24-26 May, 2011 Rain, Sawmill Slabs, Gardens, Birthday's and Apple Trees

It's been raining all day today.  The good thing is that it's almost filled the storage tank.  I spent a little time in the rain getting one of the rain barrels to siphon.  The siphon hose was cold and stiff so I had to tie the end in a piece of angle iron to keep the hose straight.  It was curved enough before that I couldn't get the end to the bottom of the barrel.  If the rain keeps up tomorrow I'll have to scrounge up some more barrels and fill them too.  One thing we never get enough of is water.  I got more writing done today although after a few hours of writing I may as well quit and do something else because productivity falls off.

I did get the rifle I've been putting together finished today.  I had a hard time finding a drill bit the right size to drill the holes for the barrel tenons.  I needed a #32 bit and no one had any.  I fished out my micrometer and looked around more at home here and found a 3mm bit that was just the right size so I used it to drill holes for the tenon pins.  I was almost to the point of drilling them out to 1/8 inch and making my own pins.

The finished rifle.  I haven't stained the ramrod because I'm going to use a different ramrod.  It's a Traditions 50 cal. Kentucky rifle kit.  I did the browning on the barrel and stained and sealed the stock. I haven't had a chance to shoot it yet but hope to soon.

It's a percussion lock.  I'd have preferred a flintlock but this one was on clearance for a very good price so I grabbed it.

The forward half.  I still have to fine tune the sights but they should be close enough to get it on paper.

A daughter and son-in-law are moving out here soon.  They brought the motorhome to stay in while they build their house on the western edge of our property.

They came up on Susan's birthday (24th) to get some preliminary things done before the move.  One of the things was to put a new sight on his rifle and sight it in. 

Susan received an apple tree for her birthday so we got it planted right away.  We put it where the previous tree died after a rabbit girdled the tree.

I finished tilling up the garden on Tuesday morning. Susan was busy weeding and planting while I ran the tiller. 

Wednesday we drove to a sawmill and picked up some slabs to use around the house.  We have a building project in mind for them. 

The weather was looking kind of stormy by the afternoon.  We tied on the load and headed to Eureka.  We had a couple of stops to make then we went to the farmer's market.  Susan boought some kale plants and a few other plants.  We ran into Randy (Gonefishn) and he gave us some extra seed to try out.  We drove up to this place and I borrowed a ratchet strap for tying down the wood slabs and a drill bit for the rifle tenon pins (turned out to be the wrong size).  I had taken a bucket full of ratchet straps out of the Cherokee a couple days before and forgot to put them back in before we left for town.

Today it has rained non-stop so we caught up on our inside tasks.  I sent out a query for an article and got

approval a couple of hours later.  I'm also working on a book I just signed the contract for yesterday so I'm going to have to put in a few extra hours writing.  Now it's late and I need to put in a few hours sleeping.