A MIXED BAG

Saturday was a long day. The excavator Wally showed up expecting to back fill the foundations but I had to tell him we could not do it just yet because we still needed to apply the foundation sealant to the outside. So we back filled the inside of the crawl space. Wally used a Bob cat to dump in soil over the foundation wall. We then had to shovel it into place by hand. We finished by noon and I was exhausted. I drove into town with my sister Ellen to pick up some building materials at Slavins lumber yard. We farted around on several errands. When I returned I was determined to finish the floor of the mud room at the rear door so we didn't have to climb in and out of the living room window. I worked until 8 o'clock at night and did not finish. I finally gave up when I turned around and noticed a geyser spewing from the top of my air compressor. The oil cap had fallen off and it was spraying oil everywhere. I shut the compressor off quickly before it seized up. Now what do I do? I needed that thing to run my nail gun. I was bushed and gave up for the night. The plan was to take a family drive into the mountains on Sunday so I hoped I could finish up Sunday morning.

I woke up Sunday morning determined to finish the floor. I had parked the truck next to where I was working in order to access my tools but now it was in the way. I wanted to pick up the floor framing with the Bob cat but I had to move the truck first. Old blue would not start. I plugged in the heating core and found another way to move my framing. I had enlisted the help of my sister Ellen to push the floor framing into place and we heard a noise behind us. As I looked up I caught a glimpse of my 10,000 pound truck rolling away just as it went over the steep bank heading toward the pond. As it spewed hardware and tools it made much noise as the open storage box doors flailed around. The truck came to an abrupt stop as it rolled over the platform for the pond aerator. It stopped just a few feet short of a tree. I picked up the miscellaneous things that had fallen out of my truck and removed the remnants of the aerator platform from under my truck while my sister ran into her house to fetch her camera. For some reason old blue started up the first try and I was able to drive the truck up the hill back to the driveway. I was peeved that this had taken up my time when I was supposed to be doing carpentry and then I realized how lucky I was. This was merely and inconvenience. I shook it off and got back to work.

My Dad had suggested that I refill my compressor with 10w40 motor oil. We did not have compressor oil handy so we thought it better than nothing. It ran fine for a while and then seized. We disassembled the motor and finally got it free with the help of a small torch and some WD40.

At noon we piled into the car and picked up Wade's sister and headed to the Glades National Forrest. It was spectacular. I plan to return there again and do some camping. It was a day of bad luck and good luck. Mostly good luck.