By popular demand.

By popular demand, I have taken some photos of the mangled and maligned right rear of the truck.


Fortunately I mashed the other tail light not too long ago, so I had the innards to zip tie onto the damage and get a temporary light on there.

I just can't seem to keep from putting holes in mah jeans and dents in mah truck....

(sounds like a terrible country song about a string of bad relationships....maybe I should move to Nashville.)

In other news, it looks like spring might be just around three or four more corners. I'm doing some more work in collaboration with Paul Baines Fine Woodworking. You can see a new barstool prototype on his Facebook that we are doing for a restaurant in Freeport, ME not far from L.L. Bean's.

And, I got the Honda Civic (henceforth to be called the Swamp-mobile or SM due to its ambient odor) running again after doing emergency surgery one evening last week. All she needed was a distributor transplant. She's scheduled for an elective O2 sensor-ectomy and transplant this spring but that can wait until excess funds are available. For now though, SM will convey me to work while the Dodge can stay home and think about why it should avoid stationary objects in the future.

Thats the news from the Country Estate.

Never enough.

How much snow is enough?

There is never enough snow......

Winter cannot last forever, however.

20 years ago, someone decided to put the corner of a building right where I would be trying to back up at 5:43AM on Thursday morning. This temporal intersection resulted in a physical collision of wood, metal and plastic. Coffee went everywhere. I think I only swore once, out loud. By the end of the day, I already had the insurance claim and an estimate to fix the damage. $5600.

The only problem is that I can't afford to have my truck in the shop for a week if its going to keep snowing every two days.

So, it comforts me that winter cannot last forever.

That is all.

A Particular Affliction

A particular affliction of some vehicle owners (myself included) is STS (stuck truck syndrome). From what I understand, it runs in families, so if I have it, my brother is also at risk whether he has manifested symptoms yet or not. In our case, my brother manifested symptoms around the same time I did, though he was in snow, and I was in mud at the time.


Above and below we see the typical symptoms of STS manifested: The four-wheel drive equipped truck, bottomed out on something unyielding and in this case, the front end buried in four feet of snow.



The afflicted truck owner, surveying the 'stuck-ness' of the rear differential on the ice and snow.


Maybe if I attach the hook here I can put another dent in my bumper....


The real culprit in this episode of STS is the desire to help someone out by pushing the snow a little bit farther back than the regular plow guy could. Things just go down hill from there until the 'friend with big truck' is called and offered a six-pack of the beer of his choice to come administer the cure. It is important for the afflicted truck owner to keep their cool and remember that you will get unstuck, someday. It may not be today. When we did finally get her out, we missed the edge of the house by mere inches.


Said 'friend with big truck' did not wish to be identified lest the world find out how good natured and helpful he really is.

After getting the truck unstuck, I got to chill out and play some bass for the first time in three years with my friend Julian.

We need a drummer.

And lastly, the main things I look forward to after snow plowing are the delectable treats one of my customers bakes for me in lieu of payment.
Two pies and a coffee cake will keep my sweet tooth satisfied until the next snow storm

And that's the news from the Country Estate. Bundle up, its gonna be a cold one tonight!

Meanwhile back at the Ranch

Greetings from Northern New England, the part of the country that is supposedly in the 'deep freeze'. I just can't understand the hype surrounding the weather these days. What were you expecting in the middle of Winter at 45 degrees north latitude? Beach weather? Its like Winter is back to the old days of walking to school ten miles up hill both ways. Put on a scarf and quit yer whining!


But seriously, the sensationalism of weather reporting reflects two facets of modern life: everything has to be extreme to attract advertisers AND everyone cares about the weather so much because hardly anyone spends any significant amount of time outside. That said, I was outside yesterday at the Land of Goshen (also know as the Wagner Estate)

We've had a bit of new snow recently, about a foot over the weekend. Its time to get out the snowshoes, because without them you're up past your knees in snow.

Looking northwest along Ben Brook

Now looking south along Ben Brook.

Southeast into the woods.


Wags, the younger.

Back north towards the Egypt Road.

