Yesterday turned out to be a pretty good, and pretty productive, day for me. Got started by watching a cute little husband and wife team come out and pump out Rima's septic system tank. Yucky!.... But they did a wonderful job even though the metal handle to the concrete lid broke in two before they could get it off. They finally managed to remove it using various chains, pry bars and shovel blades and then pumped it all out into a large tank truck they backed all the way in  from the main road.
    Once that was done I headed into town to pick up a 'big ol' eye bolt that I could put through the middle of the concrete lid so that in the future it would be much easier to take it off and put it back on again. Turns out that it takes more than an hour to drive into town and back and the cost of a 6" eye bolt is quite steep. Of course a lot of the cost was for the 1/2" dia. concrete bit that I also had to purchase. But it was soon done and I headed back to the house to get back to work.
   Prior to drilling the hole through the concrete lid though, I took the truck and loaded up all of the firewood I had cut the day before from the tree I had cut down. It filled about 2/3rd's of the bed of the truck so there was quite a bit of firewood to take out and stack in the wood shed by the house. There was also enough large pieces in the bunch that it became apparent that Rima was going to have to locate a log splitter at some point, so that all those pieces could be split into smaller chunks to dry and that will fit in her furnace easier.
    The stacking of firewood was soon done and it was on to drilling the hole for the eye bolt in the septic tank lid. My newest cordless drill also has a hammer drill setting, and it blasted a hole right through at least 4 inches of concrete. Other than a short little stretch when, I think the bit hit a rock inside, it had no problem going all the way through. So now there is a nice big eye bolt that can be used to lift the lid in and out of the hole.
    Once done with that, and after taking a short break for some ice tea on the deck, I grabbed the chainsaw and headed out to cut down yet more trees. There was another black walnut next to the fence line in the pasture just west of the house that needed to come down before it got any bigger. It had already swallowed the top two wires on the perimeter fence so it was a little harder to deal with. Lucky for me it was already leaning the right way so I just cut it off about 6 inches above the top of the fence and dropped it neatly into the pasture. I then cut the wires going into the tree trunk, stuffed a 2"X4" in between the trunk and the rest of the fence, just in case I cut to far, and then cut off the lower 3 feet right above the ground.
    I'm finding that it is easier to just 'log' the tree up right where it lands instead of hacking it into pieces I can pick up and then bring back to the house. So I 'bucked' most of the tree into pieces that are easy enough to pick up and transport and then stack. Didn't get it all done though as it started raining like crazy while I still had about 20% of the tree to still cut up. So finishing up that project is on my list of things to do today.
   Also on the list is installing the last 60' or so of fence out near the road. Once that project is done Rima can let the horses out into the middle pasture and let them have some better grass for a while. There is also a couple other trees to cut down if there is time as well as a couple of bales of hay to load up in the truck to take over to a friend of Rimas who is ill and needs some extra hay for her horses. So it is going to be a very busy day for me.




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