Tag Archives: bus barn

2015-10-18 (N) Homage to FLLW

We got up at 8 AM. I made Ethiopian Yirgacheffe half-caffe coffee while Linda prepared vegan pancakes. We had talked yesterday about going to the Howell Farmers Market this morning but did not feel like going out in the early morning chill. When we finished our coffee I turned the fireplace off and we got dressed to work.

Our focus in the bus today continued to be the built-in sofa. We decided yesterday to move the plywood seat out from the wall 4-3/4″ from its original position. The original stationary board on the back side of the piano hinge, which was only 2-3/4″ wide, was designed to place the front edge of the plywood seat (which has a 3/4″ walnut hardwood edge) 3/4″ beyond the cabinetry on both ends of the sofa with an overhang of just a few inches beyond the vertical front support board. It was a nice design which tied in well with the cabinetry and kept the sofa from intruding into the living room aisle. It resulted, however, in a seating depth of 16″ which turned out to be too short. It was my homage to Frank Lloyd Wright: integrated, attractive, cantilevered, and uncomfortable.

As much as I like and admire FLLW’s work, I also like the Bauhaus maxim “form follows function.” We needed a 3/4″ thick (11/16″ actually) board 7-1/2″ wide by 77-7/8″ long to locate the plywood seat in its new position. The only wood we had on hand that we could cut this from in one piece was a 24″ X 96″ piece of walnut veneered plywood. Since the board will not be visible I did not want to waste the walnut veneered plywood for this piece.

We also had a half sheet (4′ X 4′) of good plywood and after thinking about it for a while I decided to make the stationary board in two pieces. The key was that I would use a third piece, cut from that same 4′ X 4′ sheet, as a splicing plate to join the other two pieces together. But I was trying to accomplish more than that. With the original design the pivot line of the piano hinge was over the top of the wiring chase, about 1-3/4″ back from the front edge. That meant the back edge of the moveable seat board, when closed, was resting on the wiring chase for its entire length. With the new stationary board the pivot line of the piano hinge is unsupported except for 5-3/4″ on each end. The third piece of plywood would be at least a partial solution to that problem.

We worked in the garage with the overhead doors closed and the furnace on. I cut two 7-1/2″ wide pieces off of the 4′ X 4′ sheet of plywood and then cut them to lengths of 38-7/8″ each so they would be just shy of 77-7/8″ when butted together end-to-end. We took the two pieces to the bus and set them in place on top of the writing chase which sits atop the HVAC duct. They just fit, which was nice. I marked the underside along the edge of the wiring chase with a pencil. We then took the pieces back to the shop.

I found a relatively flat portion of the garage floor and laid the two pieces end-to-end face down. I set the third piece on top of the first two so that it was of equal length in both directions from the center and was at least 1/4″ forward from the line I had marked. This third board extended beyond the front edge of the other two boards by at least two inches along its entire length of four feet. With Linda holding it in place I inserted four self-drilling wood screws, two for each of the main boards, to hold the three pieces in position.

We placed the old 2-3/4″ wide board along the edge of the new boards and marked the locations of all of screw holes for the piano hinge. I then center punched and drilled countersunk holes for lots of screws being careful to keep them in between the hinge holes. I ran all of the screws in until the points just protruded from the other side. I then applied Titebond II wood glue to the two main boards, positioned the third board using the screw tips as alignment guides, and ran all of the screws down pulling the pieces tightly together. Linda got a paper shop towel wet and I used it to clean off the excess glue that oozed out from between the boards.

We took the new stationary backboard to the bus and set it in place upside down. I marked the underside along the edge of wiring chase and then we flipped it end-for-end and set it in place right side up. We pulled it forward so I could mark the locations of the existing screws securing the top of the wiring chase to the two long sides and then slid it back against the wall. The line served as my guide for where to screw the backboard to the wiring chase. (The chase has two long “1×2″ sides on edge with a 3/8″ thick plywood top that is about 4-1/2″ wide. For maximum strength I needed to screw through the backboard into the 1x2s. I also needed to avoid the space between the 1x2s as that is where all of the AC wiring is run.)

I center tapped a lot of locations and drilled them with a #6 countersink bit even though I was using #8 self-drilling outdoor screws. The reason for the drilling step was to make sure I did not split any wood. I screwed the backboard to the wiring chase with lots of 1-1/4″ #8 screws in two rows corresponding to the front and back side boards of the wiring chase.

