I found it!

This evening I walked out to the scene of the crash and found the battery in about 5 minutes.  It had flown a lot further from the roof than I thought possible, it was in the grass about 20 feet from where I expected it to be.  Comparing it to a nickel shows how lucky I was to find it.

We had transplanted 4 weigela plants to this area yesterday.  This morning we cleaned it up, leveled it and spread bark nuggets on it.

Another project done, we have been having a great week!

Vera made an apple pie this morning, I am looking forward to a piece of it tomorrow.

Big Sale!

Harbor Freight was having a parking lot sale starting this morning, so we headed down there right after breakfast.  We both ended up with a few things after cruising the whole store plus the parking lot.  From there, we went to Lowe's for some more screws.  I use star drive stainless steel screws for the decks and I was down to 6 left when we finished the shop porch.  I also got some stain for the porch and some paint to repaint our deck furniture.  Barry called just after we got home, he had not seen an update to the blog for a week and wondered if I was sick.  I told him no, just really busy and tired in the evening to the point where I did not want to do the blog.  We had a nice visit, it was 99 down there and it made it to 100 before we finished.  He will be heading this way soon.

I fixed the two solar flowers and the solar rotating prisms this afternoon.  The red flower was easy, it was just out of its pivots, the rotating prisms were a little harder, I had to pull the case apart to get the gears meshed again.  The white and yellow flower really turned into a challenge, I found two pivots broken off, I drilled holes and installed carbon fiber rods.  It still did not work, then I found a broken wire, probably the smallest wire I have ever worked with.  It took lighted tweezers and my eye loupe to get the two ends twisted together.  After soldering the wires, it worked fine.

The railings and an Oops!

By 11:30 this morning, I was all done with the bench and the railings.  Some stain in a few weeks and we will be all done.  We spent the rest of the day organizing the left over lumber and stacking it under the shop.

Later that evening it seemed pretty calm so I got the Champ out for a flight, I have just launched it in the picture.

Well, it wasn't calm over by the shop, a gust of wind caught it and it is headed for a date with the 2 meter antenna!  After it hit the antenna, it ended up on the roof below the loft windows.  It was sitting on its wheels, so I figured I could take off and fly it down.

Wrong, it came around this end of the shop and hit the guy wire for the HF antenna.  It was right by the lower end of the wire with one wheel in the gutter, as I walked around the corner it fell to the ground.  When I went to check it over, the battery was missing.  I got the ladder and went up on the roof expecting to find it in the gutter, but there was nothing there.  We checked the bushes and grass down below that spot, but we never found it.  Now I need a new wing and a battery.

Steps

Just as I was starting on the steps this morning we had a couple of little visitors, the girls had to show off their licence plates.

 I drew up a design for the steps last night, I framed one stringer up this morning and it turned out OK, so I did the rest and started building.

Here I am driving the last screw!

It wasn't long until I had to try getting the 4 wheeler up on the porch.  The rails and bench tomorrow and this job will be done!

Porch Project

After our walk this morning, I started on a rebuild of the shop porch.  I have been wanting to be able to drive the 4 wheeler up there and unload pellets for the stove.  We tore off all the old decking and rails, added a couple of extra joists and put some pier blocks under it for support.  A couple of years ago, Mik had redone their deck and had offered the old boards to me.  None of them had any rot, so I was able to pick out good looking boards for the deck.

This is how it looked at the end of the day, I have a feeling that I will sleep pretty good tonight.

Happy Birthday Michelle!

We went to Longview first thing this morning and picked up supplies for Marie.  We ran them up to her and had a nice visit until it was time for her lunch, then we took her to the dining room.  We stopped and visited our friend Bob when we left there.  Bob is always so much fun to talk to and this time was no exception.  I have been craving a blizzard, so we hit Dairy Queen for lunch before heading home.  This evening we went down to Mik, Michelle and James' for a birthday dinner for Michelle.  Mik did a great job on dinner, we had a choice of chicken, steak or salmon(I had steak and salmon ), corn on the cob and salad.  We finished off the meal with cheesecake, Yum!

Flying at Goble

I had a meeting of the Cowlitz Valley RC Flyers today at the field in Goble.  I had not had the Corsair out for a while, so I loaded it up this morning.  I also flew the Super Cub and the Dirty Birdy.

We had a pretty good turn out, one group had a BBQ down at the other end.  Mark had his hexcopter (quad with 6 motors) with FPV, it was fun watching the video it was sending back.

The club president, Mike, is making a low pass.