In late 2009, during my winter travels through the majestic countryside of the Colorado rocky mountains, just after an early winter storm, I inadvertently drove my truck into a tree. After a grand restoration of my ford ranger I was left without a front bumper. This caused me no concern as I often advocate "the uglier your vehicle, the less likely it will be seized by unscrupulous hoodlums". My theory has proven soundly as I still have my truck.
Meanwhile in Tennessee. I have, over the last 2 days, been running around in an effort to purchase my lumber for my house. During on one of these jaunts through the wilds of Jasper Tennessee, I found my self in the clutches of our local unscrupulous hoodlums, the Tennessee highway patrol and in an effort to seize my truck they informed me that apparently it is illegal to drive a vehicle without a front bumper. Who would have thought? Far be it from me to be non-compliant with our oh so fair judicial system. So There! I have been working on the foundations still. I am mostly finished now as I have both my north and west foundations completed as well as lances root cellar mostly finished. All I have to do now is his north foundation wall and the eastern wall grade beams. Alas the rain is coming. Thanks to Issac. Everyone be sure to say thank you Issac for slowing things down. I will have to make some kind of rain tent so I can work.
Lance and his brood will be arriving probably on the 6th of sept. Slave labor cannot be overrated. The plan will be to build him a shelter when he arrives and the put up my house all before the end of September. Maybe, hopefully. Thank you for commenting Judy. Glad to hear from you and we will have something for you to do soon. Don't worry. (see slave labor comment above). It has been a while since anyone has posted. Mostly because everyone is scattered and kind of waiting till September.
As most of you know I am back in Tn. and have retrieved my family from Maine. The trip back here from Colorado was uneventful, I drove straight through in 20 hours. After which I spent 3 lazy days working on various chores on the property, mostly cleanup from the rain storms. I then proceeded by greyhound to Maine where I would meet my family. This leg of my journey took 33 hours, with many stops in various places. I spent the next few days visiting with my family and in laws. We went to the beach, sat in the swing on the porch and had a great time doing nothing at all. Our trip back by car was fairly quick compared to the bus. We drove straight through in 21 hours. We have been in Tn. for 3 weeks now and have been busy as bees in winter. I have finished digging out Lance's root cellar and am currently building the stone walls and foundations for it. It is a hole 6'9 x 7'3. It has a drain that will meet up with the main foundation drain and sits just off the amazing wall you all have seen in the pictures, on the north western wall. I currently have 2 of the walls built and will be starting the eastern wall tomorrow. I hope to have this portion of the foundation finished by the end of the month as this is the next important step to actually building a house. I will have pictures to post as soon as possible. Well we have left Tennessee for a planned break and whatnot. We left on June 27th and arrived back in time to miss all the fire fun. Currently on my vacation I have accomplished a lot of sitting around, some working for real monies, and maintenance on my truck. I should have ac again soon after 3 years. Lance will remain here in Colorado when I return to TN in a few days. My current plan for the next week before I go to Maine will be to finish the footings in the foundation, dig out the root cellar under Lance's floor and cut out 2 parking spaces off the drive way. Quite a bit of work but I hope to get it all done. I also hope to have a video camera so to better document the expedition.
So before you start thinking the title of this post would be a good description of our adventure in Tennessee, let me point out some of our successes. 1. the driveway is cleared of boulders 2. the path is done...ish 3. the shed is awesome. 4. the neighbors might think were a bit weird but they generally like us. On Saturday afternoon after a day of messing around with my family, Lance and I are hard at work clearing a stump that is on the foundation line of one of the houses. At some point near the completion of this arduous task we decide it is time to clear out some of the dangerous trees before we begin the next phase which is digging out the home sites. These trees pose a couple of threats. 1. They are leaning precariously ready to fall at the slightest breeze 2. They are too close to the houses and pose a fire danger. The worst of these trees was right next to the shed as you see in the picture and it was leaning with its center of gravity about 3 feet off center in a shedly direction. After spending some time measuring and calculating the arc of fall based on wind speeds and the earths rotation we determined we could cause the tree to die in the direction we wanted. We tied our pull lines with expert precision, sharpened our axes and began the duty of felling a tree. The hinge cut was made with care and the tree was primed to fall. This is when nature made the impromptu choice to cause the tree to fall back into a shedly direction. Now at this point it became apparent that we had erred in our calculations and needed to change course with utmost expedience. Well long story short we tied off another guy line to a tree the opposite side of the shed and cut a new hinge to guide the tree in a more prudent direction leaving the near miss as you see in the picture. Oh, and Lance went swimming with his phone. The phone that just finished drying out and was nearly functional again after he'd left it in a massive downpour. So we were sitting at our camp for one of our all too few breaks from the monumental task of digging when we heard a quick flutter of wings and a thud. What we found, landed about 4 feet from where I was sitting, was this enticing meal. The dragon fly was about 5 inches long and the butterfly was easily its equal in mass. Upon closer inspection the dragon was mounted on the back and chewing off the head of the butterfly. This went on for about 2 minutes and then the dragon with meal in tow, flew from the ground an landed on a nearby tree to sup. No more than 5 minutes after we see a wing flutter to the ground and the dragon was nowhere to be seen. |
DanSnacking on snakes and not *not* licking toads. Archives
December 2012
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