March 10th - Conduit Finished

It rained last night and was quite muddy this morning. One trip around to the back of the cabin made it apparent that waiting for things to dry out made sense. In the PM I finished the conduit from the shed to the cabin and backfilled the last of the open trench. After the soil settles some finish grading will almost certainly be necessary, but for all intents and purposes the trench work is complete.

Tom came over and helped me pull the electrical wire through the conduit. One end is now sticking into the main panel in the cabin ready to connect to the breaker. The other end is sticking up out of the conduit in the shed, also ready for termination and connecting to the panel in the shed.

A couple of days ago the forecast for Saturday was some snow. Yesterday Saturday's forecast was changed to a snow/rain mix. I just looked now the forecast for tomorrow is mostly cloudy.

Other than some trash cleanup and returning Marvin's wheelbarrow, my outside work is done for this trip. Hopefully I will get enough wiring done to energize the panel in the shed and maybe even put up a light and install a receptacle tomorrow. That will complete all I had hoped to accomplish this trip.

God is good. May He bless you and yours.

March 9th - Digging Done

The drainage trench is finished except for figuring out how to terminate the end of the pipe. I plan on cutting the pipe off at the end of the rock and then building some type of headwall to protect the end of the pipe.

 

I thought I might run out of the coarse rock but I didn't.

I 

If the rain holds off tomorrow I should be able to get the conduit into the cabin and backfill this last area.

My back and shoulder are glad to be done with the drainage part of the project. It was nice out today but supposed to cool down and rain some tomorrow.

God is good. May He bless you and yours.

March 8th - Still More Digging

It rained hard Monday. I took this photo a couple of hours after the rain had let up.

 I finished digging the trench today. The drain pipe will end where the rock stops. I haven't figured out just how I'm going to do that yet.

 I've still got a LOT of rock to move. I figure about 5 wheelbarrow loads of the small rock that has lots of fine in it, that is what is going against the cabin foundation, and 20 wheelbarrow loads of the large rock that has no fines in it. I will also have to do some "regrading" by moving some of the dirt I dug out along the sides of the end 10' of the pipe.

Hopefully I can get a lot of that done tomorrow. The forecast is for a 30% chance of rain Friday and a 50% chance of a frozen mix Saturday.

God is good. May He bless you and yours.

March 6th - More Digging

It misted rain here most of the morning. I'm sure we did not even get a tenth of an inch. After lunch I borrowed Marvin's wheelbarrow and a hoe from Tom and got some work done. I dug another 5' of trench and filled what I had dug with stone. The break between the light stone and dark stone, at the bottom of the photo, is where I started filling the trench. I'm slowly pecking away at it.

The photo makes it look like the end of the trench is getting close to the end of the cabin, not so. I've got another 20' of trench to dig before I get clear of the end of the cabin.

I intended on borrow a hole saw from Marvin when I was at his place, but I forgot. I need it to drill a hole through the cabin wall for the electrical conduit that goes to the shed.

It is supposed to rain tomorrow. I'm hoping it does, my back and shoulder could use a day off 😊

God is good. May He bless you and yours.

March 5th - Church Day

Had breakfast at Family Ties restaurant before church this morning. It is my 3rd favorite breakfast place in Crossville & the only one open on Sunday. Even 3rd place in Crossville is very good.

I had wondered if attendance was dropping a little at Cumberland Fellowship. I almost always go to the 9AM service. The last couple of Sundays I was there it seemed that there were more open seats than previously. Today was just the opposite, there were a LOT of people. As I left the parking lot looked like there was also going to be a lot of people at the second service.

Remember MasterCard's "Priceless" commercials from a few years ago? This morning the church showed a video "starring" one of the Pastor's. The church is holding finance/budgeting classes trying to get members out of debt and help people be more responsible with their finances. The Pastor was outdoors wearing a sleeveless tee shirt and carrying a shotgun. He said, "This is a Remington Tactical XS 12 gauge shotgun, cost $469." Then he held up some shotgun shells and said, "These are 6 double ought buckshot shells, cost $39." He then pulled out his wallet and took out a couple of credit cards. In the next scene you saw the credit cards nailed to a pallet. He opened fire blasting away at the credit cards. His final comment was, "Freedom from credit card debt, priceless." He got everyone's attention. I thought it was great and joined in the applause.

