Journal Entry 1/31/2022 – 02/06/2022

About This New Section: This whole thing is primarily in response to the stupid conservatorship hearing and the GAL report, where the only factual shit was petty and most of it was fictitious. It demonstrated that nobody had a solid understanding of what I do, how much I do, and were demonizing me for things that were quite literally blatantly false.

So, I guess the only solution is to give up any and all privacy I have and start documenting my entire life. I plan to do just that. Every day, every action, everything.

This one is going to be very bare-bones due to me just now getting the idea, but moving forward I’ll attempt to provide multi-media content as well, although unless streamed live, video is a bitch, so most likely just photo.

 

Early Morning: Woke up and ate peanut butter and jelly toast. I’ve been basically on that diet, supplemented with Emergen-C and protein shake, due to it being insanely fast, no dishes, the ingredients store well, and can be stockpiled, mitigating the need to go shopping or send someone shopping.

Shop Remodel: I then proceeded to work on the ongoing shop remodel. The last few days have been dedicated to the large 4’x16′ work table. I got in the bottom shelf on one section, with enough clearance for the forks of either the pallet jack or pallet stacker, allowing for convenient storage of either, while not taking up any major space, and still enabling shelf-based storage in that same area. Maximizing the floor space / shop real estate has always been the primary goal of mine.

 

Updated 4th or 5th:

 

Outside of that, general organization, as everything is still finding it’s new home and workflow.

Driveway Rock Wall: During the winter, I’ve noticed something: Vertical surfaces, especially rock faces, enable the melting of the snow much faster than flat areas. I’ve been experimenting by creating more vertical areas during the winter, and there’s been substantial in-field observations to support this, even though nothing “Clinical” (controlled A/B testing) has been performed.

Previously I have been creating a rock gutter system in hopes of something permanent mitigating the constant need to trench for the initial runoff and any heavy rain that occurs. This spring/summer (Already started when/where possible, thus the work being performed today) I’m making it to where said gutter system is accompanied by a rock ledge/wall/whatever on the outer side, where possible and where it makes sense. Since the gutters are almost exclusively accompanying roads and other forms of thoroughfare, doing whatever possible for those areas to organically generate meltoff without intervention makes sense as far as time-management, resource-management, usability and basically any other considerations are concerned

There is also security considerations, which I’m hesitant to bring up this point, as anyone who has not been here through the larceny, hostility and straight-up conspiring on this estate, my business and wealth, literally on my life (two attempts, poison and what turned into a standoff) and otherwise, generally dismisses it all as paranoia or straight-up lying for attention? To seem more badass? I’m not sure the exact reasons for these assumptions, but assuming it’s on-par with that. Regardless; security is another consideration whether out of paranoia or legit reasoning.

Mitigation / Hillside: Outside of the standard fuel generated over the winter (pineneedles, ect) There is a great bit more fuel from the standing dead left from the fire that we fell last fall, as well as from the branches and entire trees that came down from the one major dump we got hit with late December. With the hillside finally being exposed with the prolonged sunlight mixed with minimal new snow, a lot of this can be mitigated.

Clearing the pineneedles does a number of things:

  • Removes ground fuel which fires use to rapidly spread until they can find climbing fuel and potentially cause the very dangerous crown fires
  • Pine-needles are acidic, and they prohibit a lot of competing plant life, save for scrubby oak and a few others that don’t mind and/or like the acidic soil. Pine needles also cover any sprouting plants, making it harder for them to reach the sun and start growing
  • The organic bio can be purposed as backfill. Although biomass is the worst backfill possible, it’s still backfill and free backfill at that. By using it as backfill, it also achieves carbon sequestration, helping mitigate the carbon impact of the human race (without needing to elect a Democrat or pay more taxes).
  • Looks cleaner and better in general. At least I think. Kinda subjective though. Some people might like dead pine needles. To each their own, I guess.

Cleaned Center Cabin:

Didn’t go out of control, but did some tidying up. There’s still some remains from the last tenants (we’re talking actual items, not the destructive blowback, such as the broken window upstairs). I’ve been preoccupied with everything else, namely a conservator hearing and the aftermath, and with the quality of tenants post-Covid, haven’t been in the biggest hurry to get anything rented again, especially during the winter where everything (especially tenants) tend to be higher maintenance)

Wheeled Packages / Mail / Tools Up The Hill: It’s still pretty snowed in, despite multiple places being bare. Still have not trouble-shot and fixed the plow vehicle (I’m probably shooting myself in the foot by admitting this, as it’s a shortfall. Anything short of everything running smoothly and me not being able to accomplish an impossible workload instantaneously is sub-par performance, and will be used against me by those whom are not even involved in this estate outside of critique and criticism).

