Bruce's Journal

[NH homesteader]

Are you and your wife vegetarians?

At least you get to choose who you sell to. I won't sell to anyone I don't believe will raise them well.

I used to be a vegetarian...

 

[CntryBoy777]

Wow!!....and Look at ya Now.......that is something I could never consider doing....in fact, I feel 'Cheated' if there isn't some kind of meat on the plate....whether a couple of pcs of Bacon, slice of Spam, or something....even hock or fatback in the pot of beans....Something........even some Bologna...

 

[NH homesteader]

I've got a lot of opinions on the subject. For the sake of brevity I'll just say I'm not anymore! Lol I also had health issues when I didn't eat meat.

 

[CntryBoy777]

Well Bruce did ya get that Snow today?

 

[Bruce]

I'm a meatatarian Wife loves beef, fish, bacon, ham. Not big on chicken unless mixed in with other stuff, will eat pork chops if she gets a lot of sauerkraut with it. She's OK with vegetarian stuff too, as am I but no where near daily.

Yep we got snow @CntryBoy777, at least 2 inches. Cold feet and hands. The boys watched as I dealt with the ungrounded outlet. The ground wire coming in was neatly twisted together with the ground wire going out. For some reason the outlet that feeds to this one was grounded. I added a pigtail to the ground screw on the outlet and voila, the tester is happy now.

I have no idea what this guy was thinking when he wired stuff. At least this one had the hot and neutral on the proper screws. I think he got that wrong on well over 50% of the outlets I've looked at. There MIGHT be a reason the words "white" and "black" are on the back of the outlets. And there MIGHT be a reason the screws are a different color.

The worst one was the outlet in the barn workshop just outside the breaker box. It was in a metal box with a light switch. Maybe someone told him you don't need to run a ground to the outlet if it is in a metal box and gray plastic looks like metal? The ground coming from the breaker was just loose in the box, probably touching the box so maybe that outlet was grounded. So what was really bad? He had cut the ground wire off at the sheathing of the cable that came out of the box and fed downstream outlets

 

[Baymule]

That is exactly why we hired an electrician to run power to our barn and portable building. We have work to do before we can wire the barn/building up, but no way is somebody who has no idea going to touch it.

 

[CntryBoy777]

Sure ya know the old sayin....'Even a Blind squirrel finds a Nut'....sounds as if he just Lucked out on a few...glad ya found it before it became a Problem for ya....Fire isn't something ya want to deal with except in a fireplace or stove.

 

[Bruce]

I would say so, even a monkey could have gotten it right more often just by chance!

When half the house was rebuilt 3 years ago, the electrician ran a 20A 110V straight to the little barn (which had been fed by a 14-2 wire from the panel in the workshop 100' away) and a 70A 220V to the panel in the workshop.

Change the snow amount, it blows a lot here so I just guesstimated. Wife said she was dragging a bit on the way in, that means 5-6" Guess I'll have to blow tomorrow.

 

[CntryBoy777]

Sure am Glad that leaves are all that's blown here...well except 'Smoke'...

 

[Bruce]

Mr UPS never showed yesterday, status this morning was "rescheduled due to weather". Hasn't shown up yet today either but it is only 6 PM. Seems to me that if they can't finish their route for whatever reason, they should run it backward the next day so things that were expected arrive as close as possible to the original "target time".

Got not much done today other than grocery, winter boot and PVC pipe/fitting shopping.

The only progress on the fence project was buying the PVC to run hotwire and ground wire under the gates. I TRIED to pull the outermost ground rod. This is what they look like. As you can see, not much separation.

• Using the fence puller with a chain under the clamp, clamp just popped off.
• Chain around the rod, slid off (OK I was not really expecting that to work).
• Wrapped brace wire around the post ("self locking" style). Slipped off.
• Drilled a hole in the top of the rod and ran brace wire through it. Couldn't get it to move with the fence puller.
• Hauled the Gorilla ladder, post pounder and come-along out.
  • Set up the ladder as a "quad pod" frame
  • Put the pounder over the 2nd to highest rung pair.
  • Chain with 800 pound carabiner around the pounder, come-along attached to that
  • made a loop in the brace wire and connected the come-along.
  • STRAIGHT UP pull.
  • Slowly and steadily I pulled one foot of the ladder into the ground.
  • Released the come-along, put a big flat rock under the ladder leg.
  • Reset the come-along
  • Slowly and steadily I pulled until the brace wire snapped, rod never lifted a bit.

I don't know what the breaking strength of brace wire is but it is less that whatever is gripping that rod. Likely it is jammed into a lot of rocks that are acting like a "Chinese finger trap".

So now I know how to NOT pull a ground rod for reuse. I still have no idea HOW to do it successfully. Guess I'll be heading to TSC for ground rods in the morning. I had hoped to avoid that expense. I need new clamps as well. They are all loose and when I tried to tighten one, it fell apart. I was also going to reuse the ground wire. They had their charger about midway through the barn. As the wire goes, it is about 60' to the north end of the barn, over then down to the first rod. Plenty for me since I am putting my charger on that outside wall just above the existing ground rods. BUT the wire just snapped off when I moved the clamp a little. Maybe not the best idea to reuse it.