The backboard pieces had oozed a small amount of additional glue so I used a piece of scrap aluminum sheet metal to scrap it out of the joint. When the plywood seat is closed the back couple of inches will rest on the third piece of plywood so there cannot be any interference along there. We set the moveable seat board in place and marked all of the hinge holes on the stationary backboard and then pulled it out gain. We did not, however, attach the piano hinge to the stationary backboard as I wanted to let the glue cure for at least 24 hours.

By this point it was 1 PM so we stopped to have lunch which consisted of vegan hotdogs with mustard, onions, and relish and both red and green grapes. We got these grapes at Meijer’s and their produce is usually good, but the green grapes had almost no taste. Oh well; there will be days (and foods) like that.

After lunch we shifted our attention to the driveway extension project. I gathered up a box of plastic and wood stakes, a mallet, a 100 foot tape measure, and the site plan for the bus barn and driveway. It took us about three hours to stake out the location of the pull-through driveway, locate the front corners of the bus barn, and stake out the approach/apron for the barn. Phil will be back early tomorrow morning and the first thing on the agenda is going over the layout and figuring out elevations for the two planned level pad areas.

At this point Linda went inside to work on dinner while I cleared the margin of the woods along the south side of the driveway extension. I added bar/chain oil and a 40:1 fuel:oil mixture to the chain saw and got out the compound loppers, pruning saw, pole saw, and safety glasses. I initially used the loppers to cut down small saplings, cut off small branches, and trim back bushes and vines. I used the chain saw to cut down slightly larger trees, up to 3” in diameter at the base, and finish cutting out three bushes and some entwined vines. I then used the pole saw to trim low overhanging branches. I dragged all of the cuttings to a spot on the west side of the fir trees and used the chain saw to cut the larger trees into smaller pieces.

It was 6:30 PM by the time I was done and had the tools put away. Dinner was almost ready when I got a call from Butch. He was following up on how our refrigerator was performing and also needed my assistance with a possible Ebay purchase. The item he was interested in was in Canton, Michigan about 45 minutes from our house, and the seller was not willing to ship it. He wanted to know if it would fit in our Honda Element and if so, would I be willing to pick it up if he decided to buy it. Of course I was willing to help as long as my car was able to handle the item. While he was on the phone I measured the clearance for the rear hatch and gave him the dimensions. As soon as we got off the phone he e-mailed me the link to the auction, which still had 85 minutes remaining.

For dinner Linda started with a really nice salad that had slivered almonds and pumpkin seeds and dressed it with Ken’s Sweet Vidalia Onion dressing. The main course was an amazing soup. She roasted a golden acorn squash, sweet potatoes, carrots, garlic, and shallots. She then put these in a pot, added vegetable broth, and heated the mixture. To finish the dish she used an immersion blender to purée everything into a smooth, thick, hearty, and delicious soup. After working outside all afternoon on a chilly day it really hit the spot. We finished the bottle of Cupcake Black Forest red wine we opened yesterday.

After dinner I retrieved Butch’s e-mail, checked out the item, and e-mailed him back. I then spent a little time reading and replying to posts in various RVillage groups. I called Butch back just before 8 PM and then turned on the Yaesu FTM-400 to join the SLAARC Info Net at 8 PM. Unfortunately all I heard was noise. I have not used the radio for the last few weeks so I don’t know if the net did not take place (unlikely but possible) or if a problem has developed with our system. If the later, it is most likely the Morgan I.C.E. lightning arrestor (again). Whatever the reason, I was not going to figure it out this evening. I went to bed at 9 PM and wrote this post. It took some time to write but if I do not record the details the same day they slip away quickly.

2015/05/12 (T) Dealing with the County

Leave a reply

I finally paid a visit this morning to the Oceola Township offices and talked to the assessor and zoning administrator. I had a satellite image of our property on which I had drawn the proposed barn and driveway. All they need in order to issue a land use permit is for me to show the size of the building and the setbacks on the image. I also visited the Livingston County Building Department. I talked to one of the counter clerks who had me talk to Rick, who is one of the inspectors. He had just built a large pole barn and used 6×6 posts set in 26″ diameter holes back filled with concrete. The bottom of the posts need to be at least 48″ below grade to get below the frost line so I will figure on posts four feet longer than my exterior wall height.

