Some Assembly Required

We went to Vanderhoof yesterday and managed to stuff all the chimney bits and bobs into the back of the Toyota and bring it home. Any more stuff and we would have had to use the roof racks. Today I will start the installation.

Note the new shiny stainless steel length of chimney next to the old one with the creosote dripping down the side. Almost a shame to hide it in the wall. Like everything else that comes in the house it needs to be thoroughly inspected by the Cats...

Yesterday our heavy duty mechanic dropped by and managed to get the Skidsteer back together. We got it running and it appears pretty sweet. No bucking like a mad cow infected bronco. The carb needs some work, but with any luck I will be able to get that taken care of in the warmth of the new shop. But that's another project. I need to get to town to buy a couple of dozen 3/8ths bolts to secure all the guards but that shouldn't take too long. The main problem right now is getting the correct hydraulic fittings for the plow, so I can attach it to the skid steer without changing the fittings so that the four way bucket will still work. Plumbing was never one of my strong points. But hey, I can learn. And I have power tools.

One tiny rant about the skid steer in particular and mechanical devices in general. I heard a theory that the reason it is so hard to work on equipment is that a mechanical engineer came home one day and found a mechanic fooling around with this wife and decided, forever more, to make the mechanics life unbearable.

It's the little things. The skidsteer had grease nipple in the axles that could hardly be reached as they were buried to close to the rim. I wonder how often they got greased. I know I haven't done it in a year. A couple of bucks for grease nipple extenders and that's no problem. That kind of thing. Like making openings just big enough that parts barely fit through. Like having to practically disassemble an engine to replace a filter. It seems to be the way of our consumer world. Make the thing as cheaply as we can. We don't want the damn thing to be easilly servicable so that it can last a lot longer.

Let's give the auto industry billions of dollars so they can continue to do the same old same old. Innovation - no- except as it pertains to marketing.


When we got up this morning it was -18c in Fraser Lake. Only about -10 here, but that's colder than it's been in a while. Fortunately it's been sunny so today, hopefully, about the time I am ready to put on the roof components of the chimney, it will be dry and all the ice and snow will be gone. Makes walking on a 4/12 pitch roof a little safer.

Looking forward to firing up the furnace. There's something about wood heat that really appeals to me. And I am not just talking about saving hundreds of bucks a month.

It just feels nice.