Move Some Air

Since our office won't be used on a daily basis now; we will keep it warmer or cooler than needed depending on the season. When I go in to work though, I don't want to wear a sweater in the winter or perspire in the summer. Our heat and air guy, Chuck, is taking care of me.

This office is +/- 400 square feet. We have one return air duct which is very important and 4, yes 4, vents. When I walk in and flip the thermostat where I want it; by the time the computer is up and running I will be the right temperature.That's the way to have your HVAC system work.

Job Transfer

With the sale of the rock yard we have moved our offices to the house. We also needed to do a job relocate for a very important part of our business.

Christel was working for us at the time of the Vancouver Winter Olympics. She fell in love with one of the icons of the Olympics, the  Inukshuk. She had her Dad make one for her since he made her half Canadian.

An Inukshuk is a man made stone landmark used by the Inuit of the Artic region of North America. It marked "good things ahead." Such as good hunting and safe passage.

 Used the Wheel Loader on the last day it was available to us to set the body rock. It was a little too big for us to move ourselves.

Our rock man had to come home with us. We just got him set up and he is welcoming everyone who comes to visit.

Another You Tube Visit

We have never built cove ceilings before. So off to You Tube to watch the videos and learn a new skill.

The framing is now ready for the beautiful curve to be added.

All the videos described using sheet rock. Bill wants to use Luan. Which is a very thin wood.

 He is using the lawnmower trailer as his work space for cutting the wood.

 After cutting the wood to the shape  needed.We soak the wood so it will bend. It is all straight wood except the corners and he has to do one of his fancy cuts so they fit together correctly.

It is gong to be so pretty when we get all the room done.

Running Out of Time

We only have three days before the rock yard closing. We have to have the equipment back before closing and we have a long list of projects that will be much  much easier to do with equipment. Today we got some items knocked off the list.
 
This is the peninsula in the pond. The pond isn't fixed yet; but, it will be one day. This is a job we probably won't be able to do. Will have to hire out. We have to wait for the pond to dry up again.

We ringed this area with red rock, filled it in with Decomposed Granite and put in a rock bench. Can't wait to sit there and watch the fish leap out of the water and the ducks to swim around. Used the Wheel Loader's forks and bucket for t his project.

View from pond level. When completely full the water should come to about 18 inches below the rocks.

When we had the hill cut out for the retaining wall and drive  the dirt guys took many many trucks of clay to the back side of the pond. This is what will be used to seal the bottom. All those dump trucks left huge ruts on the top of the dam. We brought home a load of top soil, then used the bucket on the Wheel Loader to take it to where we needed it and then it became shovel and rake. Much easier since we didn't have to shovel it into a trailer to take it over. We still need one more truck of soil to finish it. One of our competitors wants our customer and vendor lists so I think he can pay us in dirt.

We also used the soil to level out the race track. The bucket on the Wheel Loader is great for leveling.

Now it is time for these old bodies to have lunch and a rest before starting the round of heavy equipment projects.

Red Barn

Mom and Dad had three outbuildings on the farm. We want to take down one of them. It has a raised floor so critters get under it and most renters won't need three storage buildings.


We have always called this one the Red Barn.

Since the Rock Yard has sold we now have time to go to the farm and tear the building down. We need to do this in the summer heat because we still have access to the yard delivery truck to bring the building to our place. Bill went up one day and numbered everything so we can remember how to put it back together. The next day I went up with him and we started taking it down. First the roof and then the walls. We kept the walls screwed together as much as we could.


Unbelievably, we only found one skeleton  under the floor. A nice size opossum. The tenant was surprised we didn't find snakes. They would see Bull Snakes going under the building a lot. We were making enough noise anything living would have run.

Put everything on the flat bed delivery truck and brought it home.


This side had the metal stacked on it

This side had the wood.

Coming home we were stopped because a police officer who assumed we were over weight, not realizing this was all aluminum. He thought one tire looked low and it was because of weight. Really I think he just wanted to know what we were doing. Wyatt was with is on this trip so he got to learn all about roadside checks with commercial trucks. The officer puts portable scales under each of the tires and weighs how much weight is on each axle to see if you are over weight. Then the walk around where you have to show that the equipment works. It is an hour out of your day.

Once we got home the forklift just reversed the loading process and got everything off the truck.

Moving Windows

Time to move the big front window in to the office. This is the first week of August, very hot, very humid, just down right sticky.

Tiffany and Wyatt came over to help. We knew I would not be able to move or hold this size of window myself.

Off we go. Bill on one end Tiffany on the other and Wyatt and I in the middle.

 Oops!! Sweaty hands and glass do not work well together. Tiffany and I are holding the window waiting for Bill to get a hammer to knock off some wood packing strips we hadn't noticed until we lifted it off the floor. All of a sudden you hear both of us yelling, "It's going! Just let it go." Never try to stop something like this from falling. You take the chance of you following it and getting hurt. Everything can be fixed or replaced.

 Poor Tiffany even with letting go her hand got sliced on the broken glass. After the office is finished we will call the window company they will come out, take measurements and bring out a replacement pane.We still have one pane of glass so we are weathertight.

 This is a BIG window..

Check out the view we will have from our office. Think we will get any work done? The two side windows slide open for fresh air.

Leverage

With the right kind of leverage you can move mountains, build pyramids, or pull nails. We are reusing all the lumber from the previous owners walls in the office. Just taking them down and moving them back against the exterior walls.As Bill pulls the walls down my  job is to remove all the nails I am strong enough to pull out. We save the nails and will then take them down to the scrap metal yard and sell them for recycling. We won't make gas money,  unless we wait until the end of construction, but the environment will benefit greatly.

These are the nails that need to come out. Pound them back through the wood first.

 Then using a little leverage out they come. Ready to be melted down and form into new metal uses.