tried to protest that decision
via their spamdetector.update@verizon.net email address, I kept getting a
message that that address was invalid.
So I spent an hour online chatting with some techie in India, who, after
taking control of my computer, was completely unable to replicate the
problems. As soon as we hung up (you guessed
it!) any email I sent to Chree was declared spam anew. Needless to say, the Riunite Lambrusco is
taking a serious hit tonight.
7 October 2012
The cold front that rolled through yesterday brought fall with it. Early this morning, dressed quite comfortably for moderate exertion with a tee-shirt, a long-sleeve running shirt, and a sweatshirt, I stopped down to see Merry for a moment… who (being a real Vermonter) was dressed only in a short-sleeve golf shirt (and pants), and had nary a goose bump. Completed building the Halfway There bench by 9 o’clock, then started putting railing caps on the walkway section between the third landing and the current end of the road. At noon I delivered another utensils drawer mouse to the Silver Lake parking lot tree stump. Finished the railing caps early afternoon and was just about to break out the generator and belt sander when it started to sprinkle. Using electrical tools in the rain = not smart, so inventoried, stacked and covered the walkway construction lumber that will winter over. That done, it was still drizzling, so decided to bring the canoe and kayak up from the waterfront for winter storage. Problem: how do you carry a 17′ canoe in a pickup truck with a 6′ bed? Answer: by constructing a “bed extension” out of some 2x4’s and 2x6x12’s. That done, drove the Ranger (with my bicycle in back) down to the public access landing at the southern end of Fern Lake, bicycled back to ∆□Ο, paddled Hopea Kanootti down to the landing and loaded her onto the truck (secured with my new ratchet straps), drove back to ∆□Ο, then repeated the process for the kayak. At dusk, Marty, Heather, Graham, and Gabby came up for a walkway tour.
6 October 2012
5 October 2012
4 October 2012
ANOTHER nasty, rainy day was forecast… and proved
true in the morning. Finalized the
design for the walkway Halfway There bench seat and landing, drew up the “cut
list” (i.e., a list with the dimensions of the bench building materials that
need to be cut from longer / wider stock), then went down to Giddings Equipment
and Manufacturing in Pittsford. Spent an
enjoyable hour there with the owner, Bob Giddings, drooling over Kubota loader
/ backhoe tractors. He made me an offer that
I just might not be able to refuse on a 2012 Kubota B3200 HSD (32 horsepower
with hydrostatic drive) tractor with a BH77 backhoe (means it can dig a hole 7.7 feet deep) with a 16” wide
bucket and mechanical thumb, a LA504 loader with a much more rugged and wider
(60”) upgrade from the standard bucket, a three-point frame (for skidding
logs), and 42″ pallet forks (for carrying / stacking logs). And, as I’m sure you were
wondering, the difference between having green paint vice orange paint on a
tractor? Pretty close to $10,000! I did
pass on the $8,000 enclosed cab with heat and air conditioning. Back to dull old walkway building in the
afternoon in spite of the intermittent drizzle.
Put in the third in-ground post for the 15° bend and the first of the two angled posts
that will support the bench backrest, along with the two long stringers that
connect those two posts. Digging in the mud is sooooo therapeutic!
3 October 2012
…and speaking of no good, rotten, slimy illegitimate
male offspring of female canines: the Triangle Square Circle driveway sign has
been stolen once again. Not only is the
sign gone, but so is the bracket that attached the sign to the post, which
means that the SOB had the very special Allen wrench that is needed to undo the
security bolts that were holding the bracket in place. To add insult to injury, Marty & Merry’s
Jelly Bean Place driveway sign was bent beyond recognition, but not stolen, as
they had the foresight to have the attaching bolts tack-welded in place. The State Police said they would put out a
press release… As it was another totally
rainy, nasty day, spent some quality time this afternoon at the local John
Deere dealer drooling all over myself.
Does anyone have $35,000 they would like to contribute to the
Doug-Needs-A-Backhoe fund? On a positive
note, for a grand total of $13.55 and an hour of my time, there is now a light
over the workbench in the shed upper level, which will make working at that
bench a lot less touchy-feely. Late
afternoon I noticed that Marty & Merry had returned from their latest foray
south, so stopped down to say hello and commiserate about the driveway sign
theft / damage. They left last Friday before Dolores and I got back to Fern
Lake, so we haven’t seen each other for almost a month. One thing led to another and ended up taking down
to their place an excellent 2005 DeLormier Cabernet Sauvignon (to ease our
collective pain) and the beef stew dinner I had planned to serve them in the RV
tomorrow night. Another great evening, in spite of the signage issue and
weather.
