Puckaway Motor Club

Tag: landscaping (page 2 of 4)

Log: June 2 and 3, 2018

June 6, 2018 / / 1 Comment

Saturday

We pulled in around noon in two vehicles; Lyssa’s on call at the hospital this weekend and may need to go in on short notice. Jake and Hannah rode in the truck with me, Josh kept Lyssa company in the car. The boys finished eating their Culver’s and were quickly off playing with their trucks and tools in the sawdust pile “quarry”. Lyssa unpacked our stuff in the keep while I set out to put the finishing touches on the Outhouse Relocation Initiative.

A vastly improved view.

First, I wanted to address the old outhouse location. I certainly didn’t need Hannah messing around in there. I grabbed the green ATV and small yard trailer to collect all the bricks around the pit. Then I dug around the outside of the buried metal retaining ring and piled the dirt in the middle. Once I was about four inches below ground level all around the ring, I got out my sawzall and sliced the ring as far down as I could reach. I levelled out the dirt as best I could and with that the site was retired. I’ll need to fill in with more dirt later to even out the area, but it looks much better than it did.

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Log: May 25 – 27, 2018

May 29, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Friday

Hannah and I pulled in at 6:00 pm pulling the blue trailer full of brush from Red’s house. The boys are at Presque Isle with my folks for the holiday weekend and Lyssa’s working late tonight. It’s just as well, this weekend is 100% project-focused. Miraculously, my back is completely better from the freak tweak I gave it last Sunday, so I’m ready.

The pit was starving. I let it feast.

I hauled my clothes and supplies into the keep, which was pleasantly pre-cooled thanks to my remote-controlled air conditioner. It’s in the mid 80s and only supposed to get hotter as the weekend goes on, so it’ll be essential to have somewhere to beat the heat. Back outside, the mosquitoes were in full force. I loaded myself up with DEET and started stacking Red’s brush on the burn pile. It’s all evergreen that’s had a year to dry out, so it should catch fire pretty quickly. Once the trailer was empty, I moved it out of the way and double checked the DNR site to make sure it was OK to burn. Confident I wouldn’t attract the authorities, I grabbed my propane torch and started lighting the brush. In less than a minute, I had a raging fire, the first one of 2018. I didn’t even need any gasoline.
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Log: May 7 and 8, 2018

May 11, 2018 / / 1 Comment

Monday

Hannah and I drove in at 9:15 pm. I’m taking the day off work tomorrow so I can get all the leaves collected up here before the storms we’re supposed to get later in the week. If I want any kind of lawn this year, the sooner I can get this done, the better.

It’s going to be hot tomorrow with highs in the mid 80s, so I turned on the AC to get ahead of it. This got me thinking of a quick project I could take care of. I’ve got the ability to remotely control the AC with the Logitech Harmony hub, but I can’t really tell what I’m doing or if it’s responding. As long as the AC is set correctly and then turned off when I leave, I just have to hit Power from the remote app and everything will kick on the way it’s supposed to. I wanted more control and assurance, though. I took a USB webcam and mounted it to the underside of the upper kitchen cabinets. It’s pointed directly at the control panel of the air conditioner. This plugs into the PuckaPi, where a program called fswebcam is used to take snapshots. Now I’ll be able to tell exactly what mode the AC is in and can do more fine-tuning remotely.

Content with my efforts, I spent the rest of the night being lazy and watching TV. I was asleep before 11:00.

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Log: October 8 and 9, 2017

October 14, 2017 / / 1 Comment

Sunday

Hannah and I drove in around 5:30 pm with a truck bed loaded with tools and Puckaweekend goodies. The whole Thelen clan just spent a long weekend up in Presque Isle, but the boys have school tomorrow and Lyssa works. I, however, have Columbus Day off. As soon as we got back to Oshkosh, I quickly unpacked from PI and loaded up for Puckaway.

Lynn needs more hats.

Both Red and my dad were here waiting for me. Red and I work in the same office, so he’s got tomorrow off as well. He’s been here since 2:00 pm and has been busy mulching leaves all afternoon in the surprisingly high mid-70s temperatures. My dad got here shortly before me as he came straight down from PI. I helped Dad unload a snowblower from the back of his truck and rode with him to our neighbor Lynn’s property to store the pontoon boat for the winter. I’m glad that Dad was the one backing it in. While my trailering skills aren’t bad, there’s only about 3 inches of clearance on either side of the garage door when backing that big boat in, and I sure wouldn’t want to be the guy to scrape up our helpful neighbor’s garage. Lynn was there and I got to finally meet him. We hung out and talked for a bit, but Dad wanted to get back to Oshkosh and was on the road by 6:00.

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Log: September 11, 2017

September 11, 2017 / / 0 Comments

Quick trip today. Pulled in around 7:00 with the aluminum ATV trailer in tow and the pooch in the backseat. Dad was already up here with his friend Nick, a retired electrician. Nick’s going to be helping us install a new meter and outdoor panel, replacing our ancient push-o-matic 60 amp service with a brand-new 200 amp service panel. I’ll eventually be able to re-route the pole barn and keep lines to this new panel and bump them each up to 30 amp in the process. I talked with Nick about the specifics of my current runs and he’ll be getting back to us with a time he can come back up and perform the install. This will be a major and long-overdue upgrade; I’m looking forward to it!