Based on my preliminary online research and visits the land use, building and electrical permits are the only other ones I will need in order to put up a bus barn. The clerk gave me a check sheet of the documentation I will need to provide. I would have to file some additional paperwork with the County Health Department, but would not need permits from them or from the Drain or Road Commissions.

I drove to the Township offices on Latson Road by way of Hacker and M-59. Hacker was so bad the last few days due, in part, to heavy rains that it was more pothole than road and many of them were larger and deeper than normal. The road grader was repairing the road and it was digging deep. The grader was still working when I returned home but the road was already much better. The road needs to be rebuilt with a substantial amount of road gravel and with proper drainage ditches along both sides. Or paved. Paved would be good. Linda read something last fall that indicated Oceola and Hartland Townships had agreed to pave Hacker Road from M-59 south to Golf Club. We checked when we got home this spring but could not find any reference to such a project.

Back at the house I settled in to create a scale drawing of the floor plan of our bus and then draw in the 16″x16″ floor tiles. I added up the various areas yesterday and added 25% for waste, but that turned out to be a low estimate. By drawing the tiles I was able to count how many I would actually need. I called Lynch Carpet in Howell and talked to Clint to get a rough price estimate for the materials. The 16×16 Armstrong Alterna Luxury Vinyl Tiles are packed 14 to a box and can only be ordered by the box. We need 190 tiles for the project so we will have to buy 14 boxes (196 tiles). That turned out to be 50 square feet more than my original estimate, but would leave us with only six full tiles as spares, assuming I do not ruin any during the installation. Fortunately, the vinyl adhesive and vinyl grout were less expensive than I expected, so even with a freight charge the bottom line was similar to my first estimate. Using these tiles it will be approximately a $2,000 project.

My layout has the tiles in a standard pattern with the grout lines lined up in two directions, one running parallel to the long axis of the bus and the other perpendicular to that. I presumed that this would take less tile and require less cutting but after seeing the layout I am not so sure. I will probably make a second drawing with the tiles turned 45 degrees and see if it makes more efficient use of the tiles. We plan to use a grout that is very similar in color to the base color of the tiles so the grout lines will tend to blend in rather than standout as a design feature, and perhaps make the orientation of the tiles less important visually.

Later in the afternoon I called Pat at Apex Roofing to let him know our shingle selection. I left the information in a voice message and Pat called back later to confirm. We are going to use the Certainteed Max Def Resawn Shake shingle. We are still thinking about the skylight tubes. We talked about putting one or two in the living room and possibly one between the kitchen/dining rooms and one in the hallway. I realized that the air-conditioner would probably be in the way of the one for the kitchen/dining area, so we will not do that one.

Linda made granola today and made baked/stuffed acorn squash for dinner along with an asparagus, carrot, green bean sauté and fresh sweet Bing cherries. I took care of some e-mail and then we had slices of the Mother’s Day vegan cake. I called my sister to check on how our grand-niece was doing. She called me back later and we had a long chat. Linda and I then watched season 2, Episode 2 of Sherlock.

After Linda fell asleep I was still up (writing) when a noise started and did not stop. I suspected it was the water sanitizer recharging, as the water softener had recently recharged, but I got up to make sure that’s what it was and not something else like a sump pump that was stuck in the on position. It was the sanitizer, so I closed the laundry room door to reduce the noise and went back to bed. I really need to soundproof the laundry room and reprogram the softener and sanitizer to come on at better times.

2015/05/11 (M) Bus Barns Reconsidered

Leave a reply

I took a nap late yesterday afternoon, a rare but sometimes necessary thing. I went to bed later as a result but still did not sleep well. We have too many things going on simultaneously with significant dollars attached to them and that has a tendency to disturb our sleep. I also planned to visit three County agencies today and the anticipation of that no doubt contributed to a less restful night.

I was up at 5 AM and awoke to heavy fog; literally, the air temperature had dropped and it was very foggy outside. I decided to concentrate on uploading my blog posts for the first 10 days of May but ended up also working on the materials estimate for the new bus floor, checking and responding to e-mails, and making adjustments to the SLAARC website and e-mail forwarding addresses. Once Linda got up and we had some coffee she spent the first part of the day working on the banking and roster for SLAARC, so it turned out to be a somewhat “slaarcy” day for us. The fog changed over to rain as the day progressed and intermittent heavy rains moved through the area after lunch accompanied by a tornado watch that continued until dinnertime. I did, however, get the blog entries for May 1 through 9 edited, tagged, and posted. I really need to get back to posting each day as it occurs.