I got the tractor running, but without having made chains for it (another shortfall I shouldn’t be admitting to, I should have been able to prep for the conservatorship hearing, got all vehicles chained, fixed the roof the tree fell on, fixed the power outage in number 5 and done everything else I had as workload instantaneously, perhaps even while still finding time to sleep) it needs to be dug out a bit, at least enough to have turning radius adaquate enough so that the front loader can be leveraged to dig itself out. Ya know, actually, I’m going to go pick up the 2nd package right now, grab the headlamp and work into the night on that. Probably won’t fire the thing up, as noise and being polite to neighbors, mixed with the fact that diesel hates the cold and Deere’s are especially nefarious for sucking at life during the winter.

Once operational, I should be able to get the rest of the drive cleared without needing the chains. We’ll see. If chains are required, it’s one of the reasons for the shop redesign, especially the including of features such as that big-ass work bench, with more than adaquate space. I can get the Deere down to the garage entrance where chaining would be a lot easier than in it’s current location.

But Back To The Packages: The packages from today was some new swaging equipment for the braided wire and a lot of 100 casters. I’ve been playing around with braided wire quite a bit. Primarily for rigging equipment (hoists for the crane, ect) but also for shop organization, I got most of a zipline up, minus the bungee brake that conveniently arrived right at the start of the last huge storm, and with the latest spool of 1/4 I want to attempt a suspended bridge between the back yard and the fire pit area. A lot of this is more-so for the proof-of-concept and to play around with the material, learn and grow my ability and understanding of the various applications.

The casters are on the cheaper side, but at less than $1/piece, can’t go wrong. Especially since I’d prefer everything have the ability to roll. Makes organization easier.

The Tree Guy stuff was just to check out what kind of hardware it came with and explore the application, as the concepts could possibly be applied elsewhere.

Worked On Muddy Roads:

The roads coming from Aspen Trails are rowdy right now. Been filling the mud pits and trenching the outside. I’m working on implementing the above-mentioned trenching system, now accompanied by the rock walls, in the troubled spots. This will allow effective draining / avoid sitting water and for future years, encourage meltoff as soon as possible, so that these sections are not hit all at once and hopefully dry out while conditions are still cold enough for the dirt to remain solid, while at the same time melting the snow in proximity.

At Late Lunch / Early Dinner: Peanut Butter and Jelly Toast: The breakfast, lunch and dinner of champions (or at least people with no free time). When I say that this is my diet anymore, I’m not bullshitting.

Started Building Out Pipe Station: Making this one very slim and streamlined. Cheating on it somewhat; using a pallet that I’ll end up cutting down to size, and placing the pipe threader on top of a box that it nests on way too perfectly. For the tube bender, gonna use a solid block of wood and notch holes in it at some angle. Probably 45 degrees, but the angle isn’t the most important detail in the world. Unfortunately, I don’t have a vice that works with the mill and is big enough to accommodate the slab of wood I’m planning on using

 

Quick Itemization of Rest of Days:

Kinda suck at life and ain’t bee keeping up on the blogging, so here’s bullet points to catch up. Gonna try to be more on-top of it moving forward:

  • Lots of progress on rock wall
  • Got back wall workbench built, shop sink installed and redesign moving forward in general
  • Went to town: Bank, groceries, Post Office
  • Concrete / Operation U-Boat hole 1
  • Ordered Cat6 spool, all the swaging stuff for Cat6, coaxial and other network wires, plus network testers. Still need to shop for the right coaxial for the various antenna I’ve got ready to mount on the tower, but once mounted, reception should be a non-issue and can start looking into data plans for internet.
  • Met with two individuals (brothers). One to talk shop about fabrication needs for his remodeling company and the other is going to be renting out center cabin starting on 20th.
  • Saturday night tweaked hip/back and Sunday slept in until 3:00. In a lot of pain, gonna try not to move around much, so probably just gonna be computer work and finally addressing that big pile of mail today (Sunday)