I made progress preparing the site for the new house, but the old one still needs to be gone. Cousin Steve has been taking care of that--he started last weekend.
I had a couple, actually three, rocks sticking out of the ground that had a tendency to attack lawnmowers. They seemed too large to remove by hand, so I asked Steve to use his skidsteer to make them go away. This is the message I received after he started work on the house and the rocks:
"I've been working on the project, with good progress... (T)he house is down, ... the basement is 70% filled.... I tore into those rocks today... the small one is approximatly 8x3x3 feet, the other one is substantially bigger. Picture a 7x7x7 hunk of granite shaped like a (die)...What do you want done with these rocks?"
I asked my family:
T: The adult suggested:
Carve the busts of our grandparents
Offer it to an art student' "Free 340 cubic foot granite block--you haul".
N. the Soldier/Dental Something says:
from the little one: carve a lawn-mower eating monster (eating a lawnmower)
from the big one: carve our grandparents--life size
E. the Mathematician, offers these suggestions:
Break them into 32 pieces to make a giant chess set
Break them into 3200 pieces to make 100 regular-sized chess sets
Build a dog-size stone cathedral
Make furniture for guests you're not fond of to sit on
Carve one into a millstone and grind your own flour
Stick a sword in one and claim that whoever can pull the sword out can be the ruler of the farm
I need more ideas, which I will post as they come in.
(Of course, I could push them over the hill.)
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Monday, July 18, 2011
Water!
5:00 a.m.: Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink. I feel like I'm swimming as I cross the yard.
The well driller arrived before 5:00 a.m. so they could get the well dug and be home by noon.
Why?
The temperature (around 80 as of 5:00 a.m.) is slightly lower than the current dew point. I can't take a picture because the fog is so thick I have a hard time seeing the drilling rig. My glasses are fogged over to the point that my computer screen is nothing more than a white fuzzy rectangle in front of me. I imagine the camera lens will fog up as soon as I expose it to this air.
-------
3:00 p.m.: We have water!!! It's well past noon, but we have water. Not cheap water, but good water, and lots of it. Forty-five gallons per minute pulled up from 336 feet below.
I'll have the pump installed in the spring just before we start building in the spring. Once it is running, water samples will be sent out for the official testing.
See the fog beyond the trees. You can't see, but the grass is still covered in dew.
The temperature this afternoon is in the upper 90s and the morning dew on the grass still hasn't dried up. But, we have water!
The well driller arrived before 5:00 a.m. so they could get the well dug and be home by noon.
Why?
The temperature (around 80 as of 5:00 a.m.) is slightly lower than the current dew point. I can't take a picture because the fog is so thick I have a hard time seeing the drilling rig. My glasses are fogged over to the point that my computer screen is nothing more than a white fuzzy rectangle in front of me. I imagine the camera lens will fog up as soon as I expose it to this air.
-------
3:00 p.m.: We have water!!! It's well past noon, but we have water. Not cheap water, but good water, and lots of it. Forty-five gallons per minute pulled up from 336 feet below.
I'll have the pump installed in the spring just before we start building in the spring. Once it is running, water samples will be sent out for the official testing.See the fog beyond the trees. You can't see, but the grass is still covered in dew.
The temperature this afternoon is in the upper 90s and the morning dew on the grass still hasn't dried up. But, we have water!
Friday, July 1, 2011
Tractors
It arrived. My sister's tractor that I will store in my shed while she is off defending our country again. She says that she needs to go again because big brother (me) didn't do it right the first time so little sister has to go clean up the mess.
The problem with the tractor is that I gave directions to the driver that would require him to drive only one mile on these soggy, over saturated gravel roads. His partner grew up in this area and thought he knew a better way which required them to travel twenty miles with a heavy load on these now damaged roads. And, he delivered the tractor and extra equipment (including a pair of duals for the tractor) to the wrong farm. I do not have the equipment to pick up the duals and transport them. Maybe one of my neighbors has a loader tractor.
Speaking of bears and pictures...Last night, on the way home, I noticed a spectacular orange sunset in my mirror and a black bear sitting in the middle of the road on the next hill in front of me. So I stop, grab my camera and hop out of the truck...my air-conditioned truck...into the 90+ degree, 75+ dew point countryside. Instant fog on the lense, I clean the lense, and try to wind the film---end of the roll.