Our male cat, Jasper, was having tummy troubles today. He tends to follow me around the house anyway, but today he stayed very close most of the day. He climbed up in my lap while I was working at my desk no less than six times and went to sleep for as long as an hour at a stretch. If not there he was curled up on my desk, on the carpet near my chair, on my lap or next to me on the couch, or alongside me in bed. He has a loud, resonant purr and I heard (and felt) it a lot today. It is one of my favorite things.

Linda finally persuaded me over the weekend that, as much as I was trying to contain the cost, the current approach to the bus barn project was just going to be too expensive. I have not given up on the idea of building a bus barn but I am now rethinking my approach yet again. Ironically, I am back to the idea of a true pole barn, which eliminates the concrete foundation. Instead of wood trusses, however, I am looking at an arched steel roof. That would eliminate the bottom chords of a wood truss which determine the ceiling height. Downsizing the building would further reduce the cost and not pouring a concrete pad, or perhaps only a partial one, would reduce the cost even more. A 24′ x 48′ building with a 16′ center ceiling may only require 12′ side walls, which would keep the posts and other lumber costs reasonable. The site prep and finish grading cost is there no matter what we do. The main things we give up with this approach are the 19′ ceiling in the center, which would have allowed me to walk on the roof and work standing up, and an overhead door which would be expensive anyway. Working on the roof would require moving it outside and the door would have to be a two-piece exterior slider or “barn style” pull open.

Chuck and I have been talking seriously the last couple weeks about trying to agree on a metal arch building design so we can order two buildings and get a quantity and shipping discount. I called Chuck before dinner to let him know what we had decided we were not going to do that, at least not this year, and explain the reasoning behind the decision. He is faced with the exact same issues and we had a long bus barn chat, to be continued in the days ahead.

While I was on the phone with Chuck my sister called my cell phone so Linda took the call. My grand-niece, Lilly, had experienced several more seizures since she returned home from the hospital on Wednesday. She was at a different hospital where they were going to hook her up to an EEG for 24 hours as none of the one-time EEGs have shown anything abnormal. Lilly is only 27 months old and this has to be a bit scary for her; it certainly is for the adults around her.

Linda prepared a simple meal of fresh asparagus, white rice with soy sauce, and mock chicken with orange sauce. We had another piece of the vegan cake for dessert later. We have also decided that now is the time to replace the refrigerator in the bus so we spent time after dinner continuing to look at units online.

The current fridge, which is a side-by-side Jenn-Air, is a 22.6 cubic foot model. Newer refrigerators with similar case dimensions tend to be smaller in usable volume but even 17 cubic foot models do not appear to fit in our refrigerator cubby. The newer ones tend to be more energy efficient, so they may have thicker insulation thus reducing the interior volume. The problem is that they also tend to be taller as a way to maintain the width and depth dimensions. The unit that has our attention at the moment is a Fisher & Paykel 13.5 cubic foot model. That is a lot less refrigerator storage than we have now, and would have to adjust how we shop, but we would be able to take it in and out through the main entrance door of the bus and recover about 11 inches of width for a pantry that would be 67″ tall and 29″ deep. That is a lot of storage and may be a good trade-off.

We finished the evening watching Season 2, Episode 1 of Sherlock. I do not generally enjoy watching TV programs a second time, but the BBC Sherlock series holds up very well on repeated viewing.

2015/05/01 (F) May Day

Leave a reply

Wow, another month gone.

We got up after 8 AM this morning, were having coffee, and had not yet had breakfast when I got a call from Diane at SteelMaster Building Systems. They are certainly prompt in their follow up as I just submitted an RFQ last night via their website. I had a very informative conversation with her that left me favorably impressed with the company and inclined towards their products should we decide to build our barn this way. By the time I finished with her and we spent time studying SteelMaster’s website we sat down to have breakfast at 9:45 AM.

I started a load of laundry and puttered at my desk until Linda had chores for me to do. She vacuumed the main floor and tidied up the kitchen in advance of tomorrow’s dinner visit with John and Diane and wanted to take the storm door insert out of the front entrance frame and put in the screen. We like fresh air and have an abundance of it out here in the country.

