Updates (or ramblings, to be more precise).

Posted on by David Maxwell

Haven’t been doing a good job of blogging, and I haven’t journaled in ages either. I need to be doing at least one daily for the sake of my emotional stability. I sort of try to use my smartphone’s camera to take notes and record things. It geotags and dates pictures, so at least I have kind of a photo journal. I sure wish I had a phone like that back when I was doing cool things. But at least I do have photographs. Tens of thousands of them to be (in)exact. I was looking at some of them this morning, and trying to upload to Amazon Prime Photos, since unlimited photo storage is included with our Prime account. Unfortunately it seems like you have to upload one folder at a time, not an attractive proposition when you have early 800 folders. I will search for a workaround.

The house is slowly progressing. I have completely cleared and scraped the site, and did a little leveling. There is still a bit of slope, but it is manageable. The surveyor is supposedly coming in the next day or two in order to map out the foundation, then the footings will get dug and poured. It would be amazing if that plus the block work is finished by the end of the week. Then the house gets framed, which should go pretty quickly. The framing package is a pretty good price, so I need to go ahead and get that ordered. It will be such a relief to see the framing done and the roof and sheathing on. Then it will be time for me to take over and really get to work!

I have really enjoyed using SketchUp to work on the house plans. I am getting better at it and understanding more and more of its features. the FedEx store does a great job of printing large copies of the plans. I also bought a Dell laser printer that has been wonderful for printing letter sized documents. I am really looking forward to setting up an office space of my own in the new house. My 8×8 room isn’t huge, but it will be private and efficient.

We sure have had a mild February and March. The forecast shows a low of 27 in a couple of nights, but that is the only time it is supposed to get below freezing for the next couple of weeks. We did actually get a light dusting of snow the other night, but it melted in a flash.

Realistically we are probably about six months away from moving. That is factoring in a few surprises on hiccups on construction, but nothing major. I am definitely excited about moving, but realize there is a lot of work to be done before that happens.

I am also very excited about living in Columbia. It is a cool town that is starting to have a lot going on. About ten minutes from the farm, in town, is a little recreation center. I have driven by but have not been inside, which I will try to rectify this week. The big attraction is that a yearly membership is only $75. So it could be a great place to exercise. There are also some neat looking restaurants that we haven’t yet tried. Mule Day is next month and I want to go to it.

It would really be nice to go on a camping trip this spring, but I doubt that it will be possible. Maybe this fall after we are all moved into the new house. Lots of blooms around here sure are pretty. Maybe we could at least go to Monteagle next weekend. I’ll run that by Liz.

I’ve been reading a bit in the evenings. Not anything serious just spy and adventure type of books. Also still watching The Blacklist and Hawaii Five-O. They have both been pretty good recently. Liz and I have been watching a little HGTV too.

30 hours of Annie.

Posted on by David Maxwell

Well, the Kioti finally has a name – Annie. She is named after two redheads (which of course everybody knows means orange hair) – Raggedy Ann and Anne of Green Gables. We have now spent about 30 hours working together, so I figured I would share a few thoughts.

As hoped for, this machine is quite the beast. The loader is very strong and it can pull like crazy as well. I actually need to build a ballast box to attach to the rear so it isn’t quite so tippy. Even with the rear tires filled I have lifted the rear end regularly. The loader is nice and tall too. I am thankful that the bucket clears the sides of the 30 yard dumpster that I have been loading.

Unfortunately it has been a wet few weeks since I got Annie. I have made a real mess with the heavy tractor, but such is the price of progress. I will level everything out eventually. Fortunately this coming week is supposed to be pretty dry.

The pallet forks that I bought have been incredible. They have stayed on about 95% of the time and have really made moving things a breeze. The A/C unit, lumber, blocks, stone, shingles, and more, have all been easily handled. Having the skid steer style quick attach on the loader has been great. I would like a couple more attachments – mainly a stump bucket and in my dreams, a grapple.

I need to repair the three point hitch so that I can run i implements off the rear. I would like a box blade and the aforementioned ballast box. Eventually a finish mower would be nice as well.

I bought a grease gun and lubed up all of the zerks. I need to look into oil and filter changes, probably sooner rather than later.

So far I haven’t had any issues. I have worked this machine really hard and it has kept up. Hopefully it will keep going strong for many years!

Like a Limestone Cowboy.

Posted on by David Maxwell

After tearing down the house we have a lot of limestone waiting to find a purpose. About half of it was previously the chimney and the other half served as the foundation on the original portion of the house. There are some very nice pieces. Unfortunately I don’t have any ideas for what to do with them next. The new house won’t have a fireplace, and we are doing a continuous block foundation (because you know, codes). Maybe some kind of outdoor fireplace/fire pit could be cool. I’ll keep thinking about it.