The Manic Mechanic

The last several days have been interesting, productive, fun and relaxing. Jeff had accumulated some time off from working extra days, and he bundled them around this particular weekend. All together, he's off from Thursday through Tuesday, and our dance card had already been pretty much filled. On Thursday, we headed down to wild, wonderful West Virginia and the town of Cass to ride the restored rail line, once part of a lumber operation and now a scenic railroad. The three of us boarded the train, the beautifully restored Shay steam locomotive chugged to life and we were on a relaxing excursion through the woods and hills of the area. Scenic is definitely the best way to describe the 11-mile journey as the stout locomotive pushed the cars to over 5000ft in elevation in 11 miles. I will most likely post more about this, as I collect the pics and video. Stupid me, I had forgotten to load a fresh SD card into the camera, and I'm still unaccustomed to how fast the memory gets eaten up taking full HD video. I ran out of space halfway into the trip and had to use my cell phone for the rest of the day. We had a great time, despite the 4+ hour ride to and from the area (neither one of use had to drive). We might do this again in the fall when the leaves change, the colors would be beyond breathtaking. I bought some art as souvenirs, there are quite a few unique items made locally by hand, a refreshing change from finding touristy trinkets crafted from Chinesium in such places. The lady who rung up my one purchase was also the maker. Definitely a friendly place on the "must return to" list.

Friday we spent clearing out the rest of the vegetable garden for planting as well as doing other yard work. I also did some upgrades to the truck as prep for next month's PTown trip. We picked up various soil enhancements and I fired up the big Troy-Bilt and tilled the area into a respectable spot and Jeff planted two varieties of sweet corn in that last quadrant of the garden. Jeff was so happy to finally get this done as well. Now we just have to figure a way of preventing damage from the stink bugs and other vermin that have been problems in the past. More research is needed, and I want to minimize the use of chemicals.

We took both pooches to the groomer in Saturday morning, old hat for Kodi but a first for Snickles. While the dogs were away, we continued with the yard stuff a bit and did other things which included a nice lunch devoid of begging dogs. When the call came from the groomer, we picked up our freshly washed pups and brought them home. We cleaned up after a while and headed to the Merriweather Post Pavilion to see the Zac Brown band perform.



These guys can rock, despite their country leanings. A band for pogonophiles everywhere, they played a tight set and kept everyone on their feet. I was blown away by their cover of Metallica's "Enter Sandman," especially with the lead guitar solo being played to the hilt on the fiddle! We both had an awesome time at the show despite the outrageous prices for food and refreshments. There's not much escaping that folly these days, however.

Sunday Jeff took Kodi with him to Pennsyltucky while I kept Da Snick home with me. While he tended to family business as well as getting the trailer cleaned up and ready for the trip, I worked in the garage on various overdue projects. As is usually the case in The Garage of Mayhem, a simple project took a curvy left turn and became something different. The vegetable garden is surrounded with a 4+ foot wire fence to keep the critters out, and there are four "gate" to get in and out. The "main" entrance has an arbor with a double swinging gate, the other three sides have an opening in the fence to get equipment in and out which has a section of the fence wire loosely hung into the openings. The two side openings are about 4 feet wide, the back one is a bit shy of seven feet wide in order to get the tractor and other stuff though. Hanging the wire fencing by itself was never a permanent solution, especially since we have a big, fat, nearly invincible groundhog that likes to work his way under the loose fencing and get at our goodies. We've both shot at him several times and missed. Time had finally come to make use of the rebar I had picked up earlier to make a frame to attach the loose wire to and make the garden groundhog- (and many other critter-) proof. All I wanted originally was to make a simple rectangular frame by cutting and welding the rebar together, attaching a panel of wire fencing, then placing this on the ground against the openings in the fence. Well, the simple rectangular frame looked rather plain, and given the size of it (80 inches wide, 60 inches high) and its location opposite the main entrance, I decided to make it somewhat of an art piece instead. Here is what I came up with, before the wire fencing is attached.



The fencing will cover the lower 48 inches, with the uppermost divided rectangular area left open. Rather than being hinged, the gate has a pair of spikes that go into the ground and it gets held in place by a couple of clamps. It only gets removed to take equipment in and out of the garden and to deal with weeds. No reason why something utilitarian can't also be attractive at the same time. I have yet to make the smaller side gate frames, those will be simpler, just a square with a crisscrossing reinforcement, and perhaps a rectangular upper panel to match the big gate. I need to extend the fence posts to about seven feet tall, and attach a course or two of wire to keep the deer from jumping in and out. The deer are the worst garden destroyers here at Mayhem Acres, and they keep multiplying. Until it was cleaned out, the southwest quadrant (the bare ground in the photo) had branches and brush piled in it from last fall, and that had gotten overgrown with weeds as we neglected it and worked the other three areas. This had become home to a tiny fawn as Jeff discovered while cleaning. The fawn got trapped in the fence until our dogs began barking and chasing it. Jeff was so close to having another pet.

Jeff will be in PA with dad for another couple days. In that time I have some mods to do on the truck, fluid changes to do, plus cleaning it up. The Stratus will get a couple more suspension parts (lower control arms w/integral ball joints plus front swaybar links) to satisfy my worry that they, like the tie rod ends, might be close to failing. The replacements will have grease fittings and can receive regular maintenance, giving me some peace of mind.

Spent a fairly relaxed weekend up in PA with Jeff's 'rents. And Kodi. And, for the first time in a while, Kodi again tossed his doggie biscuits all over Jeff a mere ten minutes from our destination. Perhaps this would not have happened had we not been delayed due to trees being blown into the roadways by a storm that got into town about a half hour before us.

It was also our first visit in quite a while, so we needed to make up in the way of Mother's and Father's Day presents. At our past exploration of a new Best Buy in Columbia (which is basically the same as the old one, which is the same as every other BB you'd wander into), we spotted a Westinghouse digital picture frame. We thought it the perfect gift for his mom, so I loaded it with some of the nicest and most memorable shots I have taken over the year of his family members. Turning the thing on, you are greeted with a configurable slide show of pictures on a very bright and sharp 8 inch diagonal LCD. It was an instant hit! I was later presented with a stack of pictures to be scanned and put into the frame. The thing even does video (actually, more like silent movies. No sound. But that's kinda a good thing here).

We got his dad a pressure washer. He wasted no time trying it out. Another hit. More Gerberra daisies for the front of the house and some other trinkets were bought while wandering about in Lowes.

Went out later that Saturday to do some shopping for the new trailer and to see Shrek 3. We liked it, but it's clearly the weakest of the three flicks.

Got back today and futzed around the house and the trailer. This week, the evenings will be spent doing chores, working on the yard, the truck and whatnot. More busybusy stuff. But we are making nice progress I think.

The trip up and back was accompanied by my new portable GPS, a Lowrance iWAY 600C. This little bugger rocks. In addition to the usual 2- and 3-D maps, it has detailed US waterway charts and topographical overlays, and satellite imagery to boot. It's like Google Maps in a box. Plays mp3s and Ogg Vorbis audio files, and can display photos on it's incredibly bright and sharp 640x480 screen. It seriously kicks ass, and can be used in anything that moves. It's waterproof too. Highly recommended, especially if you are a geek like me.

Off to bed, it's gonna be a long week.