We drove to the Sears Outlet at Fountain Walk in Novi to buy a box spring mattress foundation. They were already discounted and also on sale. The shipping was 50% of the sale price but we could not get it home in our car so that was our only choice. It was still a bargain and we will have it next Tuesday. We have been using the heavy, elaborate foundation that came with our Sleep Comfort mattress years ago, but it is broken and needed to be replaced.

We stopped at Lowe’s on the drive back to look at vinyl floor tiles and bought some Oxygenics shower spray heads and soap. We took a drive up Latson to see if we could find a metal arch garage that Phil Jarrell had recently spotted. We think we caught a glimpse of it on the west side of the road as we headed north towards M-59. Heading east on M-59 we took a detour up Argentine Road to see if we could find Phil’s place but never saw anything we felt confident was his. We headed east on Clyde Road and took Old US-23 back to M-59 where we stopped at Kroger for a few things before returning home. To Linda’s surprise and delight, the Kroger has some of the mock dairy vegan products, like Daiya cheeses, that she occasionally uses and cannot get at Meijer’s.

Linda had an agenda for today and next up was putting the umbrella in the outdoor table. Once that was taken care of we sat outside enjoying blue skies, bright sunshine, an air temperature of 71 degrees, and a slight breeze, none of which required the umbrella, but the point was to get it off the floor in the library where it was stored all winter. Next we moved the natural gas grill from the garage to the lower rear deck, reassembled it, and connected it to the gas supply (it has a quick connect and shutoff valve). I then busied myself removing the three shower heads and replacing them with the removable spray heads we bought at Lowe’s. If I did not do that right away they would still be sitting around in their boxes months from now.

Linda used the grill to make dinner. She grilled seasoned Brussels sprouts, tofu hot dogs, and bananas sliced in half the long way. This will be the first summer in a long time that we have had a grill. Linda is excited to have it as it expands her cooking options and provides a way to not heat up the kitchen in the warmest weather. I am looking forward new dimensions in our meals.

I had planned on reviewing an article for BCM but ended up involved in two phone calls after dinner. One was with Pat Lintner from GLAMA and our GLCC chapter and the other was with Lou Petkus from the SKP Photographers BOF. That left just enough time to watch Season 1, Episode 1 of Sherlock on DVD before turning in for the night.

2024/07/22 (T) A Quiet Day At Home

Leave a reply

We ran the air-conditioner all day yesterday and well into the evening. It cooled off into the mid-upper 60’s overnight so we turned the A-C off when we got up this morning and opened up the house.

Ron and Mary were mostly packed before breakfast. We all had some of Linda’s yummy homemade granola with fresh blueberries for breakfast and everyone agreed it was superior to any store-bought granola they had ever had. We visited until 9 AM and then helped them load their car for the trip back to Pennsylvania after an all-to-short visit. Still, it was nice to see them for the time they were here and they got to see our grand-daughter for the first time and chat briefly with our children. They had a nine hour drive ahead of them, plus or minus, depending on traffic, construction zones, and number/length of stops. The day was forecast to be sunny and very warm, with a high temperature at our house of 90 degrees F, but with no precipitation along their route.

Only one landscaper (Spencer) showed up this morning around 10 AM. Steve had some hand work for him to do. I checked to see that he had water and he assured me that he brought plenty to drink. With the outside air temperature rising, we closed the house up and turned the A-C on.

We were both surprisingly tired but wanted to get something useful accomplished today. Linda worked at her desk while I cleaned the concrete driveway leading up to the garage from the street. The landscapers have been using the driveway to stage some of their bulk materials such as crushed limestone and egg rock. They got all of that material moved to other parts of the yard over the weekend but there was a layer of dust, small rocks, and other debris left behind. I swept most of it off the driveway with a large push broom and then finished the job with a leaf blower.

There was a lot of crushed limestone left so over the weekend I had Steve push it into a 8′ wide by 15′ long parking pad 4″ – 6″ deep off the west side of the driveway and adjacent to the woods that run along the road. The pad still had tracks in it from the excavator treads so I raked those out, filled in some dirt around the edges of the pad, and tamped the edges down. The pull-through driveway from the front stairs to the concrete driveway was also rutted from the Bobcat front-loader being driven on it so I raked that out as best I could. By the time I was done it was noon, it was hot, and I was sweaty and thirsty. I decided I’d had enough for the day, closed up the storage container and garage, came in, and drank a bottle of ICE brand water. This water is lightly carbonated and lightly fruit flavored, and I find it very refreshing.

