Linda was up at 5:45 AM and out the door by 6:15. I woke up but went back to sleep and finally got up at 7:30 and got dressed. I turned on the furnace in the garage and turned up the thermostats in the bus and then had breakfast. Rather than grind up a small quantity of coffee beans and get the coffee maker dirty I had a cup of tea. I retrieved Butch’s e-mail and called Clyde in Canton to arrange pickup of the antique Sun distributor tester that Butch bought from him last night on Ebay. I will drive down Friday to pick it up.
Phil showed up around 8:30 AM, unloaded his front loader, and got to work on the French drain. I went out around 10 AM and talked to him briefly. I then walked through the southwest corner of our property looking for a corner marker. I did not find one but I did discover some REALLY big trees with REALLY BIG vines woven through them. The base of the vines was as big as one of the trees, about 30″ in diameter. I had never seen a vine root that size.
Back at the house I called John Palmer, of Palmer Energy Systems in Florida, to update him on my recent call to Magnum Energy technical support. He said he would talk to Tom in the next couple of days and try to get me the connector (terminal block) I need. We agreed I will call him back on Friday.
Next I called A-1 Upholstery in Elkhart, Indiana and talked to Terry. I ordered a bolster cushion to fill in the space behind the sofa seat cushions and below the sofa back cushions. It will be 6″ high x 4-3/4″ deep x 78″ long and will be one density of firm foam rather than a firm center layer with softer outer layers on top and bottom (like the seat cushions). She will use a plain beige fabric as it will not be visible and so it does not have to match the other sofa cushions. She said it would be ready in early November, which is plenty of time for us to drive down and get it. The price was $125, which sounded like a fair price to me.
I got out my old Sunpak DX-8R ring flash and connected it to one of my Quantum high voltage battery packs but the battery pack appeared to be dead. The two battery packs I have are almost unused but have apparently self-discharged and are now dead. This also happened to my original battery packs. The only flash equipment I have is set up to run off these packs but I am not inclined to replace them again as I do not use them enough to keep them charged which makes it hard to justify the cost as they are expensive. Unfortunately that leaves me, for the moment, without any flash capability for the new Sony SLT-A99V DSLT camera. Buggers.
I sent a TXT message to Joe to let him know that I did not see any indication of axle/hub seal leaks on the inside of the bus wheels. I then called Bill in Mexico, Indiana and left him a message regarding the antique Sun distributor tester. I will drive it at least as far as Elkhart, Indiana when I pick up the bolster from A-1 Upholstery and transfer it to Bill if he can meet me there. There is also the possibility that I will drive it all the way to Bill’s place in Mexico, Indiana and stop by Jarel Beatty’s cabinetry shop in Logansport to have him cut down the connector on the passenger side HVAC duct cover. If I do I will also pick up the drawings for the desk, sofa, and pull-out pantry as long as I am there.
Phil checks the grade of the new driveway extension. The laser level is set up by the utility pole.
I went back outside and walked through the layout of the driveway extension with Phil. He then set up his laser level, took elevation measurements at various points, and made an annotated sketch. He needed to think about the data and figure out what we could actually do given the change in grade from the existing concrete driveway to the road at the third culvert and the need to flatten out before reaching the culvert to tie in with where the barn will (might) eventually go.
Keith, from Kish Lawn Care, showed up around 11 AM to mow the grass. I got out our leaf blower and let Phil know that I would be occupied for a little while with yard work. I blew the leaves off of the rear decks, out from under/around various bushes, and off of the two boulder retaining walls into the yard where Keith could mulch them with his riding lawn mower.
About the time I was done blowing leaves Phil had a plan to discuss. The elevation drops 7-1/2 feet from the concrete driveway (that goes from the street to the garage) to the street at the third culvert some 200 feet away. Phil thought that our best bet was to slope down from the driveway over a distance of 40 feet, level out for 40 feet, and then gently slope down for 70 feet to the area in front of the future barn location. That would leave another 50 feet with a slight drop to get to the street. Some of the area down there will be close to level, however, so another RV could park down there.
We also discussed running power and agreed that I would buy about 40 feet of plastic conduit to get under the level area and headed towards the southwest corner of the garage. We would need the conduit first thing tomorrow morning so I decided I would go to Lowe’s this evening.
I finally got to work in the bus around 1:30 PM. I positioned the sofa seat, secured the piano hinge to the stationary backboard with four screws and then drilled all of the other screw holes using my smallest VIX bit. I installed all of the little screws, dialed back the thermostats, and closed up the bus. My time-on-task was short but it was a big item to check off of my “list.”
The Sunpak DX-8R ring flash can operate on four AA batteries so I put a set in and connected it to the hot shoe on top of the camera. The camera was able to trigger the flash (more than once) but the shots were seriously overexposed. I did not take the time to try and figure out if the flash can be controlled by the camera based on light coming through the lens. If not it won’t be usable in most situations.
It was a mild day with blue skies and white puffy clouds so I took the new camera outside to capture some images of the work Phil is doing. I shot a few frames of the more colorful trees in our yard while I was at it.
Linda texted me at 3:40 PM to let me know she was leaving the bakery and stopping at the store on the way home. Phil continued to find rock, concrete, and brick debris as he dug out the driveway extension. He used the 30″ toothed bucket on his excavator to sift out the larger pieces and pull them into a pile and then used his front loader to put all of it into his dump truck. I got a metal tine rake and raked out some of the smaller stuff, not because it needed to be removed but because I needed to do something physical and wanted to smooth it out to get a better idea of how it will look when finished.
Phil started securing his equipment at 5 PM and we were wrapping up our last discussion of the project for the day when Linda got home at 5:30. After unloading a few groceries she started fixing dinner. Phil took off and I continued raking for another half hour until dinner was ready. Linda served the rest of the polenta with puttanesca sauce and steamed sliced parsnips. I thought we finished the Cupcake Black Forest wine last night but I was pleasantly surprised to find out that we still had enough for our meal this evening.
After dinner I went to The Home Depot looking for a fuel filter for our Cub Cadet lawn tractor. THD sells Cub Cadet equipment but only had generic fuel filters so I did not buy one. I went to Lowe’s, where we get a 5% discount on everything we buy! and bought the following: four 10-foot pieces of 2″ PVC non-conductive conduit, a 90 degree elbow, a coupler, two end caps, 1″ and 1-1/4″ self-drilling screws, an 8′ long pressure treated 4×4′, and a clamp on saw guide. The saw guide was an impulse purchase but I had a $10 Off card for a total purchase of $50 of more. We have struggled with makeshift saw guides all summer and fall and I still have more careful cutting to do. I already have a saw guide but could not find it and should have bought a new one at the beginning of the bus remodeling project.
Phil called the house while I was out so I called him back. He had figured out that extending the driveway to within 10 feet of the front of the proposed bus barn would add 25% to the cost of the project. That was more than I was prepared to spend at this time so we will defer that work until we build the barn, probably in summer 2017. We watched Scorpion and NCIS Los Angeles and then went to bed.