Well I am sitting here in my hotel on the last evening I have internet access, eating Pocky, typing away as fast as I can, wondering where the week went. Tomorrow I move to a coffee shop before heading back to the ranch. In the week before the trip I was too overwhelmed with last minute stuff at work (like migrating to Python2.5), and preparing to spending 10 days without all my electronics. As a result I only posted information on the potter predictions site. There were a million little things which I figured I would get done while having 10 days with little to do but some minor farm work. This also meant that all the things I like to post about had major announcements. It all backed up, but I still figured 10 days away from the daily regiment would allow me to clear out some of the backlog. No such luck.

This trip has turned out to be different from those in the past. For starters, I have not read any books! I usually have at least a Terry Pratchett paperback in hand when I fly anywhere, but not this time. And no Harry Potter either! As we flew out the day of the release, it is sitting on my door step all the way back in Mass. (well the neighbors house anyway). I figured this would be a good thing as I have a literal ream of information to processes in front of me. I am also suffering from a sunburn, a bad cold, and 100+ degree weather. Well the 100+ weather is now a norm at least.

Every year I travel with the family to Montana to visit the extended family. My brother-in-law Mike has a a few projects lined up (which are actually Kate’s projects) at the ranch for me to help him with which take two or three days at most. Five days are spent at the hotel with the water slides which my son loves. When we got in last Friday I was shown the culvert which needs replacing, and some shelving which needs to be installed in the tack room. Both could be done in one day if we bothered to do nothing but work. There was also some hay which needed to be picked up on Saturday. I really do love these projects in an odd sort of way. They are hard work, but there is a real sense of accomplishment, and all the negatives have been removed. I do not have to worry about buying materials, getting parts, arranging for pickups, renting equipment, doing tedious prep work, or disposing of the junk afterwards. All I have to deal with is making something better. (And hey, if I mess up, it’s not my house!)

So on Saturday I head out with Mike and Kate to pick up the hay. This involves throwing 60 pound bails of hay onto a four foot high trailer which is moving, while people on the trailer stack them. I was saved from the full experience as we had plenty of help. Six people can make short order of 103 bails of hay. After that it was time for beer and company. The next morning we decided to hook up the backhoe to the tractor. The plan was to use it on Wednesday to replace the culvert. This is usually a long and involved process of fiddling with PTO’s, stabilizers, control arms, blocks of wood, grease guns, and wasps nests. In a record 30min, we were done.

It is at this point where I am introduced to Wess, someone who helps out around the ranch, and a broken frost free, an unexpected ’small’ project. A frost free is a water faucet which has it’s line buried six to eight feet in the ground, and when turned off, releases and water in the pipe safely below the frost line. This one has not been working, and Wess has dug a three and a half foot cubed hole in hard packed earth, in 95 degree weather. The plan is to dig it out, fix it and add a cut off valve. The cut off valve sits 6-8 feet in the ground with a PVC pipe leading down to it. A tool made out of rebar and some metal plates is used to turn on and off the water supply. I was thankful this was not my project. Mike grabbed the backhoe and went to town helping Wess dig out the frost free. I decided I could be used elsewhere.

In the barn Kate and Kat were starting to unload the previous days load of hay. This involved stacking the bales seven high, walking on your previous layers. I gave the stacking a try and after falling in the same hole between bails for the fifth time, Kate took pity on me and I switched to bringing the bails to the edge to be stacked. Thats right, two woman who combined weigh about as much as I do, were slinging bails, some times over their heads, while I toted them over to them for the slinging. When that was done, I headed back to see what was going on with the frost free.

Mike and Wess were looking down the hole, and shaking their heads. The first problem had been encountered. The bottom had been reached and the water line was not going in the direction one would expect. An additional four feet long troth had been dug where the line was not. The dirt from the hole was in a large pile over the area exactly where the line was. This was a grave fore shadowing of the days to come. Mike jumped in the hole, and cut the PVC part of the line with his pocket knife (do not do this at home!) and sliced his finger. We were having guests for dinner so we all headed in to get cleaned up and start preparing food and drinking beer. After the party I headed for the garage to poke at the frost free. Mike and I fiddled with it and I found that the push rod had become disconnected from the main rod which ran the length of the pipe. After some fiddling I thought I had it fixed! It all worked properly when blowing into it at least. No real need to dig it up after all. Or so I joked.