I had a phone message yesterday from Darryll of DCM Heating and Cooling with some information I needed in order to prepare the corner of the garage for the library HVAC unit. There were a few things I still needed to know, so I put in another call to him and left a message. For lunch Linda served the left over salads from last night’s dinner along with hummus and chips. We sat on the back deck for a while enjoying the slight cooling effect of a warm summer breeze, but eventually went back inside to escape the heat.

We did not do much the rest of the day. I apparently broke our grandfather clock on Monday while winding it and spent a little time looking for information online. I found a Sligh manual that included some troubleshooting tips but did not get as far as trying to diagnose and fix the problem. We were both tired and took naps in the late afternoon. That was unusual for us but could easily become part of our daily routine, especially on hot days like we had today.

I worked on bus barn drawings while Linda prepared dinner. I then called John to see if I could borrow his chop saw and if he had time to look at the drawings. Linda went along and visited with Diane. We stayed until almost 10 PM.

20140711 (F) Nice Weather Lately

Leave a reply

Steven’s nephew, Spencer, was here a little after 8 AM and spent some time cleaning up the driveway. He was joined by Tommy, who was only available for the morning. Tommy got instructions from Steve by phone and they tried working on the retaining walls, but I’m not sure what they accomplished. One of the large boulders Steve positioned yesterday on the lower west wall had dropped 6 inches and they were unable to re-position it.

It was another pleasant day, so I decided to work outside during the morning. I cut up some previously trimmed tree limbs and then started pruning our apple tree. I tried to cut all of the dead limbs and branches I could reach from the ground using our new Fiskar’s ratcheting lopper. With that material removed I was able to use the pole saw and compound lopper to remove some larger and/or higher limbs. By noon it was getting warm and I knocked off for the day and had lunch. Linda made the chickpea (garbanzo bean) salad that we both like so much and served it on a bed of greens with red grapes and sweet Bing cherries on the side.

Tommy had to take off for the afternoon and left Spencer to start moving smaller rocks onto the slope of the east retaining wall. We would occasionally hear one thud against the foundation and I decided I should check on his progress. He was doing a fine job of tossing rocks into place, but I did not like the way the earth was pitched as it appeared to slope back towards the house. I examined the west wall and it appeared to have the same problem.

Since the whole reason for this project was to get water to flow away from the house, I asked Spencer to take a break while I called Steve. I told him that something just did not look right to me and that I could not see any evidence of a drain tile behind the upper wall on the west side. He was running the excavator at another job site and wasn’t able to come look at our job so he sent Kyle over to pick up Spencer, who did not have a car. With a chance of rain in the forecast for Saturday through Monday it is looking more and more like this job will not be done until the end of July.

In the afternoon I continued working on configuring my Windows 8.1 laptop. My challenge today was getting Outlook 2013 to preview PDF files. I used the search feature on the Start screen to locate information, some of which indicated I would have to create and/or edit the registry. In the end the solution only required two steps: installing Adobe Reader 11 and then setting it as the default program for PDFs.

With that problem solved I edited my blog posts for July 1 through 9 and started uploading them. I managed to get the posts for the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd uploaded before dinner. I also got a return call from Darryll at DCM Heating and Cooling and we agreed he would come to the house tomorrow at 10:30 AM to finalize the work we need done and pin down a start date to prep the house for natural gas and install a small HVAC unit for the library and a furnace for the garage. We also need the main air-conditioner serviced. Luckily it has been a cool summer so far. The conversion of appliances will have to wait until the natural gas line is connected to the meter and turned on, which could be as late as early October.

I got a call from Gary at GM Construction sometime in the last few days. He finally had all of his supplier quotes for our pole barn / bus garage project and had a price for us. It was higher than I would have liked, but less than the quote from Morton Buildings, which was for a much smaller barn. Last night I called Phil from Precision Grading to update him on the status of the project and to see if he would swing by and look at the pull-through driveway which the landscapers have torn up more than I expected. My best guess is that we will get a barn up somehow, but I’m not sure when or how.

