The month is over. The update is being written.
It’s been a busy month. Too busy to write about during the month.
We arrived back in Meadow Lake from Japan on the last day of last month and have stayed here all month except for a quick trip and back to Saskatoon to pickup up some epoxy resin.
First order of business after a couple of weeks away was to mow the grassy areas (“lawn” would be presumptuous) around the house and along the grid road. Then the oil and air filters got changed on the mowers. Or maybe it happened the other way around. Then it was time to mow the paths around the property.
We were away for April and May and much of June, so we missed the thrumming of Fred and Charley, ruffed grouse that sit at opposite corners of our acreage trying to attract mates. We may have missed the mating ritual but if a grouse sounds in the forest…? The answers appears to be “yes” judging from the aggressive momma grouses (grice?) that attack us to protect their chicks.
Our granddaughter, Sonja, at loose ends waiting to head east to school, has been a tremendous help this month. She painted, stained, cleaned and removed many items that had been on my should do list.
|
I ordered a truckload of drain rock to expand the area around the burn pit. As I cleared the brush, I discovered the mound of dirt a track hoe had put there while removing the dirt down to mineral soil immediately around the fire pit. I say. “pit” but it is a stainless-steel cylinder drilled to 22% open area with 1.2 mm holes. It is half of a Thune basket which when new costs tens of thousands of dollars. After years of use it was finally worn out enough to go to the scrap heap. Cut in two it went to acreages to use for wiener roasts. My friend and co-worker, the late Bill Perry, got one half and we the other half.
After many hours of moving the mound of dirt, one wheel barrow at a time, the ground was ready for landscape cloth and the gravel. As a final touch I stacked a third of a cord of dry, split firewood nearby. If the fire bans ever come off, we can test drive the fire pit.
|
Debbie and Ernie hosted a blowout barbeque to celebrate Kohen’s graduation from high school. Becky and family came to Meadow Lake to join in the celebration. While here they dropped by for lunch and a visit.
|
One of the three slides on our home for the first years of our “retirement” had a minor leak which had gone unnoticed for too long. I removed the worn caulking and upgraded the sealant on that slide and on the other two slides to prevent future leaks. Then I removed the corner of the floor that had rotted and replaced the subfloor.
|
Last month I bought a Big Foot truck camper from a nearby farm. It wouldn’t fit on any of the trucks or trailers available to me. The seller agreed to deliver it on his old truck. We were both busy last month. He delivered it on the 11th of July. It looks definitively neglected. That it has no mustiness or sign of water damage is a credit to the clamshell fibreglass construction of this 1982 classic truck camper.
Sonja magic-erased the grime off the sides of the Bigfoot camper. It doesn’t look half bad with years of grime wiped away. I did the magic eraser thing on the roof and started on more fundamental issues.
The manufacturer went through a bankruptcy and a buyout with the 2008 financial meltdown. The new owners don’t have much information on the older models. They don’t have centre of gravity data. The camper is not marked. I made a fulcrum. With two hydraulic jacks, Sonja and Juanita’s help we determined that the COG is 43” from the front bottom edge. If we ever load the cmaper in our dually the weight will be ahead of the rear wheels.
The camper was too wide to fit into a modern truck. Old trucks had wider openings at the tail gate. I cut out the outer piece and a strip next to it and then swapped pieces. The camper is now ten inches narrower where it will sit in the tailgate. By the end of July that modification was well underway. A couple of days into August the structural part was complete. The truck could now be loaded on a modern truck. What remains is the cosmetic clean up of the mod and the restoration of the inside where stuff was ripped out to get access to the fibreglass panels. Next task will be to modify the jack brackets for clearance around the wide hips of our dually.
|
Juanita split wood and stacked it in the woodshed to restore levels after what we burned last winter and what I took out to stack near the fire pit this month.
|
Jeremy Laird and helpers came by to take down a couple of big, dead trees that were poised to cause damage if the wind took them down.
The sucker truck and its helper came by and emptied the septic tank.
|
|