2 October 2012
Installed the last two sets of longitudinals and the
final 24 feet of deck boards in the long section between the third landing and
the 15° bend that is at the
walkway halfway point. Some of the deck
boards that I put on today are a bit slimy from sitting stacked on top of one
another under a tarp for the past many weeks. Was maneuvering the hand truck
late afternoon, stepped on one of the slimy illegitimate sons, and took a
tumble… right off the walkway. Never
fear, the hand truck landed on top of me, so it came through undamaged.
Though it was only a couple of feet to the ground, I can tell already that
there will be some sore spots tomorrow.
1 October 2012
Another nasty, rainy day. Reinstalled the Triangle Square Circle
driveway sign. Any bets as to how long
this one lasts???? Spent most of the day
updating my computer inventory of the “stuff” in the RV and shed, and thinking
(ad nauseum) that all the items marked for return to Virginia are not going to
fit into, or even onto, the van. Some
hard decisions in the forecast for the next couple of weeks. Goodro Lumber delivered a few more pressure
treated 2x4’s and 4x4’s, the materials needed to finish the walkway to the
halfway point. The lake temperature is
down to 64°, which is a tad
unfortunate as the dock steps blew back over into the lake while I was in
Calais… and they can’t be raised without going chest-deep into the water. Mr. Happy isn’t going to be when that day
comes…
30 September 2012
A nasty, rainy day, so spent the morning doing
inside repairs and cleaning (including fixing the wall clock, which I thought
had bit the big one on initial inspection) and inventorying the supply of wood
walkway nuts, bolts, and screws, so I’ll know what to order for the renewal of
construction next spring. Without help
from Johnny Walker, moved two mice from the utensils drawer to their new
home under the stump in the Silver Lake parking lot. After lunch drove back to Shelburne to
retrieve the laptop.
29 September 2012
Spent all day working with Perry, Lynne, and Jake
moving Alverta out of the South Burlington condominium that she’s lived in for
the last 33 years and into a senior living establishment in Shelburne. Realized when I reached Salisbury that I’d
left my laptop in Alverta’s new apartment.
Once back at Fern Lake, four fingers of JW Black Label were not nearly
enough…
11 - 28 September 2012
.JPG)
After being told about the damage to the hydraulic system (caused when the RV bottomed out while crossing Steve’s field en route to the parking spot) Chree renamed Delores “Dolores” (Spanish for pain). Spent much of this time logging a portion of the softwood stand on our property in Calais. My uncle and cousins planted a 3 acre field with Christmas trees back in the mid-1950’s… which were never harvested. Consequently, today the trees are much too close together, which is keeping the stand from optimal growth. From the pictures you can see what the stand looks like before and after thinning, and the piles of sawmill quality and pulp mill quality logs that resulted from many days of very rigorous exercise. Mr. Jonsered has had a workout! Hopefully my efforts will result in a couple of checks from the mills… and that my labor will net at least $1 per hour… maybe even $1.25! Was cruising along Waterbury flats (one of the few straight and level stretches on I-89) at a sedate 65 mph, taking Dolores back to Pete’s RV to have the hydraulic system damage repaired, when out of nowhere she started shaking so violently that I could barely see the road. Felt like a flat front tire on mega-steroids, only worse. Every drawer flew open, three wine glasses shattered, the wall clock flew off the wall and all the hands flew off the rotating stud), the toaster (which had quit working just that morning) was completely decrumbed, and, in short, the RV interior was totally trashed. Fighting mightily, I managed to keep Dolores on the road and upright, but came very, very close to a major wreck. Fortunately there were no other cars around me when the “incident” happened, as I took the whole road to get her stopped and then over to the shoulder. After I stopped shaking, thoroughly inspected the wheels and suspension… and found absolutely nothing wrong! So, very gingerly put her back on the road, slowly building back up to highway speed. No problems! Got to Pete’s RV a ½ hour later and added a suspension system inspection to the list of repairs. And they found? Absolutely nothing wrong! Had them replace the front shock absorbers anyway, as bad shocks (which could be worn out without external evidence) or bad struts (which are easily inspected and looked fine) are (all agree) the most likely cause of the shaking. On the afternoon of the 24th, Russ Barrett, The Vermont State Forester for Washington County, came up to walk the land and verified that the correct choices were being made regarding how many and which trees to cull. Whew! After two weeks in the shop, Dolores seemed eager to get back to Fern Lake, where we arrived, shake-free, late afternoon on the 28th.
10 September 2012
Spent the day stocking
up on Ben & Jerry’s (plus other victuals) and doing small projects that
kept me close to the RV in hopes that Santa the UPS delivery truck soon
would be there. Applied a coat of Thompson’s Waterseal to the first section of
the walkway, whose deck boards were salvaged from a 20+ year old patio deck in
Virginia. Them boards were thirsty;
within an hour they were totally dry again!