For dinner Linda made pan-grilled sliced tofu with onions and Bar-B-Que sauce served on a toasted sandwich bun with a side of lightly oiled and baked potato wedges and a few fresh strawberries. Of course, that meant ketchup with Tabasco sauce. We split a can of cold Yuengling beer which was the perfect beverage for this meal. Sometime in the last two days Linda made a raspberry sauce from frozen raspberries we picked last year. Earlier today she made a vegan chocolate cake and this evening the cake and raspberry sauce came together for dessert.

2014/05/03 (S) Ham It Up

Leave a reply

Today started with breakfast out and felt like we were finally starting to get back into the flow. We drove to South Lyon for the Saturday morning breakfast gathering of our South Lyon Area Amateur Radio Club, as we do almost every Saturday morning when we at the house. Steve (N8AR) gave me a lead on someone who might be willing to build our pole barn. After breakfast we returned home and I walked Linda through the project I discussed yesterday with Steve for redoing the rear basement walkout retaining walls, drainage, and yard grading.

I worked on our blog and Linda worked on lunch preparations while we awaited the arrival of our daughter and son-in-law. They have had Linda’s Honda Civic Hybrid since December and were returning it, so they drove two cars. Linda got to visit with them in late February / early March, but I had not seen them since mid December. We had a nice lunch of mixed greens salad and vegan Sloppy Joe’s with sweet gherkin pickles on the side. Fresh strawberries and carrot cake cookies provided a sweet ending to the meal. We had a nice visit.

Steve from Village Landscaping Development stopped by with a brochure, business card, and the project proposal written up on a more official estimating form. We will take a few days to think about, but it’s a very good proposal and I am 99% certain we will hire him to do this work. It would be nice to get it done in late May to early June, between The SKP Escapade and the GLAMARAMA rallies, but it may not be dry enough by then. If not, it will have to wait until early July after we return from the installation ceremonies for Linda’s sister who is assuming one of the top leadership positions in the St. Louis Province of the Congregation (Sisters) of St. Joseph.

A little later Phil Jarrel, from Best Precision Grading, came by to take a second look at the site preparation and grading work for the pole barn. We walked the site and agreed that I could/should change the orientation of the building just a bit from where it is currently staked. We also discussed how to make sure the barn was located behind the front line of the house and talked through the permitting and construction process. He did not have any builders to recommend, but he did recommend a concrete contractor for the pit and floor.

We did quite a few construction projects at the previous house over the years but the pole barn involves elements that are new to me, and I now have to deal with a Township for a land use permit and the County for building and grading permits. I am fairly set on the size, location, and basic design/materials, but we not have settled on a builder or materials supplier. Consequently, we still do not have an accurate total cost estimate. Until everything is in place, and the cost is known, nothing can move forward. Meanwhile, the days keep flipping over on the calendar.

2013_10_25-31 (M-R) FOOD At The Phase Place!

Leave a reply

Sometimes I get busy and don’t keep up with my posts. When I go back even as little as a week, as in this post, I find that many of the details are already lost in the continuous flow of daily living.

With the bus work in Williamston wrapped up, I turned my attention to figuring out what body panels and small parts I needed to order from Prevost to fix the damage I did to the passenger side of the bus leaving the campground in Townsend, TN. I spent a fair amount of time in the Prevost CatBase Viewer database. There were enough parts involved that I made an Excel spreadsheet. I called Prevost U.S. Parts and got Roger Anderson on the line. After discussing this for a while, we decided that it would be easiest for me to e-mail him the spreadsheet.

Next up was final preparations for the annual business meeting of our FMCA Freethinkers Associate Chapter (FTH), of which I am the vice-president and secretary. There are a surprising number of documents that are involved in a simple meeting of a small group: an agenda (from the president), minutes from last year’s meeting, financial statements (which Linda and I prepare based on data from the treasurer), proposed amendments to the bylaws, and an updated roster. All of these get converted to PDF files and uploaded to a folder in our Dropbox account. I have provided a link to that folder to all of our members.

We made our usual trip to South Lyon on Saturday morning for breakfast with members of the South Lyon Amateur Radio Club (SLAARC). Linda worked on recipes. I installed the WP-Recipes plug-in and she has started using it to capture and publish recipes for some of our favorite whole-food plant-based (WFPB) dishes. She is evening taking a photograph of the finished dish and adding it to the recipe page. (Click on the Food & Health Tab and then on Recipes in the dropdown menu.)

