A nudder beautiful day!

August 16, 2006 (12:32pm)
71º F, Blue skies, S wind 8 mph.

Good afternoon,

A nudder beautiful day! Temperature is just right, wind is just right, sun is just right. Back to "normal" Wisconsin weather for the past almost wee. The only rain predicted is for late Friday night or early Saturday morning. Hooray!!!

One of the "closed" site we visited, but were able to walk around was Fort Abercrombie just west of the North Dakota/Minnesota state line. The propaganda we read, indicated a few buildings and a museum were on the grounds. They are, but closed. We were able to look into the magazine windows, but that is about it. Not much in there, but it looked like it also served as the fort’s brig. There were no windows in the blockhouses, for obvious reasons, but we were able to walk around the grounds. All of the fort’s buildings are marked with signs and posts at the corners. The fort sits on a cliff overlooking the river, so only had palisades on three sides, the fourth being the cliff. The real problem for the fort at the moment is that mother nature is moving the cliff face into the grounds of the fort, causing much of it to fall into the river. Would be nice if they would stabilize the edge and possibly reconstruct the part already gone.

After spending some time walking around, we headed east again and ended up in Fergus Falls, Minnesota for the night. It also meant that we went farther east than I thought, proving to mess up some other plans farther down the road. Most importantly stopping at the Pioneer Village in Barron Wisconsin.
Day before yesterday I went into the outhouse and noticed there was a twig sticking out of my hard hat hanging from the nail on the wall. What I found was a bird had started to build a nest in it. The hard hat was filled equal length twigs, about 6" long and a little over c" in diameter. They looked like the bird had measured each one. I don’t know when the nest was started, but sure am glad the bird was not stuck in the outhouse for the time we were traveling.

Yesterday I went cruising through part of our woods. The object was to look over which trees I could cut down for firewood. I marked them with spray paint. It is difficult to tell which is a live tree and a dead/dying one when none of the trees have leave on them and the show is a foot deep. I don’t think I will run out of trees to cut this winter. Or firewood for this year either. There are a number of trees that need to come down. Probably will cut those closest to the driveway first, so they don’t drop on the driveway unless I want them to. Most are blue ash, so should make a fairly good fire. There are a couple of birch trees too, but not many. Both grow only so long, then die a natural death.

I am making some substantial progress on our water supply. I have both ends now exposed and ready to fit new pex water pipe in. The really hard part, really two, was getting rid of the water so I could expose a "clean" section of the copper line to cut and then solder the new fittings onto. The problem was is the line continues to leak water from it, filling the hole I dug around the line! I finally dug a small ditch about 30' long to drain off the water and let it run on the lawn. The ditch is about a foot deep on at the beginning.

The other problem was cleaning a copper line that has been buried in clay for many years. That stuff really stuck to the copper. I finally did, using a sanding belt from my belt sander instead of a strip of emery paper. It really worked well, not only because it was rougher, but it allowed me to have finger loops to pull it back and forth. Much easier than a strip with two ends! It also was a challenge to work in a ditch about a foot deep and wide, laying on my belly in a crawl space.

Tomorrow morning I will cut the line at both ends and solder in the new fittings for the pex on one end and mechanical fittings on the other end. I fastened one end of the pex to a union. My first pex joint and it really was easy to accomplish. Much easier than I thought it would be. I don’t want to start it this afternoon, incase I need to run and get something to complete the job, only to find the stores closed. A full day is better than half a day. The water will need to be off and disconnected while I am working on it. Don’t want to do that over night.
Going into the outhouse this morning, when opening the door at the other end, a mouse ran across the floor and into an electric winch laying on the floor. It is the first sign I have seen of mice in there. I did put out some viddles for it to dine on. Hope it likes it! The flies are also starting to accumulate everywhere too, so I guess the cooler season is about to come. Followed by the white season.

Time to get a-going.

In Christ My Saviour,

Chris <><