The UPS truck finally showed up at 4:22 pm; Delores and I were on the
road at 4:24, arriving at Steve’s place, 100 miles later and with a $200 stop for
gas, at the stroke of 7 o’clock. The washboard on the Pekin Brook Road in
Calais surely knocked most of the rust off Delores’ undercarriage! You were wondering, perhaps, what critical RV
system was going to fail next? Answer: the hydraulics, which activates the
leveling jacks and makes the slideout go out and in. Fortunately, the spot Steve and I had picked
to park Delores was reasonably level, but still…
9 September 2012
After the heavy rain
last night, decided to spend some time with my radial arm saw this morning
while the woods dried out somewhat. First
ripped a 15° bevel into a 4′ 4x6 post that will be the inside corner of the
next turn in the walkway. Then turned
five previously used (i.e., junky) 2x10’s into 21 fairly decent 4″x39½″
stringers and a wheelbarrow full of fire kindling wood. If you don’t know how 5
became 21, recommend you study the “new math” some more. During lunch,
reconsidered the design for the 15° bend and decided to use one tall post, vice
the regular in-ground post and railing post combination, on the outside of the
turn. That meant digging out the
in-ground post already planted there, moving the hole over six inches (which,
of course, was right where an unmovable-without-a-backhoe rock already resided),
then very precisely positioning (including top elevation) and planting the tall
post (on top of the rock and therefore not very deep). Also planted the 4x6 post. Put stringers and railing posts on the other
two sets of previously installed but unadorned in-ground posts. With all that
done, eyeballed the layout for the halfway-there bench seat that will be
located just beyond the 15° bend. Moved a couple of large rocks that would have
been in the way. Swam across the lake
and back, again without stopping to rest on the west side.
8 September 2012
.JPG)
.JPG)
High wind warning in the weather forecast for today. Was a mite breezy, too! Sitting out next to the campfire pit eating my lunch, I heard a loud crack… causing me to levitate instantaneously and in time to see a 5½″ diameter red oak branch come crashing down… 20 feet in front of the van and completely blocking the driveway. Made quite a dent in the ground! Mr. Jonsered quickly eliminated the blocked driveway problem. Walked back down the wood walkway to resume work and discovered a large, but very rotten, birch tree had blown over.. just missing the walkway. Got the rest of the deck boards on the longitudinals I installed yesterday, then continued digging holes and burying in-ground posts for the next 24′, down to the 15° corner that marks the walkway halfway point. One of the holes needed to be smack dab in the center of an old stump that was wrapped around a 35 pound Leicester nugget. That were some fun digging! Two holes later, there were two large tap roots (one active, one ancient) right where the post needed to go. That were even more fun digging! As you might imagine, my root cutting ax is going to be spending some quality time with Mr. Grinding Wheel. Was starting to thunder pretty good ‘bout 4 o’clock so called it a day, put away tools, and went swimming. There were whitecaps on Fern Lake!!!! Got back inside the RV literally 30 seconds before the heavens opened up.
7 September 2012
After Art Tournet (owner of Vermont Pest Control) left me a voicemail yesterday saying that he was booked solid until mid-November, this morning I made up a 1:1 solution of BoraCare and thoroughly sprayed the three areas under which sawdust has accumulated on the shed footers in the last couple of weeks. At 2:45 this afternoon, just as I was leaving to run more errands in Middlebury, Art showed up at Triangle Square Circle. (He actually was here to do work at Marty & Merry’s, but their driveway is closed ‘cause Tammy, Fran, and Bob spent yesterday
6 September 2012
5 September 2012
The missing peeve has
been found! (In plain sight and painted
a bright international orange, sitting in our Virginia garage.) Returned to Fern Lake in a little over 9 hours
with a stop a Giddings Equipment to retrieve the new and improved Triangle
Square Circle driveway sign. Kinda
boring without the red lights on the dashboard.
Tire inflation warning light was on because the van’s computer thinks
more than 40 psi is overinflated whereas the new tires (which I was inflating
to 40 psi) are rated to take up to 44 psi.
Check engine light was on ‘cause the catalytic converter is nearing the
end of its useful life after 143,000 miles…
29 August 2012
Back to Virginia in
just on 9 hours with a stop at Giddings Manufacturing and Equipment in Pittsford
to order a new driveway sign. The tire
inflation warning light came on again a mile down the road from Fern Lake,
stayed on for the next 507 miles, then went back out as I turned onto Newington
Forest Avenue, a ½ mile from the house.