Service for eight. We’re fancy now.

Dad and Nick left around 7:30 so I opened up the keep and dropped off some supplies and recent acquisitions. Having on-demand hot water makes it much easier to do dishes, so I bought a set of silverware for the keep. No more eating steaks with plastic forks! I also got a turner spatula, ladle, and serving spoon so we can be ready for anything from chili to fried eggs. I dropped off the freshly-laundered linens in the bedroom, too.

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Log: September 2 – 4, 2017

September 8, 2017 / / 0 Comments

Saturday

Lyssa, the boys, and I enjoyed a late Aunt Judy’s breakfast at 11:30 while Hannah waited in the truck. With no other plans for Labor Day and a promising weather forecast, we’ve decided to spend a night at Puckaway. We pulled in the driveway around 12:15 and had to stop about a third of the way in. A huge fallen birch was blocking our path.

This beast was almost two feet in diameter at its base.

I let everyone out of the truck and backed out of the driveway, turned around, and backed in up to the tree. I walked up to the pole barn, fired up the green ATV, and hooked it up to the small yard trailer. We used it as a bellhop’s cart, filling it with our bags, the cooler, and my tools from the back of the truck. Lyssa started unloading and preparing things in the keep while I gathered some tools to clear our path.

I was filling the chainsaw with gas and chain oil when Lyssa’s parents came walking down the driveway. It’s been a few years since they’ve last seen the place, so we showed off some of the recent improvements. Peter gave me a hand clearing the megabirch from the driveway while Lyssa and Val kept an eye on the boys and filled the bird feeders. We used the ATV trailer for all of the smaller branches and threw the trunk sections in the back of my pickup. After about 45 minutes, we had just about everything collected and enough room to let our vehicles pass.

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Log: July 29 and 30, 2017

July 31, 2017 / / 1 Comment

Saturday

She’s run aground.

Hannah and I rolled in around 1pm hauling a cleaned-up pontoon boat behind us. The pooch would have to wait before she got to run some laps, though. I picked a spot in the south yard to park the boat where it would be off-level enough to help prevent rain from accumulating on the deck. It would also get plenty of sun to ward off more mildew formation.

I opened the pole barn and checked out our fuel situation. One of the 5-gallon gas cans was almost empty, so I topped off the mower’s tank with what was left in it and threw the can in the back of the truck. It’s almost 80°, so I popped into the keep to fire up the AC before heading into town for lunch and fuel. Hannah’s patience was rewarded with a burger from A&W.

Resilient little fella.

Once we got back, I ate in the keep while Hannah patrolled the property. It’s already comfortably cool inside; the new AC is a welcome upgrade. I changed into some yard work clothes and set my sites on taming the yard.

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Log: June 15, 2017

June 16, 2017 / / 0 Comments

The extent of our wind damage.

Drove in around 3:00 pm to check on the place after the huge system of storms that blew through yesterday. The power was knocked out for about 20 hours and I wanted to make sure there wasn’t a disaster waiting for me in the freezer. Surprisingly, everything seemed fine aside from the big bag of ice being fused into one big block.

We’ve already had two fairly lengthy power outages up here this year. Both times, the Puckanet has run on battery backup for about three hours before gracefully shutting everything down. And both times, everything came back up and the Pi reconnected to the VPN like it was supposed to. I wish I had a better means of battery backup for this stuff. As small as the draw is for everything, a DC-to-DC converter would probably last it for a whole day or more. For now, I’m just glad that it can come back online without intervention.

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Log: June 7, 2017

June 8, 2017 / / 0 Comments

It’s a jungle out there.

Pulled in the driveway around 5:30 pm with mowing on my mind. It’s a beautiful day to be outside—upper 70s and sunny. I parked the truck, opened up the pole barn, and fired up the mower. I thought it might be smart to try to mulch instead of using the side discharge chute, so I made a very quick and basic mulch plug out of a small board and a bunch of duct tape. This bogged down the deck almost immediately, and the idea was quickly abandoned.

The grass is thigh-high in some places and looks a lot fuller and greener than it has in years. The last year’s worth of effort in collecting leaves early and often is really starting to pay off. Things have finally dried up after our very soggy spring, so I can finally mow the back yard toward the marsh entrance this trip.

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Log: May 5 – 7, 2017

May 9, 2017 / / 0 Comments

Friday

A boy and his (tolerant) dog.

Jake, Hannah, and I came up in the truck around 6:15 pm. Jake’s been asking for an overnight up here—just him and me—for a while now, so he’s pretty excited. We unloaded the truck, unhooked the blue trailer, and opened up the keep while Hannah ran her laps around the grounds. I started the heater right away as it’s only 50° right now and the temp continues to drop.

We called Hannah into the keep and Jake and I headed into town to fill up the gas cans and get some dinner at A&W. We ate once we got back and spent the rest of the night inside relaxing and watching How It’s Made. Jake fell asleep on the couch around 9:30 and I carried him back to the bedroom. I stayed up messing with some automation scripts on the PuckaPi. I let Hannah out one more time for the night, then joined my snoring kiddo around 11:00.

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