It’s true what they say, you know. A backhoe can do hours of damage in a few seconds, if you stick it in the ground just right.
J wanted me to bury some dog shit for him. He had a couple of piles outside his fence that had grown for years, and he was tired of the flies and the stink. I traded him a few minutes’ backhoe work for a 50′ coil of 10-gauge cable that was just sitting there. Win/win, right?
Yeah. So the first hole went uneventfully enough. Dig a little hole, scrape the big pile of dog shit into it, cover the hole. No issues.
Move the tractor to the second hole. While I was raising the tractor on its outriggers J came out to say hey. He no sooner arrived than I stuck the bucket’s teeth into the ground, pulled it toward me very gently … and something that looked terrifyingly like electrical conduit popped out of the ground.
Yeah. So the damage was minimal, but who knew? It’s outside his wire, he hadn’t mentioned it (in fact he’d forgotten it was there) but it seems that years ago that’s the path he chose for the wire to ALL the electric fences. Bother. Damage was minimal, but I was one heavy-handed pull of a lever from causing us both a lot of work setting it right.
I spent the afternoon between rain squalls pulling that new cable through the conduit I’ve had ready for over a week. M gave me enough heavy cable to run from the new inverter to the breaker box in the Lair, and now I had the longer run of 10-gauge I needed to go up the wall and onto the roof, to connect the PV panel to the charge controller. Yes! Only a few things to do now, really. I need to get the racking for the panel onto the roof, and for that I need my like-unto-a-mountain-goat friend M. There are some things a brittle old one-legged guy shouldn’t do, and one of them involves the Lair’s very steeply-pitched roof. I need to start sheathing the shed, but first – since the roof is now on – I’m going to put up a sheet of OCB on the inside wall, mount all the components in place, and see if I can move the batteries under cover. Yar! With the improved push from this big, modern new panel, I may actually be able to charge my damned batteries! Maybe I’ll even be able to use my ‘pooter without direct sunlight! All the modern conveniences!
I’m not anxious to set up that fancy inverter without my neighbor S’s help, though, and that can’t happen before this weekend. He does it professionally and has cheerfully offered to help, so it would be folly to dick around with it myself. Doesn’t mean I can’t get everything ready for him, though.
We’re less than a month into the full monsoon, and already I find it very tedious. I was sweating yesterday morning like somebody was walking behind me with a garden sprayer, and it wasn’t even hot. “Muggy” is one thing I just can’t get used to anymore, and it never was my favorite thing. I got home yesterday morning just in time for the whole sky to cloud up, and it didn’t dick around about dumping water from the sky.
The ground is so saturated even a short shower leaves puddles. The lower wash has already run twice, and I do believe our wash will cut loose at any provocation. That seriously affects your daily plans: When the wash is running it’s a very bad idea to drive across it in anything, including Landlady’s perfectly capable Jeep. So if I’m on one side of the wash and the boys are on the other side in Gitmo, and then it starts storming, I need to drop what I’m doing Right F’ing Now and go get them onto MY side of the wash or I might not be able to get to them for half a day or more and even then only by driving 30 yards through deep sucking mud in the middle of a no-longer-dry river bed, a scenario to be avoided if possible. If you get stuck and there’s another flood, there you are. That kid in Into The Wild was a suicidal idiot, and I’m not. That’s how you can tell us apart. 🙂
And the mud is oppressive. Yesterday afternoon I was laying the new conduit in place between the shed and the lair, and of course it had rained on and off most of the day, so I was wading in the shit. A pain in the ass, but what are you gonna do? At least we’re getting some moisture. So far the gully behind the Lair has only run once and that modestly. Frankly I wish it would really let go so I can see what sort of damage, if any, it will do since all my trenching and berming against it. BUT NOT WHILE I’M LAYING CONDUIT, PLEASE!
Yeah, I’m picky. 🙂