As promised, here is a quick numerical run down of all things vehicular:

2004 Dodge Ram 2500 SLT (weighing in around 6800lbs with me an my tools)
Since June 2009 acquisition:

9703 miles driven

$8319.33 All in cost of operation (I know! a $3500 down payment really adds to upfront cost)

$0.60/mile of payments + down payment

$0.86/mile All-in cost (Fuel, Ins, payments, maintenance)
or
$40.58 per day of ownership whether I drive it or not.

12.34 mpg overall ( about 8mpg when plowing )

$786.51 total fuel cost
or
$0.215 per mile

Service performed: 1 oil change in the driveway in six months and its due for one now.

Conclusions: a 3/4 ton truck gets terrible fuel economy no matter how you slice it. I knew that going into it. The overall cost of operation will decrease as the miles driven increases versus the payments + downpayment, but maintenance will likely increase as the truck takes on more miles (its in the shop right now....). Looking back, maybe I should have bought a $5000 used truck and had no payments, but maybe would have had more maintenance issues, like getting stranded. Its all about trade-offs with vehicles, there really is no-winning, just throwing more money into an ever widening, never-satiated black hole......I digress.

Better news ahead:

2001 Mercedes-Benz E-320 4matic wagon:
Since June 2008 acquisition:

36,645 total miles

$14,574.29 All-in cost of operation

$0.40/mile all in cost
or
$25.22 per day of ownership

$0.12/mile fuel
$0.28/mile other costs (payments, maint, insurance)

$4721.60 total fuel cost

at

24.66 mpg overall (not bad for a 4000lb vehicle with 123000 miles on it)

Service Performed since acquisition: left tie rod replaced, front ball joints replaced, alignment performed, front and rear brakes (pads and rotors) replaced, spark plugs replaced, tires replaced (new tires constantly leak due to corrosion from road salt/calcium chloride), several marker and headlight bulbs replaced, wiper blades replaced (front still doesn't work very well), exterior temp sensor non-functional and non-essential, four full-synthetic oil changes, and it needs the electronic throttle looked at soon.

Conclusions: the car gets expected fuel economy, rides pretty much like a luxury car should (like a tank!). Parts and repairs are relatively expensive, but compared to the miles we put on are pretty reasonable. Overall cost of operation is less than the federal mileage rate ($0.55/mile) and less than half of the Dodge. Payments are low ($221/month compared with Dodge @ $350/month). BUT, the rugged driving conditions are starting to take their toll. In Maine, its always a race against the rust.

I got a little spooked by the rust and leaky tires just after Christmas and went to a couple car dealerships to see what I could get into for a similar payment. The answer is: not much. The only thing we really liked was the 2009 Dodge Nitro and its payments would have been $430 month! Other vehicles we test drove:

2008 Ford Escape: plasticky garbage
2008 Chrysler Pacifica: rides like minivan, drives like a minivan, why not get a minivan for $5000 less? Also I expected more out of a 4.0liter engine. Lame.
2007 Subaru Legacy sedan: ok, but too small and plasticky

And I've got a 2005 Dodge Intrepid loaner vehicle from the dealership and it is a piece of junk, but its a loaner......

After all that, we really decided that the Benz 'is what it is' and that is better than 90% of the other cars out there.

In other news, my work schedule has slowed considerably. A regular mid-winter slump. A run down to work on Cape Cod is not out of the question as early as next week....

News from the Country Estate June 14

Greetings from the well-soaked Country Estate!

-The week or so of nice weather (nice for us humans) broke last week with rain, rain and more rain. It rains now in fact. This is all good news for the garden up to a point. The peas, pumpkins, kohlrabi and turnips are doing well, everything else ranges from so-so to dead. If we were subsistence farmers, we'd be worried, but as it is, we say, well you've got to start somewhere. Here is a a recent self-portrait of the eastern branch of the Wagner clan/Maine-branch of the Ruff-Wagner clan. Some of you's have not seen KT's hair short or my face be-goateed. The goat is a recent occurrence for me, but KT's easily-maintained-do is at least four months old. She might add that she is not making any statement other than that of living a simple life expressed through the hair-follicles. As it is, I think she's quite presentable with or without hair :) (Thanks to In-Law Amy for the Bean plaid shirt, it fits great!)


