Puckaway Motor Club

Tag: spring cleaning (page 1 of 2)

Log: September 7 and 8, 2019

September 12, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Saturday

Hannah, the boys, and I pulled in at 5:30 towing the ATV trailer full of furniture. I’ve already had a busy weekend shuffling couches and chairs around. My folks got new living room furniture a few weeks ago, so yesterday afternoon, Dad and I headed up to Presque Isle with the old couch, loveseat, chair and recliner from their house. We stayed the night up there and swapped out all four pieces earlier this morning. Back in Oshkosh, we swapped the recliner for the one in Dad’s basement, then headed to my house to swap the couch and loveseat for the ones we had on the front porch. This is the final leg of the journey. The chair from Presque Isle will end up in the keep. The couch and chairs from my porch, along with the recliner from my folks’ basement, are destined for the shack. Finally, the furniture currently in the shack has a date with the burnpit.

For now, that’s all got to wait; we narrowly avoided the rain on our way in, so I backed the ATV trailer into the pole barn to keep everything nice and dry. There wasn’t much to the front and the rain let up within 20 minutes. The boys kept busy with their fort, Power Wheels, and the swing while I headed over to the shack.

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Log: May 31 – June 2, 2019

June 3, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Friday

Hannah loves the extra room in the new truck.

Pulled in at 4:30 pm with Hannah and got right to work cleaning up the keep’s fridge so I could get it turned on for the year. The goal this weekend is to get everything cleaned and prepped so we can all come up next week for June Dairy Days.

Once the fridge was ready, I unloaded the truck and started a project I’ve been waiting to work on since Christmas. Lyssa gave me a really cool carved owl statue for up here but it needs a few coats of lacquer before it can be left out in the elements. I brushed on the first coat and trained a fan on it to keep the bugs away while it dried.

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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: April 28, 2018

April 30, 2018 / / 1 Comment

Rode in with the whole family around 2 pm after a Menards supply stop and late lunch at Aunt Judy’s. Hannah couldn’t wait to get out of the truck. It’s 55° and sunny—finally, some nice spring weather! I backed the truck and blue trailer up to the pole barn to load up Dad’s riding mower for him. Josh sat on the seat to keep the engine running while Lyssa held the trailer in tilted position and I steered it on board. We need a loading dock.

Buck came over and gave Hannah some exercise as they chased each other around the yard. I had to shoo him back to Danny’s after a while, though. He’s too rough with the boys and kept jumping on them and knocking them over. Lyssa set up Josh’s new tree swing for the boys while I unloaded some supplies in the pole barn. We brought Jake’s new utility cart, and he was thrilled to put it to use by cleaning up the big pile of sawdust left from Jeremiah’s mill last fall.

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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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Log: April 20 – 23, 2017

April 25, 2017 / / 2 Comments

Thursday

Hannah and I drove in around 6:20 pm with a pickup bed full of tools and other goodies. She ran some laps around the yard while I quickly unloaded the truck. I wanted to get right to my first project.

Let there be (night)light!

Lyssa got me a pair of really nice network cameras for Christmas. They’re PoE, 720p, have IR blasters, and are IP66 rated. Translated: they don’t need a power cord, have four times the clarity of the old ones, come with night vision, and they’re waterproof. One of them has replaced the driveway camera back home, but the other one will serve as the new bird feeder cam.

I had already configured everything from home, so I installed it to the roof overhang on the keep, plugged it in, and tested it out. There was the expected major increase in image quality, but I was surprised by just how much wider of a field of view it has, too. This is a very welcome improvement.

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Log: April 20, 2016

April 22, 2016 / / 1 Comment

Came up around 4:30 with a 16′ 4×4 jutting out of the back of the truck. I intend to deer-proof the bird feeders today. But first, some unloading. I stopped by my folks’ house on the way up to pick up Dad’s snowblower. It’ll stay in the pole barn for the summer. Also brought up a bunch of new blankets and sheets for the keep.

I found the auger in the pole barn and started digging a hole for the new bird feeder pole. Went as far as the handle would allow and then set the post. I had bought this stuff called Fast 2K that promised to deliver the strength and rigidity of a 50-lb bag of concrete in a 2-lb bag of 2-part expanding foam. It had all sorts of colorful warnings, the best of which was, “CAUTION! DO NOT EXCEED MIXING TIME AND NEVER ALLOW THE COMPOSITE TO START EXPANDING INSIDE THE BAG AS BAG MAY RUPTURE, CAUSING CONTENTS TO SPRAY OUT AND PERSONAL INJURY AS WELL AS PROPERTY DAMAGE TO OCCUR.” Sounds like a fine product to me. I mixed the two parts in the bag, sliced the corner, and poured it in the hole. It looked like melted black cherry ice cream; I figured I had done it wrong, or didn’t mix it enough, or something. However, after about a minute, it started rising up in the hole as thick, off-white foam. I held the post plumb for a few minutes while it set, and went to clean up. I grabbed the bag, which itself was inflating a bit, and immediately dropped it—it was red-hot. This stuff has one helluva catalytic reaction.

