21 August, 2010 - Saturday - JB Weld and flat tires.

The JB Weld applied to the cracked float bowl.

I wheeled the compressor and generator out to the trailer to change and repair the tire.

There's a lot of rust in the rim where the tire's bead rests.

This is my favorite truck.  It's had a rod knocking for a couple of years so I've had it parked waiting to find another motor for it.  It's titled/manufactured as a 1/2 ton pickup but it's built stronger and will carry more wieght than my one-ton Dodge.  I had a load of sand on it once that weighed 3,995 pounds on a truck scale.  They don't make trucks like this anymore.

The U-haul being driven into positiion for it's next phase in life.

The cat is in training here to repel invaders.  Rule number one:  once you get a grip never, I mean NEVER, let go! They may come in walking on two feet but they'll leave with only one!

A doe leads her twins across the road at the edge of Fortine.

21 August 2010, Saturday

It began raining early this morning so I headed out to load the alfalfa into the wheel barrow and put it in the wood shed. Susan brought in the sheets and blankets she had hanging on the line and hung them under the porch roof. It was 39 degrees when we got up.

We were both a bit under the weather. Susan was having a tooth problem and didn’t sleep well so she took some Ibuprophen and went back to bed to catch up on her sleep. When she got up later she moved some windows out of the U-haul so we could move it to a new spot, and put away some more dried herbs and did some cleaning.

I cleaned the ashes out of the wood stove and washed dishes. I also mixed up some JB Weld and put it on the side of the carburetor where the crack was. I mixed too much and it was slowly running down the side of the carburetor and going to places I didn’t want it so I had to check it every few minutes for about an hour until it stiffened up enough to stay where I wanted it to. I let the goat out to browse when I started work on the carburetor. After washing dishes (first batch) I rolled the generator and compressor out to the trash trailer to fix the tire that was flat. I had to use a breaker bar and four foot pipe as a “cheater” to get the lug nuts lose. My impact wrench couldn’t loosen them with only 120 lbs of air pressure. When I put it back on I used the lug wrench. I was grateful I never had a flat while I was out in the woods! The tire went flat because the bead was leaking so I dismounted the tire and used the drill and a wire brush to clean the rust off the rim. The rims has a lot of pits where the bead seats so I used gasket cement when I put the tire back on. That will hopefully seal the bead. If it leaks again I’ll have to get a better rim for it. After using the gasket sealer I’ll never get the tire back off using my equipment. The tire is more-or-less glued to the rim now.

After I got the tire fixed I washed the last batch of dishes. Susan had put the first batch away so there was room in the dish drainer. After washing the dishes I ran some drain cleaner through the drain pipes. They haven’t been draining well the last couple of weeks. The drain cleaner didn’t help so I guess I’ll have to take the trap off sometime and clean it out. One of the problems we have is that we don’t use a lot of water and the drain doesn’t get flushed out like it would if we had unlimited water to waste. We’ll have to get in the habit of flushing the drain regularly with boiling hot water. We do that in the winter when we have the tea-kettle on the wood stove all the time but when you have to use the propane stove to heat the water we don’t do it in the summertime.

After that Tristan and I moved the Gut Shaker (my old International pick-up) from it’s spot and switched places with the U-haul. Tristan put a battery in the Gut Shaker (If you ever rode in it on a rough road you’d know where it got it’s name from) and dumped a couple of gallons of gas in it. I took a gas can and primed the carburetor in the U-haul to get it started. It had sat almost a year since we used it last and the carburetor was dry. I usually dump a little gas down the carb. to prime them. They fire up quick that way and get the gasoline pumping in to fill the carburetor. It’s a lot easier on starters than cranking on them long enough to pump gas to the carb. It fired up on the first try and I moved it into a different parking spot.

Tristan had the GS ready to go so I primed it’s carb. And started it up. It had one wheel sitting in a hole so we needed to use Tristan’s pickup to help pull it up and out of the hole. The GS has a rod knocking so I couldn’t push the motor too hard otherwise it would have gotten itself out without help. The hydraulic clutch on the GS had lost some fluid so I had to refill and bleed the air out of it. I started the GS and Tristan helped get it out then we unhooked the chain and I drove it over to it’s new home. Then I drove the U-haul into the GS’s old place. (After filling in the low spot.) We’re in the process of converting the U-haul into a camper/motor home and I need it close to the house to do the work. We have the windows now so I need to get them installed and finish the interior. We plan on using it this coming spring for our trip down to Nevada. We went last year using a tent and stayed for a month. We hope to stay three months next spring. (We’ll come back when the snow’s gone!)

When I finished that I spent some time on the computer then Susan and I drove into Fortine to get drinking water, the mail, dump trash and buy something for supper. I’d been having allergy problems and had taken some med. earlier. That meant that as soon as I sit down or quit moving I go to sleep. Neither of us felt like fixing supper so we bought some hot-pockets and had them to eat.

We saw two sets of twin fawns on the way in and back. We got pictures of one set just outside of Fortine. The other pair was about ½ mile from the house. I was tracking a set of fawns Friday on the way to feed the buffalo. I was bare-foot and had my head down looking at the tracks and got within about ten feet of them before we saw each other. They almost fell over each other getting out of there! It was great!