Howdy Y’All!
You may note I changed the title up a bit as I found the previous one a bit non-descript (could have gone on till I die at this point).
Same story, different blog entry. Not much progress.
On Monday March 12 I went over to Tom and Alicia’s to speak to Fransisco about doing the fence for me now that I had it mostly cleared. He was not there, but I visited a while with Tom and Alicia anyway.
Tuesday March 13 was a day of running that hit obstacle after obstacle but turned out okay in the end (just burned an extra $20 in fuel and 90 minutes in time). I did manage to finally get my eyes examined and get new glasses ordered. Two pair this time – one for computer work and one for driving. Doc said the rest of the time wearing them is up to me. I haven’t been wearing the ones I have much because they don’t work well for me any more (probably 4 years old) plus they are pretty scratched up.
I worked for work the afternoon/evening Wed March 14.
Thursday March 15 I met with Fransisco regarding the fence. He said he would do it for $10/hr and expected to have it done in 16 hours of work. That is way under priced for the going rate of fence installation around here (I would expect to pay a local company about $1600 for labor alone) so I will likely pay him more so I don’t feel like I’m taking advantage of him. We agreed I would buy materials on Saturday and he would start on Sunday. We agreed I would get steel corner posts as they would last longer than wood. and I would get 16′ gates for the drives at the north and south ends of the gates and 4′ pedestrian gates for the east and west sides.
Friday morning I realized I couldn’t transport the 16′ gates in the back of my truck so I asked Tom if I could borrow his 16′ utility trailer which he has offered in the past. That afternoon, I had the internet service tech out tuning my Internet antenna to improve signal strength. After he left, I went an picked up the misc scrap building and fencing material that I bought from Boyd weeks before but hadn’t picked up yet. That evening I went and picked up the utility trailer at Toms. I was reminded that evening that I should not leave my keys in the truck seat and close the door. Yep. It locked. UGH!! As it was a bit chilly, I was underdressed, and it is a 15 minute hike one way back to my place to get the spare keys, I asked Tom if I could borrow his ATV to run back to my place. Of course he got a laugh when I explained why and granted my request. Luckily, although the trailer has been in need of a good straightening and cleaning for months now, I knew right where the spare keys were. I then stayed up way to late trying to get caught up on some of my youtube channels.
Saturday, I ran to Valley Mercantile in Animas NM to pickup the fencing material. That did not go as planned in the least. They were out of the steel posts but had used telephone poles which are frequently used for fencing around here. I agreed and was thankful I brought the trailer for the purpose of transporting the gates because I certainly would not have been able to haul the telephone poles in the truck. That 16′ trailer was fully loaded with a mix of 10′ and 12′ telephone poles for a total of 28 poles. They were stacked up probably 2′ or more higher than the sidewalls of the trailer. I decided I better buy a heavier duty tie down while I was there. We went to load the gates on top of the telephone poles to find that they didn’t have any in stock. They had 2 18′ gates, but no 16′ gates and no pedestrian gates. She credited my card for the 16′ gates and said they would be in the following Thursday. Between the telephone poles on the trailer, and in the bed of the truck: 7 rolls of barbed wire, 120 7′ tposts, 300 stays, the truck’s back end was sitting a bit lower that usual. 🙂 Bent my healing thumb backwards while loading the tposts. OUCH! All the way home I was hoping I made the right decision buying the telephone poles. I noted as we were loading the posts it seemed to me that they were in pretty bad shape. Hoping they are good enough for fencing and will last a long time. That and the lack of the gates were stressing me out. It didn’t help that I was operating on less than optimal amount of sleep for me. I measured the drive when I got home. Could have easily used the 18′ gates. Oh well. I spent a bit of time unloading the telephone poles by myself. The top ones were relatively easy. Just roll them off the pile off the trailer. Things got a bit more interesting once I got to the ones below the sidewalls of the trailer. I enlisted the aid of the tractor for those. I hooked the chain to the end of the pole then dragged it off the end of the trailer. I did a few that way but it was time consuming and I wanted to be done. I started mentally seeking reasons to not continue. Wasn’t difficult to come up with one. Needed to keep the trailer to go get the gates so there was no rush to get them off today so I can return the trailer. They would need to be moved again the next day to their final destination so why move them twice. Reasoning accepted. Time to quit and take a nap. After my nap I cleaned up and headed to a St Patrick’s day celebration/fund raiser for the local Art Gallery. I enjoyed a nice dinner, musical entertainment by locals, and bought a piece of artwork from the silent auction.