The bear is now standing and watching me.
I hastily fished out another roll; loaded it--it slipped so I had to reload; cleaned the lense and prepared to shoot the sunset.
The bear is now jumping up and down, waving.
The sun has set, but I take a few pictures
of the golden orange over the trees. I turn to get a picture of the bear. Too late. With a humph and a back-handed brush off, the bear saunters off into the woods. Another five minutes of fame lost to old technology. Get a digital camera and you won't have this problem!
The problem with the tractor is that I gave directions to the driver that would require him to drive only one mile on these soggy, over saturated gravel roads. His partner grew up in this area and thought he knew a better way which required them to travel twenty miles with a heavy load on these now damaged roads. And, he delivered the tractor and extra equipment (including a pair of duals for the tractor) to the wrong farm. I do not have the equipment to pick up the duals and transport them. Maybe one of my neighbors has a loader tractor.
The silver lining? I saw a black bear bounding across a neighbor's wheat field. I took a picture, but I don't know how it will turn out.
OK. So it didn't turn out so great. I can still see that it's a bear running across the field.
Speaking of bears and pictures...Last night, on the way home, I noticed a spectacular orange sunset in my mirror and a black bear sitting in the middle of the road on the next hill in front of me. So I stop, grab my camera and hop out of the truck...my air-conditioned truck...into the 90+ degree, 75+ dew point countryside. Instant fog on the lense, I clean the lense, and try to wind the film---end of the roll.
The bear is now standing and watching me.
I hastily fished out another roll; loaded it--it slipped so I had to reload; cleaned the lense and prepared to shoot the sunset.
The bear is now jumping up and down, waving.
The sun has set, but I take a few pictures
of the golden orange over the trees. I turn to get a picture of the bear. Too late. With a humph and a back-handed brush off, the bear saunters off into the woods. Another five minutes of fame lost to old technology. Get a digital camera and you won't have this problem!
One Hundred Years
Well, 92 years.
I guess I can understand why I have one hundred years of stuff to dispose of. They came from Europe with very little: For two families, one small trunk about the size of today's average middle-school student's back pack. The woodwork on the trunk was done by my family, and the metal work was done by the other. My family settled in central Minnesota and the other settled further north. In time my family decided to move north also.
The preparations were made during World War I and the move came within a year after Armistice Day.
They lived on the farm during feast and famine. However, the famine on a global level is probably what played most heavily on the hoarding instinct. During both WWI and WWII the family rationed as instructed, and during The Great Depression they had the same needs and wants as everyone else, and like everyone else, they were concerned about where and how these needs would be filled. Fortunately, they had the farm, and the food Mother Nature provides (in or out of season). And they learned how to save what they received. (The story goes that the boys could bring Grandma a deer in the evening and by morning there would be no evidence of its existence except for a shelf in the cellar filled with canned meat that was not there before. I have two jars for evidence--and the seals are still intact.)
So they learned to keep this and that because, "...it's still good.", or "We might need that someday." And yes, the same thoughts go through my mind as I comb through these stashes of forgotten treasure.
I guess I can understand why I have one hundred years of stuff to dispose of. They came from Europe with very little: For two families, one small trunk about the size of today's average middle-school student's back pack. The woodwork on the trunk was done by my family, and the metal work was done by the other. My family settled in central Minnesota and the other settled further north. In time my family decided to move north also.
The preparations were made during World War I and the move came within a year after Armistice Day.
They lived on the farm during feast and famine. However, the famine on a global level is probably what played most heavily on the hoarding instinct. During both WWI and WWII the family rationed as instructed, and during The Great Depression they had the same needs and wants as everyone else, and like everyone else, they were concerned about where and how these needs would be filled. Fortunately, they had the farm, and the food Mother Nature provides (in or out of season). And they learned how to save what they received. (The story goes that the boys could bring Grandma a deer in the evening and by morning there would be no evidence of its existence except for a shelf in the cellar filled with canned meat that was not there before. I have two jars for evidence--and the seals are still intact.)
So they learned to keep this and that because, "...it's still good.", or "We might need that someday." And yes, the same thoughts go through my mind as I comb through these stashes of forgotten treasure.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Rain and Tornadoes
Yesterday morning I signed up for phone and internet service to the machine shed. Wait 'til you see the phone book!