Go figure!!!! Saw the extent of
Chree’s tripping-over-Shlomo injuries upon arrival home. Let’s just say that it’s a good thing I’ve
got witnesses to prove I was in Vermont last Friday, otherwise there would be a
restraining order issued in record time.
28 August 2012
27 August 2012
26 August 2012
25 August 2012
.JPG)
24 August 2012
Did errands with / for
Alverta in Burlington all morning.
Returned to Fern Lake at 2:30 and promptly got back to work on the
walkway took a nap. Awhile later, somewhat refreshed, dug the last hole for
and buried the remaining two in-ground posts needed to support the third
landing. Was admiring my handiwork and
doing a last measurement check when I realized that all of the posts are in the
wrong place due to very poor prior planning on the part of this Perkins. Shortly
thereafter, while in the lake soothing my bruised foot and the footprint-shaped
bruise on my butt, Chree called to let me know about her day in the emergency
room caused by a cute little black doggie, name of Shlomo, over whom she
tripped while walking said doggie this morning.
When retrieving a bottle of wine for dinner from the man cave, found a
pile of “sawdust” on the shed footer right under one of the oak beams… a beam
that I treated especially thoroughly with the BoraCare spray. On a positive note, dinner at Marty &
Merry’s was delicious as always… and somehow my wine glass was never empty
after regaling them with tales of the goings on over the last 24 hours. After
dark we all came up the hill to admire the walkway all lit up. In spite of the rocky, root-infested terrain
and elevated BAC, none of us ended up in an emergency room…
23 August 2012
Delivered mouse #3 to the Silver Lake parking lot hollow tree stump. Afterwards, spent an hour uploading 2½ weeks of blog postings to the fernlake.blogspot.com website. Then put the toe caps on the third walkway section. That means that 158 feet of the walkway now are complete. Only 274 more feet to go! Started work on putting in the four in-ground posts that will support the third landing. Placement of the first two was very fussy… they have to be in exactly the right position (including height above ground) for both the landing construction and the start of the next walkway section. Got that done and was about to plant the third in-ground post when a call from Lynne sent me to Burlington for the night to assist Alverta, who was experiencing her first ever ambulance ride as Lynne and I were speaking and, ultimately, again needed rescuing from the clutches of the Fletcher Allen emergency room.
22 August 2012
21 August 2012
20 August 2012
19 August 2012
Had to fire up the RV
furnace to take the chill off while having breakfast this morning. Isn’t this August, the only WARM month in
Vermont???? Spent most of the morning
scrubbing and buffing, making Delores and her environs ready for guests. Alverta and Lynne arrived at 11:30, a full
hour before I was expecting them. With some frenzied activity, got the
remaining preps done while trying to be a semi-attentive host. Lunch was served promptly at 1. Jake arrived as we were finishing our repast…
and in short order inhaled nearly as much food and drink as the three of us had
already put down our gullets. Perry
arrived (not hungry) as the four of us were finishing dessert. While Perry, Jake, and I sat around the
campfire talking about walkway engineering, the two ladies retired to the RV
and apparently spent some quality time “evening up the edge” of the still-warm
walnut-infused Ghirardelli chocolate brownies.
Least wise the baking dish was a lot less full than I remembered when
time came to put the brownies under wrap.
Guests departed at 3, a few minutes before Merry and Graham came up the
hill for a walkway tour (and to distract me from attacking the awaiting kitchen
calamity). After the dishes were done,
the rest of the day and evening was spent doing financial analysis for
Alverta. Have I mentioned yet how much I
dislike the #$@!%^! “new and improved” touchpad mouse on my new laptop?
18 August 2012
17 August 2012
16 August 2012
15 August 2012
Must have misunderstood the NOAA weather people when they said there was a 70% chance of rain today, ‘cause it was a beautiful day for working. Put in the other two in-ground / railing posts that define the west side of the second landing, then installed the landing light and the framework for the deck boards. Late afternoon, Tammy Walsh and Bob LaPorte (who are working together to repair a portion of Marty & Merry’s driveway) came up to admire the walkway and sample my beer supply. Got the new laptop semi-setup and spent most of the evening catching up with the blog and swearing profusely at the #$@!%#@!!! mouse touch-pad that seems to want to do everything but move the mouse pointer to where I want it in the document.
14 August 2012
Another adventuresome
bike ride with Marty. Details withheld in deference to the sensibilities of the
viewing audience. Installed the walkway deck boards for the last four feet down
to the start of the second landing. The
final board ended up exactly where it was supposed to be, i.e., I did
put the final in-ground posts for this section in the right place. Went into
Burlington after lunch to pick up my new computer from Best Buy where the Geek
Squad folks were able to retrieve and transfer all of the data from my dead
computer to the new one.
13 August 2012
12 August 2012
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)