Farm Project #19 -- New Fire Pit

 Farm Project #19: New Fire Pit

This one is cosmetic but has been waiting on the lower part of the list for a long while.  Here is the old fire pit, back by the covered deck built onto the rear of the detached garage.

I drove the van to Menards in La Crosse and picked up 36 retention wall bricks and the steel fire pit.  That was the easy part.  Here's how many rocks of various sizes that have served to line the circumference of the pit over the years.

It took some digging and some leveling, but I got three rows of 12, buttered up with adhesive and stacked to allow the top tier to fit just under the flange of the fire pit ring.  The cracks between blocks can be filled in later with grout sand and maybe I can even get it in red.  We'll see.

Look how nice it is!

Farm Project #18 -- Winterizing Outdoor Water System

 Farm Project #18: Winterize Outdoor Water System

It's that time of year.  Although it was just beautiful for 5 days at the farm doing stuff, it got down to 28-degrees one night and 32 the next.  We are going on a 3 week trip and when we return, we may not get to the farm until mid-November.  There could easily be a deep frost by then and surely some hard frosts.  There is one hose bib on the front of the house and two underground lines.  The first is on the back deck with 2 bibs and the other on the side deck with a bib there, two more along the garage, and one last out by the burn barrel.  The one on the front entryway is a frost-free, but this means nothing when I turn the heat off in the house for the winter.

All of these bibs have standing water in the lines going to them and a freeze would burst something, either the lines or the spigots.  Worst case would be a burst line underground.

Each fall I have to drain and blow out the system.  When I re-plumbed the house, I isolated three shut-off valves on the main line coming in from the pump.  If I don't open them all summer, by chance, they remain empty.  Otherwise I can turn any of them on.  Once turned open, though, they are charged.

I set it up for easy draining of the system while leaving the plumping charged in the house, because we do come here through November before I close up.

First, I open all three valves and close the valve between the pressure tank and the sand filter.  Next, turn off the pump.  Now I can turn on all outdoor spigots and let the pressure out.  Finally, I open the spigot at the bottom of the pressure tank and drain it out into a bucket.  It takes 5 or 6 and it will be sandy water so I dump it outside.

Now the fitting from the air compressor screws into that spigot bib and I turn on the pressure.  Going outside, I can turn off all 7 spigots.  Starting with the northmost and highest in elevation, I open and let the pressure push all water out.  Then close and go to the next, until I'm back to the front door.  Drain that one, go in, turn off the compressor and close the valve on the bottom of the pressure tank. 

Now close all three lines up at the top and turn the valve back open between pressure tank and sand filter.  Now the pump can be turned back on and charge up the pressure tank again.  

Bingo.  Outside lines drained and isolated.  House charged with water.  I leave the heat on low in the house until we close up after deer hunting.

Farm Project #17 - Finishing the Dryer Repair

 Farm Project #17:  Finishing the Dryer Repair

Before installing the drive motor pulley, I shot lithium grease into all moving parts that I could and got them movi8ng.  Then on went the pulley and ready to button up.

Again, the YouTube video was very useful.  I draped the new belt around the tub and stuck the tub into place on the rollers in back and made sure the felt lining was tucked properly.  Then I reached beneath and looped the belt under the new tensioner, pulled the tensioner up (you have to stick your head into the tub to do this and reach arms around both sides at the bottom) and hooked the belt around the drive pulley.

Now the front cowling goes on, again with the felt lining properly tucked.  I found that the tub would spin, but I made the mistake of spinning it the wrong way.  There was a big metallic "clang".  The belt wandered off the tensioner, of course.  I could reach in and put it back properly.  

Now I used the pictures I took to hook up the wiring clips properly everywhere.  

Then came hanging the front pieces of the chassis back on and securing them.  There are two little clips that hook the top metal chassis piece and secure it.  Once all but the very front sheet were back on, I plugged in the dryer and pushed start.  It ran nicely.

Now the final sheet is secured on and I was able to wash clothes and run two loads through the dryer to make sure everything worked properly before I shoved it back into the laundry closet next to the washer.

It worked fine.  Not only operating properly, but even more efficiently now that I have removed all that dust and build-up from fan vanes, tubes, and surfaces.

This has been a lengthly odyssey but all's well that ends well.

Farm Project #16 Hunting For the Dryer Part

 Farm Project #16: Hunting For the Dryer Part

It turned out to be a red letter day in this handy man's life!  And I met my doppelganger!

First I took the chance of going in to WESCO in Sparta.  They were very helpful and even identified a part number for me, although they didn't have it in stock but could order it.  My quest is to find the part TODAY and put it in tomorrow!

So I drove to La Crosse.  The first stop my navigator took me to was a big appliance store with a good service shop, and I probably would have been able to get the part there if the service person hadn't left at noon and wouldn't be back until Monday.

The second place was on the edge of La Crosse-Onalaska and identified the part but did not have it.  

I searched my navigator and found one more to try.  It took me down into the city, to the south end of town, Mormon Coulee Road and, to my amazement, right into the trailer park that my great aunt Evelyn used to live in many, many years ago when I was just a high school and college kid here. I drove around in circles to no avail and was about to give up the quest when I decided to stop at an old house with an appliance sitting on the porch.  Maybe.  How many people have an old stove sitting on the porch?

