Took the Kubota down to the waterfront first thing to finish digging the power / water line trench from where Alex and I left off in early July to the end of the wood walkway. Maneuvering the tractor onto the slope from the upper work road was more than a mite hairy. Even with the seatbelt fastened, I thought I’d have to stop and get clean underwear on a couple of occasions before I got situated. Then, trying to dig the trench while pointed uphill, the Kubota kept trying to do a wheelie… which was a tad disconcerting until I solved that problem by filling the front bucket with rocks. Trench dug, assembled the next 40 feet of conduit and pulled the line through with no problems. [The line will be used, eventually, to pull the electrical wires through the conduit.] Went to feed the line through the very last section of conduit and the $%#@!!! thing came apart. Only thing I could do at that point was to pull all the line back out of the conduit, suck a string through, and use the string to re-pull the line. Kate, up for a weekend of R&R, graciously came over to help feed the string into the upper end of the conduit while I created suction at the lower end using the shop vac. Worked just as advertised. Told Kate I could do the rest myself… oh, foolish me! Was re-pulling the line with only moderate difficulty when… the string broke! So, what should have been a 15 minute job took me over three hours… but at the end of a very frustrating day there is a line all the way through the conduit once again. The lake level is 8″ below the top of the dock and the water temperature is 77°. Can’t decide if the swim after work or the lager and wood-fired T-bone for dinner was the highlight of the day.
