Heavy equipment time.....

 8:08 am  - Saturday - December 13th - TWW - 31° F, humidity 30%, wind 4 mph out of the east by southeast.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 67° F.  On this date in 2024 TLE and I finally poured the cement pad for the Eco Worthy dual axis solar tracker system.....

Setting the rebar

Mixing cement (7 bags)

Finished product

.....we let it cure for a little over a week before setting up the solar tracker.  We had spent weeks looking for the best spot on the property in relation to where our coach would be parked to be sure it had exposure to direct sunlight for as many hours each day as possible, and we chose well.

To begin Friday I spent some time reading the owners manual for the diesel heater we've installed to keep the greenhouse interior from freezing during the night.  My first attempt to use the automatic 'ON/OFF' feature which requires you to set the temperature at which the heater should turn itself on, and the temp at which it should shutdown, which I did, but that effort failed when the heater failed to turn itself on.  I got up around 3 am to go check it and found it was not running in spite of the fact the greenhouse temperature was 5 degrees below the designated 'ON' temperature, so I turned it on manually at that point and ran it until 7 am.  Friday I decided to try setting the time of day when it would turn itself on, and off.  I programmed it to come on at 3 am and turn off at 6 am....the coldest part of the morning.  To  make sure I understood how it worked I set the 'ON' time for 11 am (it was 10:47 am at the time) and the 'OFF' time for 11:05 am, and it worked, so I reset the 'ON/OFF' times to the aforementioned times.  Good news....it worked.  I'm still trying to figure out how to properly set it to come 'ON/OFF' at designated temp settings, but that will be for another day.

Before I can finish working on the new site for Phyllis' Newell I need to finish regrading a portion of the driveway for TWW.  Why?  Well, we only have so much gravel left (it has to be hauled from near Prescott, and, therefore, is very expensive) and I want to use it for the permanent Newell site, but before I can do that Phyliss wants me to be sure I can remove all the low spots on the driveway without using the gravel.  The low spots collect rain water, and snow melt and become very muddy after a storm, so we need to make sure the water runs off the driveway in those areas instead of collecting in large puddles.  Friday became the day we began that process.  By the way, the tractor is running great, and I'm slowly becoming more adept at using it.  We hauled 6 bucket loads of dirt and spread them over the low spots using the tractor and rock rakes.....

.....it took about 2 hours, and it turned out pretty well, but we'll need to haul more dirt Saturday to finish the job.  After leveling the dirt we had dumped I drove the tractor back and forth over the repaired area to pack it, and then took a video of what we have done so far (above).

After working on the driveway it was after 1 pm, so TLE and I took a break at the picnic table in front of the house, and talked about what else we wanted to accomplish Friday, deciding we had done enough.  We were tired, but not 'out of gas', so why push it, right?  I spent the rest of the afternoon taking care of a few small things before heading indoors around 3 pm to take a shower, and get ready for dinner.  The temp hit 69° F for the second consecutive day, and for the first time I wore shorts and a t-shirt to work.  TLE and I watched 'Survivor' and 'The Amazing Race' on Paramount+.....'The Amazing Race' was the finale, and the winners were two brothers who had won about 1/2 of the stages, so no one was surprised.

Thanks for stopping by!