In other news, two weeks or so of stress for me comes to an end as I start work on a new project tomorrow and money flows in again. Not a moment too soon too as big blue trucks don't pay for themselves literally. Its not until they start carting around tools and materials that they begin to make sense. With that in mind I forced the rack I built for the Chevy onto the Italian Stallion (now that Chrysler is owned by Fiat that name seems fitting). Oddly enough the bed of the new truck is two inches wider in the front that the Chevy. Installing the now dry and brittle hemlock posts was not without its challenges. The bed on the new truck is also three inches longer than the Chevy requiring new side planks at a full 8 feet. The result:

I will be putting the whole rig through its paces tomorrow morning. I'll be loaded to the gills with ladders, tools, planks, saw horses and the like for the job on Thompson Lake. We've got two timber frames to raise, one hand cut in Hemlock and one machine cut by South County Post and Beam of West Kingston, RI in Douglas Fir. This will be our first time raising a machine cut frame. It will also be my first time in this particular part of Maine:


Ver mapa más grande

In addition to raising the timberframes we'll be enclosing the buildings with structural insulated panels from Winter Panel in Brattleboro, VT. All that raising and enclosing means a lot of time working with a crane and working on the roofs--exactly the kind of work I had in mind for myself when I was five!

KT sends her greetings to all y'all in the blogosphere and interweb

That's the way it looks from here.

News from the Country Estate June 10, 2009

Greetings,

-Back in Maine, the way life should be, waiting out a rainy week, dodging Black Flies, mosquitos and ticks.

-The garden soldiers on despite a concerted attack of the local slug contingent:

Collateral damage, a mostly eaten butternut squash.

-I've pretty much given up on the butternut squash. Its a little late to be planting more. There are a few water melons hanging on, as the slugs don't seem to like them as much.

Tomatoes in the bed next to the deck.

The right half is our garden, the left is our landlords'.

Peas Left, Turnips Right.

Lettuce/Onions/Kohlrabi Left, Sweet Basil Right.

Open sown corn and beans. Only the beans are coming up.

A hill of pumpkins.

Spring chickens. John Barleycorn, the lieutenant rooster is on the left.

The Commodore, the dominant rooster, front and center.

-In other news, the transportation infrastructure has changed, as I have traded the 2005 Chevy for a 2004 Dodge 2500 with only 22,500 miles and everything on it. It came with a 8.5 foot Fisher V-plow.

Snazzy. And supremely useful.

Plow and newly painted boat trailer

-I also recently traded some labor for a lightly used but in working order job-box for my voluminous amounts of tools. Now I can lock them securely in box weighing close to 500lbs. My theory for preventing theft is to make it supremely inconvenient to steal my stuff. You can never make something completely secure because if someone wants something bad enough, they'll find a way to get it. But if it is sufficiently inconvenient to take something, it will keep something 99% secure. The other thing is to keep the other subcontractors on your site happy, because if they're mad at you, they're more likely to take it out on your tools.

-The rain and wetness continues.

---W---

News from the Country Estate, May 17

Greetings,

I mentioned an impromptu trip to New Hampshire with a tractor in tow. It was this tractor, dwarfing my puny Chevy 1500. I was a little nervous, but I was assured that an F150 with a smaller engine had made the trip. We estimated that the tractor and trailer weighed double what my truck weighs, probably topping 10,000 lbs.





She made it ok. It was a little slow going and a little bouncy with the hydraulic brakes traveling a few inches before engaging, especially around the Gorham/Standish area. When we disconnected the rig it was like a great weight had been lifted from our shoulders.

I've still got a nasty cough hanging on.

It rains, and rains.

Boing

Well Hello there spring chicken! The cute little chicks of 8 weeks ago are looking more and more hen-ish every day. They're out in the coop now and if its warm enough we let them venture out into the chicken yard.