At some point during the day Saturday when I sat down to rest and eat and think, it occurred to me that my plan for pedestrian gates on the east and west sides was not good. I don’t plan on extending the fence any further north, so I would just tie into the existing North and south ends of the fencing and extend them east or west depending on what want at the time of expansion. In doing so, I would not have easy access to those fenced areas with the tractor or other heavy equipment if I just put in pedestrian gates as originally planned. If I put in drive gates instead now, then I would not have to add drive gates else where at the time of expansion saving me $$ on gates in the long run. So new plan is 18′ gates that hey have in stock for the drives and 16′ gates for the East and west gates into the as of yet unfenced sections of our property.
Well rested, Sunday was a day of physical labor. As Fransisco was digging holes for the posts by hand, I was delivering posts to their final destinations. He was fast. He was digging the holes almost as fast as I could manage to get the telephone posts loaded onto the tractor for transport. I stopped long enough to replace the chain on the chainsaw. A to-do that had been waiting on me since October. Finally need it so could defer no more. I watched him do a few posts. He was a brute. He would upend the post, bear hug it and pick it up and carry it into the hole and drop it in. Glad he’s doing it and not me. I wouldn’t be able to move for a month while my back covered, then I’d have to go have another hernia surgery. Pass on that thanks. He got the four corner posts set and the H’s built for the corners and gate on the south fence line. He got the T Posts for the south fence line all installed and 2 courses of barbed wire started before calling it a day. After he left I pushed forward with a couple other projects. I replaced the battery shelf in the truck. That was an interesting project that I regretted starting so late after I was beyond the point of no return. To get the battery shelf out and the replacement in I had to move the coolant reservoir a few inches. To move the coolant reservoir, I had to remove the air filter housing. Happily, I completed the project at dusk with no left over pieces or parts. It was just light enough for me to glue up some PVC parts for the water tank so I could connect a garden hose as a temporary water dispensing mechanism closer to where I need it than the tank itself. I check the hose length. It is not long enough to reach the trailer. I’m undecided if I will spend the $$ on another hose for that convenience factor or leave it inconvenient to maybe encourage me to get the permanent (or at least long term) RV plumbing project done sooner than later. I finished off the evening by ordering a reconditioned DR walk behind weed trimmer. For fire safety, it is important I get this tall dead dry grass cut down around here. At least in the immediate vicinity of the trailer and building site.
Monday was a run to Douglas. Forgot the gas cans again but luckily this time I had plenty of gas on hand to get me through until Thursday when I would go to Animas to pick up the gates. Decided to grab a new cement mixer when I was there. Fransisco came by and worked a couple hours on the fencing in the afternoon.
Tuesday was clean up and socializing day. Looking at the mirror at when I was trying on glass frames the previous week I realized how over due I was for a trim. Gave myself a buzz cut and trimmed up, then to Rusty’s for a shower and refill of drinking water jugs. Capped off with a fine evening of socialization at the Tavern with Rick and Laura for Taco Tuesday.
Wednesday night was a 16 hr day for work. As this was a rare occasion where I was not present outside in some fashion in the evening and Sasha was in the trailer with me, I observed wildlife activity in the yard that I don’t normally see. Rabbits scurrying about. Cool, there is a road runner. Oh look there is another road runner. OH MY! Guess we know which one the male is. Why am I still watching them? Ok. Back to work.
Thursday went to Animas to pick up the gates. Great. 16′ gates had been delivered as forecasted. Hmmm… Were the heck are those 18′ gates??? They are gone. CRAP. Confirmed sold. Replacements due to arrive April 9. OMG. Really regretting not thinking while I was there Saturday to just buy the 18′ gates then. Loaded up two 16′ gates and headed home bummed about the gate stituation yet again. Unload the gates and return the trailer to Tom as it will be a while before the gates are in unless I want to drive to Tuscon to buy some.
