Tuesday, March 31st, 2009
I am sure you are all just thrilled about my new utility trailer. I know I am. I have been having dreams about driving around with it.
Yesterday, I went to Home Depot in Windham to pick up a bunch of supplies. The project was to put wooden sides on the new trailer, so mulch and stuff like that doesn’t fall out. I also wanted wooden sides to kind of shield anything I am towing from bad weather.
I bought a lot of stuff, including plywood, bolts, nuts, washers, drill bits, spray paint, a tarp, a ball for the lawnmower hitch, etc… I have found that purchasing the entire box of bolts is a lot better than buying them individually. I am always looking for nuts and bolts and now I might just have some.
I was confronted with a little issue while browsing for the plywood I was going to use for this project. I went in the store with every intention of getting two sheets of 3/4″ pressure treated plywood. I left with two sheets of 1/2″ non-pressure treated plywood. The reason for this? Well, I was going to seal whatever I got up with Thompson’s Water Seal anyway. I have had good luck with sealing natural wood up and it’s weathered the environment. With the 1/2″ sheets going for about $11 each, I just couldn’t pass it up. Plus, I wanted to keep things light on the trailer. It’s really not intended for heavy-duty towing.
Here, let me show you the photos and then we can talk about them.
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John Deere lawnmower towing utility trailer
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New ball hitch for John Deere lawnmower
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Wooden sides on utility trailer
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Rear view of wooden side on utility trailer
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Tarp covering utility trailer
Okay, the first thing I would like to discuss is how great the trailer looks with the John Deere lawn mower. I bought a 1 7/8″ ball with a 3/4″ shaft yesterday, just for this occasion. I am going to have fun towing stuff around the yard now.
The wooden sides came out better than I thought. I planned on drilling a bunch of holes through the steel and really anchoring the wood down to the trailer. As it ends up, once everything was framed, I didn’t need to do that. I only actually drilled two holes in the steel towards the back of the trailer. Now, all I need to do is to take those two bolts out and the whole wood unit comes right out. It’s as snug as a bug in a rug and rock solid. You really should check it out. Everything is straight too. Wait, I lied…I drilled six holes on the ramp to hold that one piece of plywood all the way at the back. Whoops.
I also picked up a nice heavy duty tarp to cover whatever I have on the trailer. You can see that it is brown. I really hate those ugly blue tarps. They are a disgrace to look at and doesn’t help out the neighborhood if I have to cover something up, like a wood pile. From now on, brown tarps it is.
Home Depot didn’t have any Thompson’s Water Seal. After building this today, I am kind of glad. I decided that I can paint the wood black and things will match much better. If I pop the wood portion out and slop on some black Rust-Oleum, it will look a lot less than some home-made trailer rolling down the road. I will cruise in style.
Just as I was finishing up, Laura pulled in the driveway. I told her I had a surprise for her and held her hand as I helped her in the trailer. She sat down and I hopped on the mower. Then, I proceeded to drive her around the yard. We looked like total idiots, but I will tell you, that stuff is fun. I guess we didn’t look any worse than when she pulled me around the yard right afterwards. Man, I have been trying to get that girl on this lawnmower ever since I got it. Strange how she hopped right on today. Maybe it has something to do with the weather.
I need to pick up that black paint. I’ll take some more pics when it’s all finished and sealed up.
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Sunday, January 18th, 2009
I hope you forgive me for typing this post with dirty hands. I just got finished cleaning out the St. Croix Prescott EXL pellet stove.
Actually, I gave it more than a regular cleaning, I gave it more like one of those seasonal cleanings that everyone says you should do, but no one does. I even took some pictures.
The reason for this post is really to follow up from a comment left by “Linda” over at my original pellet stove post.
Apparently, many fine pellet stove owners out there are having issues with their #2 light blinking. I received tons of great comments on my other post regarding this. We have all been looking for the answer. Linda offered a lot of insight, so I decided to give her ideas a try. I think the main point of her comment was to say that cleaning out behind the “ash clean out covers” is very important. I thought I had been doing that, but she mentioned that what I was doing, wasn’t enough.
Okay, so let’s get going. I am going to show you some pretty interesting photos in this post…photos that are hard to find. Sure, there are tons of good pellet stove shots out there, but usually when people start cleaning out their stoves, they forget all about the camera. Not me, my friends. Not me.
I first went downstairs and shut the stove down. When it cooled itself and shut all the way down, I unplugged it. That’s very important, so make sure you do it. After that, I gave it a quick once over to make sure there were no large piles of ash anywhere. I didn’t give it a good cleaning, because I just did that yesterday. It didn’t need to be done again. I did push some ash into the ash pan and empty it though.