A beater truck drove up in a cloud of dusty and my doppelganger soul brother jumped out and asked me what I wanted.  I mentioned the little drive pulley and he said, "I work out of the garage.  Come on in."

Then he led me into a medium sized garage which was absolutely stuffed with junk from corner to corner.  I was overwhelmed!  There were refrigerators, stoves, washers, dryers, air conditioners, all in various stages of cannibalization.  The floor was covered with wires, tubes, hoses, pieces of integrated circuit chips, and other sundry junk.

To my amazement, there was a small woman in there, behind a bank of junk, talking on the phone.  

Todd, the technician, disappeared into a far corner and was rooting around under an old dryer.  Then he squeezed by me to go and find a wrench.  I had to step up onto a piece of old rolled up carpet to give him room.

Then he asked the small woman, who was now off the phone, "where are all those drive motors we had?"

She began looking around and soon they located four, three of which were from washing machines.  He bent down in back of a chassis and started working.  Soon he had the little pulley off, tried my broken one on the threads of the spline and verified that it fit.

Then he tried to just give it to me!

I insisted on paying him something and gave him ten dollars.  Then I told him that if I were younger I would ask him for a job, since the place was identical to the way my mind is constructed.  Todd opined that it was a blueprint for how his mind was constructed and told me to return in my next hour of need.

Farm Project #15 Continuing with Clothes Dryer

 Farm Project #15: Continue Repair of Clothes Dryer

I returned to the farm to continue the clothes dryer repair since I did get the idler pulley in the mail.  Since the initial teardown, I went on YouTube and found a good video which assured me that the tub had to be removed to put the new belt in, so I immediately set forth on this line.  

I only really needed to disconnect a couple of clip-wires and remove two sheet metal screws to take the front cowling off the tub, stashing it carefully in the other room.  Now the tub slipped easily out of the felt padding around the rear cowling and I set that aside also.

This revealed some new information.  The belt is actually unbroken, although it is worn in one spot very badly.  The problem was that the idler pulley seized up and the belt merely slipped around it as I had thought, but heated up to the point of transferring the heat to the pot metal drive pulley on the end of the motor shaft.  This softened and parted, the outer half of the pulley falling off and the belt merely falling off it as well.  

This puts me in the position of having to obtain yet another part.  I decided that rather than go home yet again and order it, I would make a trek to Sparta and perhaps La Crosse in search of a parts outlet that could provide it immediately.

In the meantime, I squirted Rem-Oil onto both ends of the idler pukley axle and slowly put pressure on it to try and turn it slightly.  It took several squirts, but I got to where I was turning it perhaps one degree back and forth.  I could see only the slightest movement.  Not wanting to twist off the axle and create more damage, I worked it very slowly and soon I had it moving and it started to turn.  Using a flat blade screwdriver, I removed it from the axle.  No sense going on a trek for parts if I'm to return to ruin something else that then needs to be obtained,.

The two rubber wheels that the back of the tub rolls on were also quite stiff.  I used the same procedure to get Rem-Oil into the shafts and get them turning.

The other preliminary work was to get the vacuum again and suck all the dust, which was considerable, from the entire area.  The worst was in the fins of the fan on the near end of the motor spline.  There was about a 30% build-up and blockage in each fin.  It was terrible!  I'm wondering where all this dust came from!  There is a possibility that the felt lining on each cowl that the drum turns in, was slowly sanded away by the action, and provided all this material.

Anyway, off to try and find that little pulley.

BWW Project #47 -- Repair Blue Garden Pot

 BWW Project #47: Repair Blue Garden Pot

There was a plethora of garden decorative objects left by the previous owner which pleased Cathy greatly. Many of them have been thrown out or spun off to friends and relatives, but I now have a stone buddha and Cathy a great array of things.  One of these was a giant blue planting pot which she says might cost up to $200 at a garden store.  It sat along the back line and we did cover it with a bag when we left last fall for Florida.  

However, it rolled over or something and stress cracks from water previously frozen in the bottom (I think) popped and a big chunk broke out, with some remaining cracks visible around the area.

We got some epoxy which came in two tubes that simultaneously empty out together when a plunger is pushed.  Then you vigorously mix it with a small stick provided, and have a few minutes to coat the pieces and get them set together before it sets up.  

We did this one together and used half the supply on the initial piece and the other half on the cracks.  It is supposed to dry clear and cure in 24 hours.  

It looked pretty good when we got done,.

Cheeseburger In Paradise: Rookies

 Cheeseburger in Paradise:  Rookies near Mazomanie, WI

Another great afternoon on the Black Earth Creek kayaking, with daughter and son-in-law, so why not another great cheeseburger in paradise?  Only downside was son-in-law lost his phone to the river at a strainer,

This time was the bacon cheddar with tomato, lettuce, and sauteed mushrooms!  

Divine!

I guess there was another downside.  When we walked in the Badgers were ahead of USC and in the red zone for some insurance.  When we left, they had bungled it and lost.