Friday morning I was pounding away at the keyboard for work when Sasha started barking and didn’t stop as she normally does. Hmm… What is it. Open the blinds to the north side of the trailer. What is that? There’s two of them. They are big and moving slowly. CRAP!!! They are cattle! I step out side so check for others. Then I hear the cattle in the carrel in the canyon and the faint drone of an ATV engine. CRAP!! Sounds like they are driving them out of the canyon today. I only have one side of my fence up and no drive gates on hand (I had him set the posts at 18′ and I have 16′ gates). Fire off an email to Tom to let him know. A short while later Fransisco shows up and gets to work. He completes the east side if the fence before calling it a day. That leaves the north and west sides to complete – along with the gates. Friday evening was another work for work night so no progress on out door activities. I did start working on the video stuff again. Need to save video off the recorder until I can process it as the drive is full and it was starting to automatically delete old video files to free up space.
Saturday, what to work on? I start the morning by continuing the computer work. Upgrading the OS and applications on the video server in hopes to stop it from crashing as it was doing ever couple of days. I also worked on the laptop getting the Linux OS installed in a VM as for what ever reason, I’m reluctant to delete the W10 installation on the laptop. Worked some on the compost pile. Forecast was for rain in the afternoon. After it rains would be prime time to cut metal for the solar post anchors. So I run to Animas as I remember seeing some old metal shelves sitting in their scrap area that would be ideal for the task. I got there 30 minutes before closing. The ladies there didn’t know if they were for sale and how much to charge for them. They tried reaching the manager unsuccessfully and they did not feel empowered to make the decision themselves. UGH. Yet another trip for naught. Upon returning home, I walked the installed fence lines and noticed they were high enough off the ground Sasha would be able to go under. Will need one more row of barbed wire closer to the ground. Even then, there are dips in the ground where rain water has eroded way the land. Will need to fill those with rocks to allow the water to continue to move through but block Sasha. Deb and Bud Johnson stopped by briefly. I had reached out to Deb informing her that I would take any brush that anyone wanted to drop off. So they came by to see where I wanted it dropped. I’m thinking seriously about trading in the useless auger for a wood chipper. As the weather was quickly turning unpleasant , I retired to the trailer to continue my computer work. Video server upgrades completed. Cleared space on the video server by deleting a number of night time videos of the build site. Started researching the use of computer vision algorithms to detect motion in video files. Started working on the laptop to set it up to write motion detection scripts to learn about it and hopefully take others’ scripts and adapt for my use in better detecting motion than what comes freely with the cameras. Stopped to head out for dinner at the Portal Peak cafe and refill water at Rusty’s. Continued work on setting up the laptop when I got home until the wee hours of the morning when my brain shut down and it was pointless to keep working on it.
Sunday (today), weather was gorgeous but I really wanted to continue to work on the computer project that I was mentally into. As a compromise, I worked outside just long enough to take care of some priority tasks such as moving the tractor auger out of the way of where the north fence line was to be installed and fill those two low areas where rain water flows with rocks. I justified my plan to work inside for the day due to the unpleasant winds. It was a weak excuse, I know. Back to the keyboard. I got some scripts to work on my videos. Very cool. Much more to do and progress is slow. I don’t learn new concepts as quickly as I used to. Needed to switch gears to learn to edit video for posting on youtube. Need to learn how to merge videos, speed up video playback (to be able to watch hours of video in a few minutes), run video in slow motion. Even run it in reverse for fun. I was successful at all those tasks. Certainly not professional output. Not remotely close, but it it is functional. So typical of my work product. 🙂 It works. Have to move onto the next thing now. Anyway. I was able to create a short and sweet video of that not so intelligent and not so graceful Sunday two weeks ago. It is too late tonight to get it posted along with a number of pictures that need to get posted. I know I said it last blog, but maybe sometime before the next blog will be a special pic and video update. While I was slacking off working on the computer, Fransisco showed up and worked on rigging up the 16′ gates to work in the 18′ openings for now. I also heard him pounding away at installing the tposts for the north fence line. I didn’t stop before dark so I’m not sure how much he got done today.
I should add…. Luckily I haven’t seen any more cattle since those two and they have not been back. I saw them hauling away a trailer of cattle Friday afternoon so I suspect those were the ones I heard Friday morning and they were heading off to slaughter. None the less, out of time to get the fence up…. he says after essentially spending two days on the keyboard rather than working toward that end. It is just that Fransisco is doing such a good job with the fence (from a layman’s perspective), I’d be afraid that my “help” would be counter productive. That is my reasoning and I’m sticking to it. 🙂
Night all!
Cary
Seeking Simplicity 