Quickie

Busy day today.  I was going to sneak off to Secret Location #1 to get some rocks on Tuesday, but it was awful rainy.  My 1998 Mazda B2500 SX pickup truck is not a monster truck. It’s not an off-road machine.  It is barely two-wheel drive.  It is loyal, though.  It has been born the loads of a couple of years of renovation work.  It has hauled cords of firewood.  This summer, it has already hauled five loads of rock, at least 2½ tons by my estimate. 

They were not easy loads.  Secret Location #1 is roughly half a mile into the woods, down a path not quite wide enough for a Mazda pickup truck.  The toughest part is a slippery little hill with rocks and roots.  I'm amazed that I haven’t knocked a hole in the gas tank or lost a muffler in the first four trips. 

Today, I had to drop my Cora off at school in Litchfield.  I hate to drop hints, but Secret Location #1 is vaguely on my way home from Litchfield, so I swung in for a load this morning.  In Tuesday's rain I  knew my little truck would not have made it up there.  This morning, I pretended the ground wasn’t wet and how far did that get me?  About three-quarters of the way up the hill.  Actually, it got me that far numerous times.  I decided to back up a bit more to get a better running start, but in the backing up, I managed to slide slightly off the trail.  Trying to get back only got me even further off.

Eventually, my little Mazda was trapped against some maple saplings in the rear with no traction to move forward.  I wandered for a while, collecting some heavy rocks for additional weight.  Then I headed back to the nearest house (perhaps owned by someone I know) and procured a saw with which to free my poor truck (sorry to the someone I may know for the couple of saplings).  It worked like a charm.

In mere minutes, my little white truck was again on the path and pointed uphill.  This time, we had the benefit of a couple hundred pounds of weight in the back for additional traction and we deftly climbed that hill and continued toward the stone.

The whole episode took longer than anticipated, but it did not keep me from tackling a new project that jumped right to the top of the project list.  Technically, I haven’t even added it to the list.  To free up some valuable counter space on our less-than-valuable wooden counters, we decided to move the microwave to our wall of shelves.  The only trouble with the wall of shelves is it has no electricity anywhere near it.

Now, I’m not an electrician.  I haven’t even played one on TV, but I’ve worked closely with a couple of friendly electricians in the course of building one house and renovating another.  I can do a few things without setting myself, or a structure on fire.  Time to head to Home Depot for a circuit breaker, 50 feet of Romex wire, an outlet, outlet box, cover plate and wire staples.  Is this the most important job on the list?  No, but it seemed like it could be accomplished in an afternoon, if all went well.  Besides, I’ll do anything to keep from doing my real work.

Lucky for me, the opposite side of the wall of shelves is a closet.  And if that weren’t enough, the wall had already been opened up in the past for the installation of a radon monitoring system and the sheetrock was merely screwed back into place.  It didn’t take long to locate where my outlet needed to be, drill a couple holes in the stud and the floor to the basement and feed some wire through.

Wiring the outlet was easy enough.  After that it was time to jam my hands into the circuit breaker box.  That’s not dangerous or anything, right?  I have my trusty dog-eared Home Depot Home Improvement 1-2-3 book to walk me through the electrical surgery.  A hot wire here, a ground there, and the circuit that was previously doing nothing now powers our shelved microwave.  Traffic flow in the kitchen with the Cool Moon-colored ceiling has now improved and I get to bank a few more marital points into my account.  Woo Hoo!

Okay, maybe that wasn’t that quick, but I hope you enjoyed my day.  Maybe I’ll do some real work tomorrow.  Or there’s always that list…

dave