The next day I stayed at the ranch while everyone else headed either to work, or to visit friends. I did the laundry, some work on PyCon-Tech, and used the backhoe to dig out where the actual line was for the frost free. The plan was we would put in a new cutoff valve, as there was already a big hole in the ground. I stuck a red pail over the line to protect it as I dug, and so I could find it and dig it out by hand later (you don’t dig all the way down with a backhoe unless you want to replace the entire pipe). I was basically digging a giant ‘V’ in the ground, the new troth about 70 degrees from the old one. I was almost done, when the ‘V’ turned into a triangle in a rather dramatic and unexpected fashion. It turns out having the backhoe stabilizer near the inner part of the V was not such a good idea, and it caved in, wrecking the bucket, and burying the line. I re-re-dug out the line, packed up the clean cloths, and drove to town to check us into the hotel.

After checking-in and dropping off the luggage, I headed back to the ranch to meet up with Mike. He picked up a large PVC cutoff valve and access pipe. He took over the backhoe operation while I cut some new line and attached the valve. We decided to attach all the parts we could above ground and only make one connection down in the hole. This involves heating up the PVC line with a blow torch to make it expand, but not enough to warp it, then shoving it onto a barbed connector. Then you tighten hose clamps to the blisteringly hot PVC. Just my kind of project. Then we hit a snag three. The tool used to reach down the access pipe and turn the knob on the cutoff, did not fit this valve knob. I broke out the grinder and went to town. Then snag four, the wings on the knob were too bug for the access pipe. I used a utility knife and a pair of pliers to fix that. Snag five, I ground down too much and I could see while stress lines in the red plastic of the knob. Ok, we can deal with that later, lets just see this thing working.

We head out and Mike uses the blow torch, down in the hole, to make the main connection. He does this better than I ever could. He turns on the main valve. I turn on the frost free. Nothing happens. I fiddle with the frost free, nothing happens. Mike plays with the frost free, nothing happens. We mess with the cutoff, nothing happens. It is now 9pm, and we head in for some dinner; neither of us felt like beer. The next day Kate picked up a new frost free, and Mike got a new cutoff valve with another knob.

The family headed over to the ranch, while Mike and I went to work once again. Mike cut off everything, and I started grinding down the knob on the new valve. This time using the internals of the old one to guide me on taking off very little material. We got it all in, and mike added a wood post to support the frost free. I cut holes in the access PVC to make it conform to the valve, and we were off once again to the hole in the ground. We turned back on the main water supply, and the frost free worked! the hole was then quickly filled in. We threw the tool down the access pipe to turn off the cutoff, and….. nothing happened. The water still flowed. If felt like there was dirt down the pipe. We tried flooding it, and that helped a little. After half an hour of trying different things we gave up. It is now 9pm on Tuesday. I missed my family as they had headed back to the hotel after the dinner which we also missed. We ate, and I took the truck back to the hotel.

If you are keeping track, it is now Wednesday morning, and this small project which was going to take Wess an after noon, has consumed Mike and I. Mike has taken the day off work so we can work on the culvert, the primary job for the week. I spent the morning finally going down the water slides with my son. At around 10am I pick up a tamper from a rental place for settling the dirt around the culvert pipe. When I arrive at the ranch, Mike had already dug out the frost free, and found the problem. He hands me my plastic knob which is now chewed up, and no longer connected to anything. We head over to the pond where the culvert is, and I break out the backhoe. We dig out the old pipes, and lay in the new one in short order. I use the front loader to bring over sand and dirt while Mike uses the tamper to make everything solid. By 1pm we are done it’s 99.9 degrees, and we head out for lunch.

After lunch we turn once again to the frost free. We go to a supply store and he buys a very expensive solid brass cutoff and fittings. Very expensive, but very solid. We also stop by radio shack for some new speakers for the garage. I suspect this was more so we would be able to accomplish another project. He could easily do this one by himself, but I appreciate the gesture greatly. We head back, put it all together for the third time. We test everything before filling the hole. We fill the hole. It all works. It is now 4pm and there is just enough time to get cleaned up, install the speakers, and head into town for dinner. At this time I am now sporting the most uncool of all tan lines (or in this case burn lines) the glove tan line. Even my three year old son knows this is not cool.

We ended up going to Sushi Hana for dollar sushi night. It was a fantastic time and well worth the half hour wait. My son has gotten quite good with chop sticks, and no longer really needs the little plastic helper. He also had his first taste of straight sashimi, gobbling down yellow tail. I noticed they had Pocky, and well, I am currently munching on my purchase. The family, my wife in particular (A.K.A. ‘Star Wars Chick’) then headed to do some evening letterboxing. Today was Caras Park. We know someone who helped build the carousel, and the dragon’s hallow playground there is just a blast for young and old. All in all a very good time. Tomorrow we check out of the hotel, and head back to the ranch before flying out on Monday. There is still the shelving for the tack room, and Noah just set up the PyCon-Tech trac site for me. I hope to spend most of tomorrow at Cafe Dulce sipping espresso, eating gelato, and getting the trac site operational.