21 June 2018

Made my daily stop at Green Mountain Electric where, for a whopping 69 cents, the good folks there sold me the special reducing washers needed to create a 1¼″ hole from a 1¾″ electrical panel knockout.  Problem solved!  They also sold me the special frost-heave sleeve that I needed for the conduit because, believe it or not, the ground does move up and down quite a bit hereabouts in the winter.  Spent much of the afternoon moving stone, by hand, from point A to point B putting the finishing touches on the compacted stone base for the barn foundation.  Called and left a message with Long Ridge Concrete that we’re now officially ready for their ministrations.  In case you didn’t know, it’s a lot easier to compact stone with a gasoline-powered plate compactor than it is with a manually operated 8″ hand tamp.  After the foundation stone base was done (and a thing of beauty it surely is), went to put the last few pieces in the 1″ PVC electrical conduit.  Even though my measurements showed that I might have just enough conduit, rather than take a chance of being royally screwed if I was wrong on the short side, I cleverly inserted an old 7½″ piece of PVC left over from a previous project.  But doing that used up my last coupling, which meant I was one coupling short when I went to put in the final piece.  And, don’t you know, after cutting that last piece I ended up with 8″ of left over conduit, so, if I had trusted my measurements, I would have had exactly the right amount of materials to finish the job.  Grrrr!  Chree and I sucked a string through the conduit and then pulled a rope through, said rope to be used to pull the 4 AWG wire that eventually will provide power to the barn electrical subpanel.

20 June 2018

Woke up at 3 am just knowing that the banks on the south and west side of the barn-build site were going to be much too close to the barn walls to allow the concrete forms to be placed and (Chree’s favorite job!) those concrete walls to be tarred (but not feathered) later on.  Couldn’t excavate the west bank (full of roots for some trees we’re trying not to kill) so Chree and I moved the foundation marking stakes 6″ east.  I was just starting to dig the bejesus out of the south bank with the Kubota when Liam Murphy from LTM Environmental arrived to install our new radon abatement fan.  That job quickly and easily accomplished thanks to the Steve Ingram Memorial Attic Walkway, went back to playing in the dirt.  Moving the building meant, of course, that a lot of the stone so carefully placed and compacted yesterday now was in the wrong location.  So, idiot sticks in hand, scavenged stone from where there was too much and moved it to where there wasn’t enough.  Also had a middle-of-the-night epiphany about how to bore the hole under the stone wall using my 3,000 psi pressure washer.  Took an hour of alternating water blasting with pounding some more with my steel bar and hand scooping muck and stones out of the hole, but eventually a piece of 1″ PVC conduit slipped under the stone wall pretty as you please.  Connected the conduit from the barn back towards the main electrical panel, but stopped a few feet short to figure out how I was going to connect the 1″ male box connecter (whose outside diameter actually is 1¼″) to the panel, whose smallest knockout is for 1½″ conduit.  Figured I’d just drill (very carefully) a 1¼″ hole in the bottom of the panel.  Only problem is that I don’t have a 1¼″ drill bit, never mind one for drilling metal.  When in danger or in doubt run in circles, scream and shout call Perry!  All Perry has is a 1¼″ spade bit (good for drilling holes in wood but quickly ruined drilling in metal), so he suggested I ask the Green Mountain Electric folks for their ideas.  Now why didn’t I think of that?!?!

19 June 2018

Was almost finished with my morning coffee just before 8 am when Jim Ploof’s big dump truck deposited 14 cubic yards of ¾″ washed stone on the barn driveway.  Spent the rest of the day spreading and compacting that stone in a layer 6″ thick under where the barn foundation concrete slab will be poured.  My calculations (now there’s a hopeless cause) said that I would need 12 yards for that area and thickness… leaving 2 yards to spread around for the barn driveway.  Ran short of stone, OF COURSE, before finishing the barn area.  Took the plate compactor back to Taylor Rental and went to Green Mountain Electric to trade in the 1½″ PVC conduit and fittings for the 1″ variety that I should have bought originally.  Back at Fern Lake, renewed the attack on the hole under the stone wall through which the conduit must go.  Tried pounding my 4 foot solid steel rock persuader (formerly a Model T axle that my grandfather made into a pry bar) through using my big sledge hammer.  Great exercise and some progress, but no daylight.  Eventually gave up that endeavor in favor of an ice-cold adult beverage.

18 June 2018

Ordered the windows and people-door for the barn from Goodro’s this morning.  Those items certainly haven’t gotten less expensive over the past three years!  Went with Anderson 400 series casements again as the only difference between the 400 series and the 200 series is that the 400 series has low e glass… and costs about $25 more.  Stayed with ThermaTru for the people door, same as is in the woodshed, sauna, and house.  They make a quality door for a reasonable price.  Also bought $100 worth of electrical odds and ends from Green Mountain Electric… and then did some research upon returning home to verify that I did, indeed, buy the wrong size conduit and fittings.  Bother!  Picked up a plate compactor from Taylor Rental, then spent the remainder of the day beating the snot out of the barn footer trenches and the area that will be under the floor slab.  Ran a string line around the perimeter of the foundation site to verify that I did, indeed, not dig the trenches wide enough on three of the four sides.  Discovered that using a shovel-ended idiot stick gives you a great abdominal workout… especially when the heat index is 95 degrees.  In the midst of sweating bullets, thunder started to rumble and a few drops began to fall.  Scrambled to get all the tools and equipment under cover.  Literally the second I finished putting everything away the sun came out.  Next time it started to rumble I didn’t rush quite as fast… and got soaked as a result.  Go figure!

17 June 2018

Finished (sort of) the wood walkway.  The reason for the “sort of” is that, while there now is a continuous wood walking surface from the patio to the dock, 300 feet of walkway deck boards have shrunk to the point that the 1″ gap between adjacent boards is painful to walk on with bare feet.  Those gaps, originally ½″, all need to be tightened up to ³/₁₆″… a project for another day.  Had a few extra minutes after the walkway was done, so quickly built a retaining wall on the west side of the lower “driveway” immediately south of the section of walkway just completed.  Amazingly (yeah, right!) only had to import one rock to make that wall, all the other stones were just lying right there in the woods.

16 June 2018

All I had to do this morning was dig the final footer trench.  Took me three tries before I got it in the right place and the right depth!  Ace backhoe operator!  Then I rough graded the “driveway” that will connect our paved driveway to the barn door.  That was done by mid-afternoon, so transitioned to working on the wood walkway.  Had to take up the 2x6 planks I installed the other day in order to pound sand… literally.  Each plank has to sit firmly on firm ground if they hope to survive being driven over by Delores (she tips the scales at somewhat over 15,000 pounds).  After just a few minutes the handle on my hand tamp broke clean off.  (Obviously all that time in the gym is starting to pay off.)  Took awhile to figure out how to get the stub out of the base and then reverse-engineer how the handle was being kept in the base.  All the cool weather this past week has dropped the lake temperature back to 70°... which still felt pretty wonderful after playing in the dirt all day.

15 June 2018

Perry dropped off the laser level range rod first thing in the morning.  The good news: my eye for flat is pretty darn good.  The bad news: the barn-build site was consistently 5″ higher than what I want.  So spent the entire afternoon scraping the site down and then re-digging the footer trenches.  So by close of business I was right back to where I left off yesterday, just 5″ lower.  Of course, this being the rock capital of the world, I dug up several bucket-loads of nuggets.  Those were piled up on the north side of the house where yet another stone wall needs building.