Too much time on hands!

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bud16415

Fixer Upper
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I thought I would start a thread for others with to much time on their hands and doing a project you could easily do without. Haha.


As a retire, and I know we have a fair amount here, and just enduring a Northern Pa winter I just needed something to fiddle with outside. About 2 weeks ago we lost a neighbor Glen (95) WW2 vet and part of that greatest generation. He lived two doors down and we became friends over the last 6 years. Last week I saw his son over to his place and I went over to say hi. He asked me if I wanted to buy any of his dads junk in the garage as he had to have the property cleared out in 6 months (reverse mortgage). Glen had bought a new lawn tractor last year and his son said half price what a new one would be. Sounded fair to me and I have little need for a 22HP mower but I thought it would be cool to have. So I drove it home and he threw in a 4’ lawn sweeper I also didn’t need.


Holly got home from work and said Oh Gawd what did you do. She then reminded me that we have a quarter acre and half of that is house and garage and driveway. Thinking fast on my feet I said it’s not for cutting grass I’m going to build a wagon and take her two nephews on hay rides Colton and Jaxon. Jaxon is 2 and calls me Uncle Buh. I had this Harbor Freight Big Foot hand truck I got on sale for 39 bucks about 6 years ago and I have a spare to boot. https://www.harborfreight.com/mater...00-lbs-capacity-bigfoot-hand-truck-62900.html So I fired up the welder put a tang on it built a PT box and painted it JD green. Just the right size for two little kids. Of course in the back of my mind I will likely haul other stuff around.


With the wheel way back it backs up nice.


I still have to add a yellow strip down each side and a few reflectors sides and back.
As always total cost of the wagon zero as it was all stuff i had laying around.


Ok now show me stuff you all built you really didn’t need but had fun doing.


JD Wagon.JPG
 
Last couple months I've been stuck in neutral. Can't get the motivation to really start any projects. We just got back from a week in Florida with the camper and my better half decided it's time to take out the old carpet and vinyl flooring and replace it. So...yesterday we picked out some news flooring, order two new recliners, I started taking things apart inside. Old chairs are out, removed the dinette, involved the couch. Now I'm ready to start taking out the flooring. Guess I'm in forward motion now.0405191637.jpg 0609181114.jpg
 
Spring is here and I cut down a tree I always hated under the power line and they come thru every year and chop half of it away. The little trailer came in handy hauling all the brush away and now I have some wood for our fire ring. I can almost taste the hot dogs now. IMG-8807.JPG
 
Spring is here and I cut down a tree I always hated under the power line and they come thru every year and chop half of it away. The little trailer came in handy hauling all the brush away and now I have some wood for our fire ring. I can almost taste the hot dogs now. View attachment 21970
I'll bet that carts a lot faster with that racing stripe on it.
 
Love the floors in the trailer!
 
I'll bet that carts a lot faster with that racing stripe on it.
It's not faster but the little nephews think it's faster. It is all about having too much time on your hands and unused JD yellow. The camper floor looks great. really changes the look. :)
 
Thanks y'all! It seems twice as big inside. Could never understand carpet in a camper. Especially after we took it to Florida last month...
 
I thought I would start a thread for others with to much time on their hands and doing a project you could easily do without. Haha.

Thanks for sharing this. Looking forward to that stage of life where I have more time on my hands. At my present stage between work, family and community commitments I don't have a lot of spare time, but I'm still enjoying this stage of life while I can.
 
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4588.jpeg 0522191043.jpg Got a phone call from someone I know about a cupola. So...took it off the roof, rebuilding the base, doing some restoration and going to try and get it back up on the roof and not kill it or me.
 
@AdamAll Welcome to the forum. I remember those days all too well working 6 days a week and coaching little league and trying to remodel a house and groom a two acre lawn and it seemed 100 other things. Then you retire and kids grow up and you get a little break in the action but then my knees wont work as good along with a lot of other body parts. We watched the two little boy nephews yesterday 2 under 2 and the older one just over 2 was really entertained as he rode around the neighborhood in the homemade trailer behind the JD.


You will get to the point of time on your hands but you are right in not rushing it. enjoy every day you get has always been my motto.


@oldognewtrick That looks like a fun project all except climbing on that roof. When we got the new metal roof last I took the center chimney down and covered the hole. Something like that would have been perfect and functional also. The neighbor has one and he made it with a light in it. really stands out at night.
 