I did some rock busting and a little digging this afternoon. I managed to "cut" a 3" deep trench across the top of the rock, so that the drainage pipe will lay down in the trench I cut. It wasn't to difficult. The rock is something like sandstone. I could break it up with a pick. I also dug on a little further to see if I would have to remove more rock. So far so good. I'm down to rock but the trench is deep enough. By then my back said it didn't want to do any more digging today.

I mounted the electrical panel in the shed. I will probably take it back off the conduit when I pull the wire through into the cabin, but now that everything is ready that will be easy enough.

It was cloudy all day but warm enough that I was comfortable with no coat, just long sleeve shirt.

I took a picture of our new neighbors driveway this morning on my way to church.

God is good. May He bless you an yours.

March 4th - Actually Accomplished a Little

I didn't need to go to town for anything today, I got to stay at my mancave all day 😊

I don't think I mentioned that I'm getting another neighbor. As I understand it, a friend of Duane Burgess bought 5 acres from Brady Burgess. It is located on the east side of Duane & Teresa's property, their property adjoins ours on our east side. They are cleaning out some of the trees along the road and have what I assume is a driveway cleared. Duane and Teresa's building site if quite a ways back off the road. (You can't see it from the cabin.) My guess is that the site of the new neighbors home will be at the back of the 5 acres. I was told they are going to move in a double wide, but I don't know when.

Today was the first day I actually made a little progress. I swept out my shed. It is probably the cleanest it will ever be.

 I raked a bunch of leaves away from the cabin and did a little digging to continue the drain pipe. I still need to extend the buried electrical conduit up and through the cabin wall directly below the electric meter. The conduit will go through the wall just above the bottom of the siding.

the

I extended the trench this far and said enough for today.

The white that you see in the photo below is a rock shelf. My next step will be trying to break some of it out so that I can get the drain pipe lower.  If I don't knock off some of the rock the top of the drain pipe will almost be exposed. I can't add more dirt on top or it will be above the bottom of the siding.

It wasn't all that muddy. The current forecast is a 30% chance of rain Monday and an 80% chance on Tuesday. I may give the rock breaking a go after church tomorrow.

God is good. May He bless you and yours.

Mar 3rd - Back in Tennessee

I drove back to Tennessee Wednesday, Mar 1st. The heaviest traffic I encountered was driving through Jefferson City. Traffic in the left lane was backed up a couple of miles. It was all the state workers waiting to make a left turn, at a traffic light, to get in the parking lot. I wonder how many thousands of them are on the payroll, just in Jefferson City?

Yesterday I went to Cookeville in the AM to sit with Tom & Mary Lou while Mary Lou waited for back surgery to start. Tom called after the surgery was done. The report from the Doctor was good. She will be in the hospital for 4 or 5 days.

I had received, and lost, a notice to renew the license on my truck. This morning I walked into the court house at 8:59, without the renewal form. I walked back out at 9:02 with my renewal sticker. I LOVE DEALING WITH FOLKS IN TENNESSEE!

I had quit wearing my $3,700 hearing aids because I had given up on getting them adjusted to the point where I thought they were worth the bother of wearing. I found out that the place where I have my eyes examined, here in Crossville, also has a hearing center. I made an appointment before leaving Missouri and went to the appointment this AM.

I had copies of my last 2 hearing tests. The newest one was about 1.5 years old so Emily, my audiologist, gave me another test. The result was good news, the hearing in my good ear shows no deterioration since the last test. Emily reprogrammed my hearing aids and seemed reasonably sure that she could make adjustments that would improve them to the point where I thought they were worth the bother of wearing them. Time will tell. She asked me to wear them for a couple of weeks and then come back in so that she could "tweak" the programming based on my experience with the adjustments she made today.

They had lots of rain here Wednesday. It is still to wet to start digging to extend the drainage tile I started the last time I was here. The good news is that even with all the rain the floor of my storage shed was dry. The drainage tile I installed is working fine.

God is good. May He bless you and yours.