What I want to show you here are those ash clean outs that the owner’s manual talks about so much. I just realized this morning that there are about 4 warnings to keep these things clean. I guess it’s pretty critical. I have been doing this every time I clean the stove, so I really didn’t think I needed to do it again. Linda mentioned that we should be cleaning these out with a bottle brush or something like that to really clean them well. Good thing I had bought one of the bottle brushes from Lowe’s a while back. It’s really made for a fireplace or stove, but I was using it to clean bottles for my home brew.
Notice how there really isn’t too much ash in there? I’m talking about inside the hole. I just vacuumed this out yesterday, but I can imagine what it would look like if someone never cleaned these out. Probably like a packed wall of ash.
I didn’t take pictures of the right side, because it is identical to the left side.
By pushing the brush straight up, I didn’t get all that much ash to come out. There really wasn’t all that much up there. By pushing it sideways, I got a little bit more. I’ll show you in the next photo.
To get the pile of ash in the photo above, I basically pushed the bottle brush straight through, from the left side to the right side. I actually saw the brush coming through the right side.
I figured that was done, since I saw all that ash coming out. I decided to move on to clean out the exhaust fan. This is one of those things the book tells you to call the dealer for. It took me about 15 minutes to do the whole job, so it’s up to you.
To remove the fan, I took off the 6 nuts that surround the motor. I believe I used a 9mm 6-point tall socket. I also removed the vacuum hose and took off the vacuum switch wires as well as the fan wires. After everything was removed, the motor and fan popped right out.
With the fan in hand, it was easy to clean the blades (if you call them that). You can use an old paint brush or a rag or something like that. Just get the ash off the blades. The owner’s manual says this fan does not require oiling.
I also decided to take a photo of the rear part of the exhaust vent. This is one of those things we always wonder about, but unless you have taken a pellet stove apart, you will most likely will never see.
As you can see, there wasn’t really too much ash buildup on either the fan or the exhaust vent. I brushed them off and put everything back together. I lit the stove up and watched it burn for a while. I haven’t yet put the wires back on the vacuum switch. I still have them jumped. I’m not sure I have the heart to go through that again, since the stove has been running so wonderfully the way I have it now.
Questions, comments, concerns?
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Saturday, March 15th, 2008
I thought I would give you a little update on the house. The homeowners accepted our offer. The real estate agent is drawing up the contract and we are going to visit it once more on Monday. We are going to walk up and down the road for a second once-over. I guess it would be called a twice-over. If everything is cool, we are going to head to the real estate office and sign the contract. I will be sure to take photos of the neighborhood and post them.
I already called the mortgage company and gave them the revised numbers and I have an appointment on Tuesday morning to get everything done. He says that we could have the closing before the end of the month. I would say that’s pretty fast. He told me that he had a closing in four days, a few weeks back. That is just nuts.
Needless to say, I am a little nervous. We are going to be swimming in the house, but at least Laura will get her own office and so will I. There will also be another bedroom with a bathroom, so if we ever have guests, they will be hooked up. We can then have another whole family living in the finished basement. Also, the two car garage is something I have always wanted. No more scraping ice off the windshields. Ye haw.
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Saturday, October 7th, 2006
I woke up this morning and looked at my thumb. Strangest thing…it was green. Oh well, I didn’t have much choice but to go outside and do some gardening.
I have had a project on the back burner for a while. The people who owned this house before us decided to plant some Bearded Iris right next to a Peach Tree. This isn’t the best spot for Iris to grow, because it gets mixed in with the grass and gets mowed over a lot (Who me?). So I decided to dig them up for transplant.
I had no idea how deep the bulbs were. Funny thing…I just assumed they were bulbs. I started scratching away the dirt on top of the Iris closest to the Peach Tree. I kept hitting these weird “roots” very close to the surface. I thought they were the Peach Tree roots. Whatever…I went in a grabbed a shovel and started digging all around the Iris patch. Guess what I found?
Up came the weirdest looking root-like beasts. I shook off all the dirt and went inside to do a little research on the internet about what the heck I was looking at. I found this good site that tells all about how to plant Iris. Then I found another good site that focused on how to divide Iris. Apparently, you are supposed to do this every few years so they maintain their beautiful bloom. I pulled all the tangled roots apart and cut where I was supposed to. These “roots” are actually called “rhizomes.” The weirdness of them still makes me feel a little uncomfortable.
After dividing all of the rhizomes, I had about 30 or so individual plants. I really hadn’t thought about where to put them. I decided that a little more green in the front garden would be a nice touch. I have a strange feeling that this front garden is going to be nuts come Spring. These Iris should be kept towards the rear of the garden because they get quite tall.
It’s pretty simple to replant these Iris. Basically, just follow the few rules that can be found here. I dug shallow holes spread evenly throughout the rear of the garden, one at a time. I wrapped the roots around my finger, because some of them are over 18 inches long. Then, I just placed them in the holes, near the surface and covered them up.
Of course, again, I sprayed deer repellant all over them so I wouldn’t witness a family of deer running down the road with my Iris hanging out of their mouths. We’ll see what happens in the Spring!
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