5/5/2019
(Above: I thought that the ants were biting / injecting venom into the nightshade’s foliage, but on a closer look, the ants were only milking the aphids which were themselves to blame for the curled leaves).
Preface: I had to include this section to say that the first storm of the season knocked out power to my office, so I’m currently on battery power. Due to this, I apologize for any lapse in quality of writing. Also, I will not have time to upload today’s pictures, but I do have some in reserve from the past couple days (one of which is included below).
Building Summary: Today I worked on Jacobhouse on two different occasions – morning and afternoon. During the morning portion, I neatened up the place. This consisted of putting tools away, consolidating the electrical / plumbing / woodworking parts into their respective bins and boxes, and removing a large quantity of scrap material from the premises. It should also be noted that I may have found a use for the aluminum doors from the container’s original refrigeration unit; that is, for the doors to my future wardrobe*.
(Afternoon Update): We got the first two pylons moved into their holes for Madre’s container home. It seemed a much easier than last time, likely due to better chaining / moving methods – that is, chaining it to and moving it via payloader – and to the size of the holes almost matching that of the blocks we lowered down into them.
Commentary: In the morning, I did spend a lot of time neatening up Jacobhouse, but I also tended to another task of importance. This task consisted of switching batteries from my old Segway to one of the spares in the Master Blend freezer room. I’ve mentioned this vehicle on multiple occasions during my Find Walden blog entries, and seeing as today was the effective ‘retirement’ of my first one, I figured I should make a mention of how incredible these devices are.
As recorded in my journal, we – Padre and I – started using Segways on July 29, 2013. That means for almost six years, my faithful little machine has toted me all over the family farm for every task ranging from checking cattle to chasing cattle* to running supplies to simply making the commute between home and farm – all of which included rolling over a fair share of hills, dips, bumps, mud (so long as it wasn’t too deep), and cow paddies and rolling through a great many gates and in-barn/indoor areas where any other vehicle would have either been far to large, unwieldy, noisy, or fume-spewing to venture. All of this without a single repair. Sure, we had to replace the batteries a couple times, but other than that, my Segway ran ‘like a dream’ as they say. But now, due to a well-used gearbox, it rests.
Final Note: Tomorrow, I will begin building the base cabinet for the kitchen sink.
* Sometimes cows are bit reluctant to come up to the barn for medical treatment.
** Electric machines and water don’t get along.