04/06/13

Today was a fantastic day to be outside. The weather was beautiful, and  the temperatures made it into the 70s. I spent the entire day outside working, from 10:00 AM until 7:00 PM, with a short break for lunch.

Much of the day was spent down at the edge of the yard. Cutting those trees yesterday was the last of the clearing work to be done, so I was able to start with the tractor today. There was a small berm along the edge of the yard, which we wanted to get rid of before planting bushes. I also needed to dig out a couple of tree stumps, some from the trees I cut yesterday and others from those I cut last year. After several hours with the tractor, alternating between using the front end load loader and box blade, I managed to get the berm knocked down, and everything smoothed out, and remove all but one of the stumps I wanted to get rid of. I still have a bit of work to do with hand tools, around the trees that we left, but that, hopefully, won't take long. I also had to switch to the RTV a few times, to haul away the stumps or rock that I uncovered, and a couple of times to drag out more of the old fencing that I ran across. I'm hopeful that I've managed to remove most of it now, although I'm sure I'll run into more at some point.

Andrea spent the first half of the day attending a meeting of a quilter's club that she joined. She had met some of the ladies at classes she had attended, and decided that it would be a good opportunity for her to get out of the house on a regular basis. They also do some community service and charity work, such as donating quilts to Project Linus, which is something Andrea has done before.

After finishing my project I was left with a surprising pile of dirt. I have no shortage of places to put it, but first we are going to screen some of it and use for experimenting with a potato tower, using an old compost bin. Andrea spent the evening rigging up a way to mount a piece of wire fencing over the bed of the RTV so that the dirt could be screen directly into it, which will save time since we would have had to transfer it into the RTV after screening anyway.

I spent the rest of the day working on leveling the area where the shed for the tractor will go. I'm actually getting it in pretty good shape, and with the excess dirt I have piled up out there right now, I suspect that I might be close to being able to get the spot leveled the way I want it. I need to take some measurements and get out my string level sometime to see exactly how close to level I am.