See that book by the phone? It's the phone book. Covers all dozen or so towns. One section is listed by town, another section is an alphabetical list of all customer, other sections include yellow pages and listings of other towns, big and small, in the area.
Notice the lamp? It is a childhood memory from Grandma's house that became a model for a project in art class. I washed it, installed new hardware and a shade and put it to good use.
Just one year ago http://www.valleynewslive.com/ frequently interrupted programming to give the latest updates on the severe weather and tornadoes passing through this area (see blog posts from one year ago).
Last night began as a repeat of last year. Fortunately for me, the most severe storms stayed in ND this year, sending rain across the border but nothing else that I have seen.
And rain we got! So, as the idiom goes, "Can 't dance, too wet to plow," I may as well go visiting.
See that book by the phone? It's the phone book. Covers all dozen or so towns. One section is listed by town, another section is an alphabetical list of all customer, other sections include yellow pages and listings of other towns, big and small, in the area.
Notice the lamp? It is a childhood memory from Grandma's house that became a model for a project in art class. I washed it, installed new hardware and a shade and put it to good use.
Just one year ago http://www.valleynewslive.com/ frequently interrupted programming to give the latest updates on the severe weather and tornadoes passing through this area (see blog posts from one year ago).
Last night began as a repeat of last year. Fortunately for me, the most severe storms stayed in ND this year, sending rain across the border but nothing else that I have seen.
And rain we got! So, as the idiom goes, "Can 't dance, too wet to plow," I may as well go visiting.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
I'm back!
Unlike last year, I do not have a digital camera so pictures will need to wait until I get the film developed.
The finished machine shed. I hadn't had time to cut the grass and weeds when I took these pictures. Notice my shiny new truck--it had rained, and the truck had worked.
A close-up of the not-so-shiny-new truck...
...after doing what 4X4 pickups are made to do.Also unlike last year, the birds in my way this year are not tiny, chirpy, cute little things that flit and flutter as they take off...these two rattled the building as they head for the open window. The flap of their wings rumble not unlike the last shuttle taking off for the ISS. And they are not on the engine of my tractor--they are in the upstairs of the house, the very house I had planned to take down this summer.
And they don't use 'cute' to convince me to leave them alone...they use intimidation and fear. Fear that they will pick me up and carry me away if I come near the house, their house.
And they won the first round: I took a different route to get what I wanted. I had to go into another building that will be moved and move tools to my new shed. I step out of the building and through the top step of a four-step platform. As I go tumbling to the ground my arms instinctively rid themselves of all tools and sharp objects that had sneakily been retrieved under the watchful eye of our 'winged house guests'. As I go tumbling, does my mind think about not having cell-phone reception? No! Does it think about that not an issue because the phone is in the truck and how would I get to the truck? No! It thinks about how the grass needs cutting!
I believe the birds circled overhead until I had a chance to do an inventory of body parts and limp off to the truck. Maybe I won the battle: They left and I haven't seen them since.
Knee packed in ice brought the swelling down, time for bed.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Present and Future Kingdom
A week on the road visiting family in three states, delivering merchandise from folks back home. Finally, we reach our destination in mid May. And what do we hope to see? Our dome under construction; workers with their sleeves rolled up, happily going about their jobs in the warm breeze; the sun shining just right to properly cure the concrete, birds singing, flowers about to bloom, asparagus sticking its shoots up...you know, mid-May, spring time...
So, what was our welcoming party? Snow falling from a cloudy, dreary sky; cold wind blowing in from the western plain; workers bundled up like hunters in December; and our consultant ready to head back south! But, the project continues and I can see that there is a dome taking shape on the side of the hill.
Pictures will be posted as I get them.
Finally, our dome!
So, what was our welcoming party? Snow falling from a cloudy, dreary sky; cold wind blowing in from the western plain; workers bundled up like hunters in December; and our consultant ready to head back south! But, the project continues and I can see that there is a dome taking shape on the side of the hill.
Pictures will be posted as I get them.
Finally, our dome!
Hmmm. Doesn't look right!
Maybe you should take a prezi stroll to see what's really happening. (It was very windy today, and so we have a lot of construction debris floating all over.)
Enjoy, but don't look for a cupola, it will be built this week, weather permitting.
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