The 10 Most Recent Posts

My contractor put the vinyl floor down in shed today. It has a non-skid backing, so no adhesive of any kind is needed. Simple cut to fit, put it snugly in place, and you're done. A sort of force fit locks it in place.

About all that's left for the flooring is a very small strip along one edge. He'll be back tomorrow to finish that and hopefully start on the toilet.

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My contractor brought the door to the new shed today. It was drizzling some, so about all he had time to do was to put in a couple of screws to temporarily hold the door in place to keep the rain out. He will stop by tomorrow to finish installing it.

No locks yet (maybe he'll bring those tomorrow). The door has two pre-drilled holes for locks. He said he will get a regular locking doorknob and a deadbolt for the new shed door and get a keyed alike doorknob for the main shed.

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My contractor completed the installation of the door to the new shed today. He said it was one of his least favorite things to do and I can see why he would say that. There was a lot of detail work, with inserting a number of shims for micro-alignments and making sure with just about each screw he drove into place, that the door was still in good alignment with the frame. Somewhat time consuming. Not a quick task.

On a different note, my Bluetti had a fault I haven't been able to clear. The DC power mode all of a sudden stopped working. I did nothing out of the ordinary. I was using it as I had been since Day 1. I've been in email contact with Product Support and it seems like I'm going to have to send it in to be serviced. I'm grateful they are going to do that, but it's still a major hassle. And since I don't want to be without the energy this provides, it looks like I'll be ordering another one to use while the original one is being serviced. Fortunately, it's sill on sale: $450 instead of $620. It's an expense I wasn't planning on, but if this (or something similar) is going to happen again, it'll be good to have a backup. That, and this way I'll be "covered" if there are multiple days of little to no sun. Also, this way I can take the one I'm not using for my computer and use it to power A/C power tools out on the property.

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My contractor brought the shower pan with him today, but it turns out he needs to take it back with him to do some work on it to make the drain fittings fit correctly. Hopefully, it will be ready for installation on Monday. I'm pretty sure he will also have the locks for the new shed with him on Monday.

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Yesterday's & Today's Photos

He didn't make it here at all on Monday. The following notes apply to work done on Tuesday and today.

Minor, but steady progress the last couple of days. He dug out some dirt from the back of the shed to allow for the installation of the shower and toilet drain pipes and to connect them to the septic tank. He drilled the hole in the floor for the shower. He brought some 4'x8' sheets of OSB to put on the walls behind the toilet and shower. I cleared away some branches of some juniper trees to make it easier to dig the trench from the water cisterns to the outhouse/shed.

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Today's Photo

My contractor stopped by today to pick up his trailer he left at my place a while back after delivering some supplies. His next return trip will be with the trailer loaded with the pallets we will be using to put under the two 275 gallon water cisterns. I'm pretty sure he will have other supplies, such as the three 3" pipes we will be using for a solar water heater.

The photo shows the OSB sheets he will be installing behind the toilet and shower stall. I'm sure he will also be putting a waterproof layer over that, but we haven't talked about that in detail yet.

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My contractor stopped by today. We didn't get much done, but he dropped off some parts & supplies and we talked about what would be happening next.

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Today's Photos

We got a bit more done today. He installed a riser to the opening of the septic tank. I'm not sure if he buried the septic tank too deep or it needed to go that deep, but whatever the reason, a riser was needed to have the septic tank opening closer to or right at ground level.

He also cut the hole in the floor for the toilet. Not a whole lot today, but we're getting closer. He may bring the palettes to go under the water cisterns on Monday.

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Today's Photos

This is my first attempt at a bucket mousetrap. As soon as I'm satisfied with this one, I'll make a second one. For now, I'll be placing one in front of each vehicle. I almost don't care if they are anywhere else on the property, but I don't want them climbing into my engine compartments and having my wiring and hoses for dinner.

This first one is fairly complete, but I didn't have a ramp for it, and it was getting late in the day so I used what I could find, which in this case was a piece of foam. And I didn't attach it very well. The next morning, I found it lying on the ground. The final photo shows my new and improved ramp. This time I drilled holes in both the wood and the bucket and used wire to connect the two. I've seen some people using wire "netting" as a ramp.

It's only been out one night and it caught nothing. But it's been raining a little bit every day, so that could be why. I'm not going to expect anything until we have a few days with no rain.

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Today's Photos

Flying insects have been absolutely bugging me lately (pun intended) - both flies and "no-seeums". I bought some "old school" fly paper strips and put up about 5 of them. They filled up pretty quickly. I also bought an old school fly swatter and got some exercise using that.

But it was eating up time I didn't really want to waste, so I bought a couple of bug zappers and turned those on overnight. Today's photos are the result of about a week or so of working overnight. You might have to look pretty closely at the first photo, but there are quite a few. They are easier to see in the second photo. And as I was setting up and taking the second photo, there was some wind so some of them blew away, but this shows the majority of what was there.

I think there were so many because of the heat and somewhat low humidity, because about a week after this, it rained a little bit each day and they dwindled away fairly quickly. Over the next few days since these photos were taken, I'm not being bothered much at all. Phew! I'm grateful for that.

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