I am so very tired right now, and in a lot of pain.
It was a very good day, though!
One of my goals for the day was to work on the donated cat shelter, which I did get to work on a little bit!
Before I got started, I received a message from my SIL. They, and the guy with the triple axle trailer they hired, were on their way!
I’ll cover the shelter progress, first.
The very first thing I did was remove the last roof panel, then flip the whole thing on its side, to start reinforcing the corners.
In the first photo of the slideshow, you can see how the corners were done. The shelter is upside down in that photo. I added the angled brackets to the inside of each corner. I found I had the flat L shaped plates left over from when my daughter and I reinforced the raised bed covers, and they were perfect for further reinforcement of the corners at the base.
I want to add angled brackets to the inside of the top corners, too, but I’m too broken to go inside the catio to reach. I’ll have to get a daughter to do that for me.
While moving it around, I found that there was some damage from when it fell out of the truck while they brought it to us. In the second photo, you can see where a part of the frame had cracked. Ideally, I would have reinforced it with a metal plate, but I couldn’t find anything I could use, so I went through my scrap wood. I eventually found a piece that would work, and attached it with a combination of wood glue and 1 1/2 inch screws. Part of the piece of wood sticks out beyond the frame piece, but I can saw that off later.
The mesh on the back of the shelter had two holes in it, which were the openings that allowed cats to get into it from a basement window. There were also the remains of a couple of long screws that were used to attach it to the house. The heads were deep in the wood, so it was easier to just break off the pointed ends. Then I used wire cutters on the mesh, just a bit beyond the largest hole.
The mesh is held in place with staples, and I used pliers to pull those out. Quite a few of them were so rusted, they broke off, instead. The wire mesh was pretty rested out in some places, too.
Once the section of mesh was removed, I measured how much new mesh I would need. There was a corner of the mesh rusted out as well, so I want the new wire to wrap around the frame far enough to cover the hole. In total, 6′ of mesh would do.
The rolls I got are only 5′ long.
I don’t want to be cobbling together lengths of mesh from the two rolls. Not only would that leave me with almost nothing to use on the isolation shelter, but any sort of overlap creates a potential escape point, or a weak spot the racoons could get through. The rolls of hardware cloth that I got are wide enough that there will be a decent amount of overlap, horizontally. I don’t want to also have overlap, vertically.
Which means, I need to find longer rolls of hardware cloth, and that starts to get expensive.
*sigh*
So for now, the repairs need to wait.
Meanwhile, back to the load that came this morning!
It took them about an hour to get here, and the hired guy arrived first.
There were two tractors on his trailer. One was a small tractor with a front end loader. The other was a McCormick that looked very, very familiar.
Yes, it was the one I remembered from my childhood! When I asked about it, I was told that something had broken down on it and my dad told my brother, if he could fix it, he could keep it.
He fixed it, and it’s been working ever since.
The McCormick was very carefully loaded directly over those triple axles!
My brother and his wife had their trailer loaded, too, but the first order of business was to unload the tractors. The front end loader, which had its bucket resting on the gooseneck of the trailer, had to be pushed forward first, then the McCormick pushed towards the front of the trailer, until the fold out ramps were clear. Once that was done, it was a relatively easy thing for my brother to drive it off. The tractor with the front end loaded took a bit more work, though. Partly because it turns out there’s a trick to getting it started and staying running. It also needed to be driven off in reverse, which got tricky over those ramps!
Once that was done and the tractors parked by a shed near the barn, my brother’s trailer needed to be unloaded. One of the things they unloaded was a snow blower attachment for the tractor they brought over last time.
Do you hear that sound?
That’s the sound of my heart going pitter patter.
We might not have to try and keep the driveway clear with little Spewie this winter!
For those new to this blog, Spewie is a 20′ electric snow blower. Actually, I believe it’s marketed as an electric snow shovel. Either way, it’s very small, and we’ve really put it through a lot over the last few winters!
Not that any of us would be setting up and using my brother’s tractors and snow blowers. At some point, he might be able to take the time to show us how, but none of this stuff is straightforward when it comes to using them!
My brother did have something for us in the back of this truck, though.
He brought us a hose that we can use as a diverter for when the septic expeller is being worked on, so we can still use the plumbing in the house. The septic guy was supposed to swing by this evening, and I was going to talk to him about that – they might be able to hook up the pipe in the basement and get it through the foam filled opening in the wall. Once that’s through, it can be set up to this, and drain into the maples.
It’ll stink, but that’s a trade off we’re quite okay with!
Meanwhile…
There was other equipment that needed to be unloaded then, as soon as they were done, they rushed off again. The guy they hired was hoping to do three loads today!
They didn’t manage three loads.
The second load on the triple axle trailer included a square baler, larger than the one that was brought over before, and a hay cutter. Those two things filled the entire trailer!
A tractor was needed to pull the baler off, and they ended up strapping the hay cutter to the bucket on the front end loader, to lift it off the side.
Once that trailer was unloaded, the hired guy and his assistant left. On this trip, my SIL wasn’t able to come along, so it was just my brother and I to unload their trailer.
This trailer was why it was the last trip of the day. It took a lot to get the stuff on – and it was just three things! The hired guy had to use a Bobcat to load it.
We don’t have a Bobcat here. Our vandal still has that and has no intention of returning it, even though there are still parts and attachments, here.
One thing on the trailer was pretty easy to unload. My brother and I could lift it off together. The others needed to be dragged off with a tractor. One of them had to be pulled off sideways, and sections of it got caught on parts of the trailer, requiring another tractor to be used to pull it back again. The front end loader was once again pressed into action, to try and lift it off the end of the trailer, since there was no way it was going to slide down the ramps.
When it finally came off, the same parts that were getting caught on the trailer slammed into a corner of the tractor, punching straight into the radiator.
It’s going to have to be replaced entirely.
Considering how old this tractor is, that’s going to be a challenge. My brother is very good at hunting down parts that aren’t made anymore, though, so I hope it won’t be too difficult to find.
There was still one more piece of equipment on the trailer that had to be taken off. It was a bit easier, but this was a very old piece of equipment, with old and partially rotted wood, with parts attached, that broke off completely in the process. Still, my brother was able to get it off and parked. All of this equipment is being tucked away where there is space. Once the biggest of the items is here, which won’t be until next month, my brother will move things around in an organized way.
It’s a shame so many things were broken or damaged in the process, though.
Meanwhile, we can expect another load on the triple axle trailer next weekend, too!
My poor brother, though. I helped as much as I could, but some things, I just physically can’t. Plus, at one point, he tripped and, while he didn’t fall, I think he did hurt himself. He never complains, though.
All this took so long that, once it was finally done, he had to rush off home again.
I did manage to finally get a hug in, though!
I think he really needed one by then, too!
I don’t know how much more they will be bringing out here. I had thought they might sell off some of the equipment, but I’m starting to think they’re keeping it all, and just bringing it here!
This will actually be of great help to us, in the long term. A lot of this is the sort of equipment my parents had here before, that disappeared. Maybe not so many tractors, though. At least, not that I know of.
The outer yard is going to get very crowded!
More reason to get the scrap company out here to take out the junk vehicles and the old threshing machine.
I have got to remember to call them back tomorrow. It’s not too much of a rush. There are some things I know can go now, but with others, I need to go looking at them with my brother, first, so he can confirm with me, what can go and what stays.
Little by little, it’s getting done!
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 