Tag: spring cleaning (page 2 of 2)

Log: March 28, 2016

Speed run! Wound my way up the soggy driveway with a full truck bed around 2:30 pm. I’m having sinus surgery in two days and I’m not supposed to lift over 10 lbs for a week afterwards, so I wanted to get the first spring haul out of the way. After last week’s surprise final snowstorm, this sunny, 55° day is especially welcome. Dropped off the outdoor Christmas decorations from Oshkosh, some outside toys for the boys, the propane heater and propane tank, then took a moment to hook the pole barn jukebox back up. I installed a different hard drive in that laptop over the winter so it can better handle the music collection, upgraded to Windows 10, and updated KODI as well. The tunes continue.

I also brought up a toaster for the keep, so I walked over to check out how things had fared in there the rest of the winter. There was my mousetrap, baited and set just like I left it. The place smells stuffy, like it could use a good airing out, but not musty or mouse-infested. The fact that the keep went an entire winter without a single critter incursion might be a completely unprecedented Puckaway event. God bless the new door and last summer’s kitchen overhaul.

After slightly venting a few windows for some airflow and locking up, I stopped at the garden shed to fill the bird feeders with the last of the sunflower seed. I’ll have to get more at Menards before my next trip. The chickadees were sure happy to see me. I closed up the shed and headed back to the pole barn to load up my push mower and the summer tires for Lyssa’s car. I noticed that the left rear tire on the green ATV had gone flat so I powered up the air compressor, let the tank build, and aired it back up. Can’t see a hole or hear a leak, so I’ll have to look more into it later.

I was back on the road around 4:00. Feels good to be starting a new year of projects, however short the trip.

Log: May 15-17, 2015

Friday

Rolled in around 11:00 am with a new riding mower on the back of the truck. It’s an early-2000s Sabre (budget John Deere) model with a 48″ deck. Dad bought it from Linda and Dennis now that they’ve sold their house in Campbellsport. I had taken it home, washed it up, and given it a tune-up. I was also going to get new mulching blades for it but ended up ordering the wrong fitment; I’ll have to bring them up another time. The mower itself is in great shape but the bagging accessories look like they’ve been through hell and back. The bag unit itself is completely unsalvageable and the chute and blower assembly will require a lot of creative patching to get up and running again. But at least it cuts. I used the ATV ramps to unload the mower and decided to try it out by trimming the areas of the yard I had mowed/mulched last month. Even with dull, worn blades, it made quick work of cutting. I even tried a few areas with a lot of leaves and it never bogged down once. I can only imagine how well it’ll do when it’s got proper, sharp, mulching blades.

I was just finishing up cutting around 12:45 when Red and Gunner pulled in, trailer in tow. Red’s mission this weekend is to gather up the aluminum cans he stored here several years back and cash them in. It didn’t take Gunner long to go into “Puckaway mode” and start sprinting huge laps around the yard. He’ll sleep well.

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Log: May 1-3, 2015

Friday

Arrived around 6:30 pm with a strapped down load in the truck bed. Two mattresses, some 2″x6″s and two sheets of 5/8″ OSB to build the trundle bed, 10′ 1″x12″ shelf boards, extra planks for the deck stairs, and a brand new door for my trailer. Unloaded everything into the pole barn and got my first good look at the deck in the daylight. The current goal is to finish the platform and stairs; the railing will get added on later this summer.

I hadn’t planned on resuming work on the deck until Saturday. The project for the night was to build a trundle bed and provide a much-needed upgrade to the sleeping accommodations in the trailer. I had found a simple plan for building a frame online and tweaked it to allow for a full mattress on top and a pullout twin mattress. I set up shop in the pole barn and got to work building the full mattress frame. I forgot to grab the caster wheels for the small, simple twin pullout, so that’ll have to wait. The OSB can be lifted out of the 2×6 frame leaving a light, sturdy assembly that’s pretty easy to move around.

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Log: April 16-17, 2015

Thursday

Came up around 3:00 with a truck full of tools. Stopped in at town first; the Dollar General is a welcome new asset. Loaded up on cheap Gatorade and a bunch of bottled water. Also got a gallon jar of giant pickles because it looked too intriguing to pass up. Unloaded the truck, drove the ATVs out of the shed, sharpened the mower blades, and set off to tame the yard.

We need a different solution up here for mulching leaves. The sweeper can only go so far in the deep stuff before it catches and drags. Bagging the leaves either clogs the chute or fills the bagger so quick that you spend more time emptying it than you do picking up leaves. Today, my solution was to be a glorified leaf blower. I cleared the driveway, around my trailer, the pole barn, and the burn pit by directing the chute towards the edges of the yard. It’s not ideal, but it works.

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