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Log: April 16, 2016

April 18, 2016 / / 0 Comments

Lyssa, the boys, and I arrived in the truck around 10:30 am after a family breakfast at Aunt Judy’s. We also got two flats of bottled water, which I was grateful for later—it was unseasonably warm and beautiful out; it stayed sunny and in the mid-70s all day. I quickly unpacked the boys’ Power Wheels ATV and Tractor from the truck bed and they were off exploring. I stacked the snow tires for Lyssa’s car in the pole barn and headed over to the keep to get things ready to unload the rest of the truck. I got out the leaf blower and cleared around the garden shed, bird feeders, deck, and the front of the keep. Once everything was ready, I pulled the truck around and set up the patio table and four chairs on the deck. We got a new set for the house so brought up our old set. It’s a perfect fit. Between the new furniture and the chairs we already had up here, we now have deck seating for ten. I’d still like to get some little side tables, though.

With everything unloaded, I went to tidy up in the keep. I ran the vacuum cleaner through to take care of the few dead flies that had accumulated, sprayed down and wiped out the shelves in the fridge, and cleaned the table and counters with bleach cleaner. Couldn’t have taken more than 15 minutes to get things ready for the year. What a difference over last spring. Turned on the A/C so the boys would have somewhere to get relief from the sun. On my way out, I primed the pump and let it run for the rest of the day to clear out the accumulated gunk and sediment.

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Log: April 6, 2016

April 7, 2016 / / 0 Comments

Another day, another speed run. Misting out, generally gloomy-looking, and damp. We need some sunshine to dry up the swamps around here. Pulled in around 3:00 pm with six 55-gallon plastic drums in the back of the truck. There are always plenty of these at the Cliff’s Oshkosh shop—it’s how they get their wiper fluid. I’m hoping to use a bunch of them for a new bird seed storage solution and the rest just come in handy for various projects. Unloaded the barrels in the pole barn and started stacking broken glass panes and window frames in their place in the bed of the truck. I’m trying to clean up around the old wood shed so we can raze it this year. Filled the truck bed to the top with the last of the glass and other assorted junk around the front of the wood shed. The only things left leaning on the building now are the large chain-link trellises Mom wants for her new house in Oshkosh.

Before heading out, I stopped at the keep to restock the liquor cabinet. I glanced over by the bird feeders only to find that most of them were gone and all of the shepherd’s hooks were bent to hell. I tracked down the three missing feeders at various points along the edge of the yard; they were all empty but none of them were damaged. I didn’t see any big footprints around, but there were some deep depressions with the diameter of a golf ball. I have to think this was the work of some very hungry deer. Building a new, taller pole for the feeders is a project that just moved way up on my list this spring.

Pulled out of the drive around 4:30. Planning to throw out the glass at the tire shop’s dumpster. That place is the gift that keeps on giving.

Log: March 29, 2016

March 30, 2016 / / 1 Comment

Speed run part deux! My sinus surgery is tomorrow, so I wanted to get one more haul out of the way before my lifting restrictions kick in. Made it up a little after 9:00 pm with the blue ATV, plow, and drive-up ramps in the back of the truck. I had stopped at Menards earlier as well and bought 50 lbs of sunflower seed and 100 lbs of whole-kernel corn. And finally, I brought up the three 5-gallon jugs of Oshkosh drinking water. All the heavy stuff.

I unloaded and parked the ATV, then put on some music while I stowed the ramps and plow for the summer. Drove the truck over to the keep, powered it up to get the outside lights going, and secured the seed and corn in the sealed bins in the garden shed. Noticed the low-hanging feeder was knocked off the shepherd’s hook—must be turkeys. I’ll have to find a new solution to raise the feeders a bit higher. Hopefully, having corn to thrown down will help keep them out of the feeders, too.

Lugged the water jugs into the keep bathroom and took a moment to enjoy how incredibly easy it’s been to start things out for spring. I don’t track in any dirt now because of the deck, the new lighting makes nighttime hauling a snap, all the linens are clean and folded in vacuum bags, and there are actual beds waiting and ready now. I plopped down in the recliner for a bit and just let it sink in that we’ve finally got a good base of operations up here. I hit the lights, locked up, shut down the pole barn, and was out around 10:30. Can’t wait to get the all-clear from the sinus doc so I can dig into some spring cleaning and yardwork up here.

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