RDrancher's Photo Thread

[RDrancher]

Is that blue sky I see? Good to hear you are able to get back into your jobs list.

Yep Dave...blue sky sure looks good! Sand for the arena tomorrow, then back to the mudhole to finish pads and gravel. Next up are the poor folks that have been tromping through the mud back and forth a quarter mile from their home to their cars for over two months!

 

[RDrancher]

The arena had pretty much lost all of it's sand after the bar-ditch overflowed. Twenty inches+ of fall in 75 feet didn't help either.


After grading the arena to flow in two directions without making it too obvious, I built up the area above the new slope to redirect the water back into the bar-ditch with dirt from the new swale.

 

[RDrancher]

While I waited for loads of sand to arrive, I finished and rolled the pad, and dressed up the swale and slopes.

 

[RDrancher]

The pit was closed off from flooding for three weeks, so the sand delivered today was freshly dug out of the creek, vibrated through their screens and loaded on the trucks. I just tossed it out there to let it dry before attempting to grade it.

 

[dave1949]

Nice work again John. It's good you live where people are prosperous with money to fling around. Somebody has to be there to catch it. :laughing:

I finally had to look up "bar ditch" since that is a name I hear a lot from folks in your region but wasn't exactly sure what it meant--as in what makes a ditch a "bar ditch" I wondered?
Bar ditch « The Word Detective

 

[Threepoint]

Great link, Dave. I had the same question!

John, beautiful work, as usual. I'd love to spend a week just tagging along on your projects. I know I'd learn a lot, but probably die of exhaustion just watching you.

 

[Kyle_in_Tex]

Nice work again John. It's good you live where people are prosperous with money to fling around. Somebody has to be there to catch it. :laughing:

I finally had to look up "bar ditch" since that is a name I hear a lot from folks in your region but wasn't exactly sure what it meant--as in what makes a ditch a "bar ditch" I wondered?
Bar ditch « The Word Detective

bar ditch is where you ended up after leaving the bar.

 

[RDrancher]

Thanks guys. I try to stay out of any bar-ditch unless I'm getting paid to work on it. Bar ditch = Chiggerville this time of year!

Threepoint - Come on down and play anytime. I'll set you up in the shade with a chair and a glass of sweet tea. You'll feel like you died and went to heaven...until the skeeters find you!

 

[RDrancher]

The tree guy's place has finally dried up enough to get something done. I put in a 35'x 45' pad for their drive thru building. First couple pics are my office view and a view of my foot. The second one was accidental, but I thought the track print in the sand looked cool.


I removed and stacked a thick layer of organic / wood chip material, then excavated the area down 18" and re-compacted it back in. Select fill was used to bring the pad up to finish grade. The material was pretty wet once again. In between trucks, I worked on some other grading and exposed a few embers while I was moving the burn pile. The owner said that they burned over a week ago, hadn't seen any smoke, and thought that it was out. I guess not!

 

[RDrancher]

For quite awhile now I've been meaning to get my flatbed set up to my liking. When I bought the Dodge, the bed had been transplanted from another truck and needed some work. Cracks and surface rust here and small 24" underbody boxes with greasable hinges that had never been greased. Even with PB Blaster and liberal amounts of grease, all of the hinges cracked at the welds when I tried to open them. So, after getting tired of jumping in and out of the bed to retrieve my Craftsman plastic toolbox from my tool chest, and then fighting all of the other stuff in there that immediately filled the space left in the box, I finally made headway and purchased a Montezuma road box from Rural King. Montezuma 30" x 15" Steel Portable Toolbox - Black ME300B by Quality Craft Industries Inc. for $299.99 in Tool Boxes - Tool Boxes & Cabinets and Benches - Tools : Rural King. The price is WAY low compared to every other place I looked.

Purchasing the box was one thing...but making the time to install it was another. So, while picking up a chicken coop for my wife (that's a whole 'nother story.) I spied with my little eyes an orphan 105 gal. fuel tank, complete with pump. I've been rolling with a 35 gal. tank for quite a few years now, and it's never enough. I made a deal on the tank / pump, and decided to get off my lazy duff and git 'r done this weekend. I switched over my hose / nozzle and filter from the old setup since the new tank's hose was shot. The (new to me) tank had some surface rust, and since I'll be repainting the entire bed once I get things fixed up, I shot some rust converter in all of the places I'll (hopefully) never see again.


I welded up some brackets to mount my old tool chest to the new tank and bolted it down. I plan to get a new heavy duty tool chest that sits flush with the top of the tank, but for now this will have to do. Out came the plastic Craftsman box and all of the other "need 'em now" tools. The tool chest now houses all of the fluids I need to have along and straps, bottle jacks, seldom used tools, etc.


To finish up the flatbed mods (for now) I mounted the new box with help from my little shadow. We set it up with all of the tools I had in the plastic box, tools in the tool chest and other stuff I had strewn around in my backseat. There's also a nifty tray under the lower socket pegs that now houses all of my specialty junk. There's still plenty of room for additional tools in the main box as I collect them.


Color Johnny happy!