Well Bud, watching the morning news they're talking 4-6 inches of snow up there in your neck of the woods. Got that snow plow ready?

We've got our last camping trip this weekend at Land Between The Lakes. Highs in the mid 40's lows in the upper 20's. Sure home the heater works.
 
Well Bud, watching the morning news they're talking 4-6 inches of snow up there in your neck of the woods. Got that snow plow ready?

We've got our last camping trip this weekend at Land Between The Lakes. Highs in the mid 40's lows in the upper 20's. Sure home the heater works.

Last week I looked at the old GMC sitting there with a bad fuel line and hasn’t moved in about a year. Two different guys stopped and tried to buy it over the summer, but I said no. I told Holly I ether have to get it running for this years snow or sell it and buy something to blow or plow with. So I got after the dreaded job. As it turned out about 5 years ago I cut an access hole in the bed and made a cover for it to change the fuel pump without dropping the tank that made one area of the fix much easier and with a little elbow grease I had it replaced and a new filter located under that same cover. Reinventing a better way on the 20 year old 300k girl. Ten gallons of gas and she fired up like it was yesterday. Took her for a spin only to find out the rear drums were froze up. Jacked the whole rear end up got those monster truck tires off and the drums were not coming. I beat on them till I was blue in the face and about gave off when I thought maybe start the truck up put it in gear and spin the hubs working the brakes and see if they would loosen up. So I tried that and once I got to about 25MPH on the spedo low and behold both drums flew off on their own spinning around in the driveway like 50 pound tops. Cleaned the brakes up and never-seized the moving parts and she worked like new. That got me excited to patch and pop rivet some holes in the body. Then I went to find the old Meyers plow in the weeds. I drug that out with the truck only to find the main 1” pin that the plow hinges on to be bent and broke. I beat on that mess for an hour before I got out the grinder and cut it off. Not being able to get it out as it was welded into the one side I thought maybe with my mad welding skills I could attach the new pin to the stub of the old. I made a pin got it in place rolled the welder out and the new neighbor I only met once came walking up the driveway, saying I didn’t know I moved into a fun neighborhood and that he heard all the pounding. I asked him if he ever welded and he said yep for 50 years that was his job and he really missed it. Tom Sawyer couldn’t have asked for more and I handed him the helmet telling him today was his lucky day. He made a few improvements to my pin and went to town making that flux-core wire sing. 1000 times better than I know I could have done.


So the short answer is I’m as ready for the snow as I will ever be. I’m going to put the truck back on the road now that I’m retired gas isn’t as big an issue as it was driving 70 miles a day and I can run around and plow some family.


On a side note I got my colon-scope yesterday and that prep the day before isn’t any better than it was 7 years ago. So I got a clean bill of health on the south 40, but the woman that put me to sleep told me I need to have a sleep study and get one of those breathing machines for sleeping or I might not wake up some day. I told her there are lot worse ways to go, but I would go get the test as I would like to keep waking up in the morning a while longer.


I just had my Alexa go off and tell me it was time to drain the hot tub. What did I ever do before I had 2 women telling me to do work. might as well change the furnace filter before she reminds me of that also.


We had a beautiful fall leaf color change just about to clean up the lawn tractor for the winter and put it away. The vegetable garden did great this summer and we have a pile of squash for the winter and I ate a bushel of tomatoes at least. I have the garden all put to bed for the winter and the compost bin is full waiting for spring to get worked in. somewhere along the line I turned into my granddad.


I love fall camping best all the people will be gone and you should have a great time.


Maybe we will win that snow globe again this winter.

Stay warm my friend.
 
Well Bud, watching the morning news they're talking 4-6 inches of snow up there in your neck of the woods. Got that snow plow ready?

Well woke up to the sound of the neighbors snow blower. Then the townships plow going up and down my street. Figured I had to look out the window.


We got that 6” dusting of some heavy stuff. View off the hot tub deck.


The 2019/2020 snow globe race is on.
IMG_9295.jpg
 
7347.jpeg 1109191840.jpg 1108190931.jpg Camper heater worked great, Saturday morning was 22*. Warmed up nice. Land Between The Lakes is a beautiful National Forrest. It's on our must go back to list.
 
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