While Linda worked on recipes I worked on WordPress websites. Besides our own, I am working on websites for our FMCA Freethinkers Associate Chapter (FTH), our FMCA Great Lakes Converted Coaches Chapter (GLCC, of which Linda is the Treasurer), and our South Lyon Amateur Radio Club (SLAARC).

WordPress is constantly releasing updates and new versions. This generally a good thing, but they always strongly advise that you backup your site (folders/files/database) before installing an upgrade. I haven’t been doing that, so I decided on Saturday that I should. The GLCC website is an add-on domain for our primary/personal site, so I was able to back it up using the backup utilities in the QTH.com cPanel. The FTH website is hosted by iPower and the SLAARC website is hosted by GoDaddy, neither of which use cPanel nor appear to have built in backup utilities. There is some provision for backup built in to WordPress.

When I used the cPanel backup utility to backup our primary/personal site and the GLCC site it was about 1 GB. We only had 2.5 GB on our free Dropbox account, so I signed up for the 100 GB Dropbox plan. I then went on a search for a WordPress plug-in that would do the backups on a schedule. I selected WordPress Backup To Dropbox (WPB2D) and then installed and activated it on all four sites. I am going to test it for a couple of weeks and see how it works. I hope it works well as it is a very simple plug-in to use.

Our FTH meeting was scheduled as a conference call for 6:00 PM EDT on Sunday evening, October 27. We have 40 memberships in the chapter and needed 10 to make a quorum. 6:00 PM came and went and at 6:15 PM we only had 8 people on the line. The president polled the group and decided we would try again the next night; same time, same place.

Our SLAARC information net is held every Sunday evening at 8:00 PM. I was a regular participant up until we moved to the new house. Although I have our 2m/70cm base station antenna mounted on the old TV tower, I do not have the coax run to the ham shack in the basement. Hooking up the radio is inconvenient, especially in cold/dark/wet conditions, all of which we now have. I would like to have the ham shack set up and functioning, but it has not made it to the top of the list yet.

On Monday I drove the bus to W. W. Williams in Dearborn, Michigan to have them look at the auxiliary air system and the speedometer. They thought the constant cycling of the main engine air-compressor was either the governor or the air-dryer purge valve. Since the governor had just been replaced, I authorized replacing the purge valve. They thought the speedometer issue was the “tone wheel”, the sensor, or the gauge. The sensor was just replaced, so I authorized them to check that it was installed correctly and to pull the output shaft housing on the end of the transmission to check the tone wheel.

I called Roger back at Prevost U.S. Parts. He had filled in my spreadsheet and prepared a Prevost quote, so he e-mail those back to me. I decided to hold off ordering until Michele at Phoenix Paint has a chance to look at the damage and decide if she can fix it.

Linda and I had staked out the size/location of our planned bus barn and driveway. We adjusted the stakes slightly, moving the barn 5 feet farther from the road and squaring it up. It’s currently 32 ft. wide by 56 ft. long with a driveway that includes a spur for turning around. Phil from Precision Grading came by Monday evening, measured the area, and dug a couple of test holes to see what soil conditions we had. He said we had 13 inches of good top soil in that area. This will have to be removed and replaced with crushed concrete and 21AA road gravel, so we discussed possible locations on our property for the top soil. Some of it will go in a depressed area behind the proposed barn location. This area forms a lake whenever we get heavy/persistent rain. Some it will probably go on the west side of the main garage driveway, which currently drops off more than we would like, and somewhat unevenly. There are also low spots on the far west end of our property, and some of the topsoil will likely go there.

I spent the rest of this period working on the various websites. In particular, I finally figured out how to configure and use the WP-Members plug-in to restrict access to selected portions of a WordPress site based on a Username and Password. With that feature working, I focused on design (structure) and content for the FTH and GLCC sites. I got sidetracked on Halloween with the idea of installing a “slider” (automated slideshow) in place of the default graphic in the RESPONSIVE Theme I am using for the GLCC site. I selected and installed Meteor Slides based on its demonstration by the authors of RESPONSIVE. It had the appearance of being very simple to install and use, and it was/is once I figured it out. It took me 5 hours to do that, but I did. The site is not ready for viewing yet, but I will share the address when it is.