Went ahead and rented a mini excavator for the Independence Day weekend. The rental of the excavator itself was pretty reasonable. The delivery/pickup for it was another story. But…my small truck probably doesnt have the oomph for a twenty foot trailer, I dont have experience navigating goat trails with a twenty foot trailer, and the last thing I need is to go through the humiliation and expense of getting a twenty foot trailer stuck on some insane switchback on the way to the property. To me, it was worth it to just throw money at it and transfer all that risk and work to someone else. I agree that this is a talent or skill I will need to pick up at some point, but for now…time can substitute for money, and money can substitute for time.
A ‘new’ truck is in the future at some point….Ideally something with the formerly-common-now-hard-to-find eight-foot bed, and a bit more gravitas for hauling heavy loads. But thats at a later date. RIght now, today, I need to get things rolling a little harder and a little faster. Starting this week the days are getting shorter and I’ve done pretty much jack in terms of getting a small structure set up there.
My needs on this holiday trip are stupid simple – two holes about 5-6 feet deep to contain the 500- and 750-gallon Roth Multitanks that I’m purchasing. Dimensionally, they only differ in length…one is about twice the length of the other ….five feet long and nine feet long. This means displacing …hm….51x62x60….four cubic yards for the tank itself and that doesnt include the areas immediately around it or the depth on top of the tank to the surface. About seven cubic yards for the larger tank.
Since I have a three day weekend at that time, it seems like a good time to camp out there. That should be an adventure, what with the bears and all. I need to start getting my list of things to take up there together. If I forget something, the nearest shopping is almost 90 minutes away.
And , in other news, I’m dropping a cashiers check at the surveyors tomorrow. Final price was 66~% of what my ‘worst case’ price would have been. But, it’s worth whatever it cost. I now have a very high level of confidence about what is and is not mine, and, more importantly, what is and is not someone elses.
Which reminds me…gamecam caught another trespasser. I’m already in contact with someone to install a panel gate across the main-and-obvious entry onto the property. I suspect this was simply someone who drove up my road thinking it was just part of the network of roads up there and then had no choice but to continue to a point where he could turn around. I haven’t detected an malice or criminal intent in the two cases. I think they were just cases of people not really knowing they weren’t supposed to be there. But, I didnt spend that money to not have privacy. So…gate. Gotta get the budget setup for that, get some bids, and get that on the calendar.
Looks like summer will be the expensive season.
Unless you are planning to keep livestock, then I recommend that you hang that gate fairly high, for snow clearance in both fall and spring. If it is just people and vehicles that you want to keep out, then don’t make trouble for yourself, in getting it to swing above typical fall and spring snow depths.
Yup was thinking about that. I’ve no problems with as many food, I mean animals, traipsing around up there. Its those pesky humans I wanna keep away from me.
In that case I’d just go with a bar across it’ll also cost far less.
Can’t really do that. Because of snowmobile decapitations and such, chains, bars, etc, are frowned upon for road access control. Gotta be a panel gate.
People around here sheath the cable with PVC pipe and hang a couple license plates for reflective surfaces.
Might not be a bad idea to talk to the Roth Multitank folks about backfilling–rocks and some plastic tanks may not be friends…could you get up there with some sand on a trailer? Or maybe pea-gravel, or something smooth, and easy on plastic…
Don’t forget to dig for latrine while you’re at it.
And a couple holes for caches.
While you have the Mini X you may want to dig a hole to plant Gate support post………… and maybe another on the closing side.
If you have Rocks up there like I have……you will be happy you did this.
Yeah, Im thinking along those lines too. Im making a list..hole for tanks, hole for posts, hole for piers, hold for caches…
Best use of a hole I’ve seen was in the Silver Valley of Idaho up near an old mine. Guy had a poured foundation near the river, and the only place on the road you could see the structure there was also a hole roughly the size of a man and six feet deep in the rocks with the spoils piled next to it.
Have a good weekend. The building season is indeed short in that part of the world.
Now that you have a pad in place you could build walls down in the valley and then stand them up on it and screw them down. The I’d the thing needs to be moved you could take it back down and relocate for a shed later on.
Good luck on getting things in order.
If you install a gate, maybe ensure that there is enough of an area for vehicles to turn around so they can easily be on their way. People are funny and just may blame you for blocking the (your) road and destroy your gate. It does happen on remote forested roads around here. Another camera near the gate would also maybe be wise to capture plate numbers.
Putting in more cams this week for plate capture.
Especially to accommodate any trailered vehicles that may be passing through those gates.
It sounds like you are making good progress on getting your site set up. Well done !
For some reason known only to heavy equipment engineers, excavators and backhoes use a different control pattern. IIRC the secondary arm swing and bucket curl are swapped, or something along those lines. Most rental excavators have the option to swap the controls. If you are learning, I suggest you learn the backhoe pattern because it’s more widely usable.
Also if you are learning, the correct way to dig with a “hoe” is to pull the arm in while controlling the bucket angle of attack and curling the bucket at the end of the stroke, NOT jabbing the bucket in the ground and ripping the ground out with the bucket curl.
I suspect you are in for an adventure, trying to dig holes for your tanks in mountainous terrain.
CZ; Something to keep in mind when hanging the gates: In OH and WV one robbery trick is for the thieves to bash the gates with their rear truck bumpers. Hang the gate above the height of most bumpers and they won’t do that (If they’re smart).