I've been pretty busy working. I'm back to timberframing. we're working on a four-bent two story frame in Douglas Fir. We just started laying out posts and connectors today. For the last three days we had been working on a barn restoration in the North Whitefield. My truck was all loaded up with staging and tools from that job in the picture below.

In the background you can see a set of braces for another frame that I helped cut recently, as well as the my motorcycle and a Fisher Minute-mount plow that I bought a few weeks back. As you can see, the grass is greening up nicely with the April showers. What you can't see is that the driveway is still a mud-pit as we enter Mud-Season Part II: Return of the Ruts. To top it off, the truck needs new tires, so the mud really gets slick. I'm thinking of lifting the truck 3 inches or so and getting a set of more aggressive tires so I don't get stuck as often.

We still haven't gotten the garden in. Maybe we'll get some peas planted this weekend. Its supposed to be 74 degrees on Saturday. I managed to kill all my seedlings by splitting them up and then forgetting to water them because I was busy working. I think I'll try again though, putting fewer seeds in each peat-pot and watering them more often.

I said ooh, aah fhwgds.....

-w--

Planting

Greetings,

Since the yard is a big mud pit and the tractor won't start (without a jump) and I was gettin' antsy about gardening, I went out and bought a bunch of seeds to start (and some more to plant when the ground dries out). So here is how much gardening adventure begins with a bunch of seeds, eight-packs and some potting soil. So far I've got lettuce, onions, kohlrabi, turnips, cucumbers, tomatoes, basil and chives/garlic started. By the time they need to be transplanted, the ground should be a little closer for cultivation. I've got big plans!

(Help! my hand is caught in the jaws of a potting soil monster!)

Some of the veggies I plan to grow.

A little update on vehicle performance to please the numerically and automotively inclined. After 10 months of ownership and 21500 miles (its at 107500 now), the Benz continues to carry us wherever we wish to go with little complaint. Winter took its toll on the fuel economy and body with the car now averaging 23.35 mpg and having developed some small rust spots around the wheel wells and the drivers side door threshold. At that mileage rate (with fuel costs averaging 2.929 from 91/93) the car costs about $.125 per mile for fuel, $.113 per mile for repairs etc, and $.152 per mile for payments on the loan. All of that adds up to exactly $.39 per mile for the all in cost of running the vehicle, which seems low but its due for a tuneup (Benz's need periodic infusions of cash to keep them happy, so ~$500-1000) and for insurance at the end of this month. Those will certainly bring the cost per mile closer to the IRS deduction rate of 55 cents per mile. But the numbers don't lie, a working-class couple with no children can afford a newish Mercedes if its bought used/pre-broken-in.

The truck, oh the truck, how I wish I would have bought a bigger one! After 6 months and 6274 miles of driving, the truck has averaged 14.47 mpg and (at an average fuel cost of $1.968 for 87) $.131 per mile for fuel. Repairs and maintenance have been minimal at $.06 per mile, while loan payments come to $.39 per mile! which brings the truck's all in cost to about $.59 per mile which will be even higher soon as I plan to put a lift kit on it, new tires, and a plow (and pay new insurance...). In the final analysis, the truck is (per mile) way more expensive than the Mercedes, but it is a necessary tool for my carpentry business, otherwise I'd probably drive a little honda or something (I ran the numbers on adding a 35 mpg or so honda civic to the fleet and even saving $4/day on fuel it doesn't even come close to making financial sense).

Anyway, I find it incredibly interesting to see where all the money goes.

----W----

All loaded up.

Greetings from the Country Estate,

Its been a busy week here, with most of the snow melting, lots of mud, and work, work, work on this and that. I'm trying to figure out how and where to do a garden, knowing that it probably won't yield very much this year. We'll see what happens. Knowledge of how to grow your own food is essential country dweller knowledge, so I better get started.

In other news, I feel great knowing that my ownership of GM vehicle is backed by the most powerful government on the planet. Now I know who to call when it breaks down.

We've made a half-hearted attempt at boiling our own maple syrup this year. Like the gardening, I think next year will be better....

I've been busy trying to get my own economic stimulus package going. Lately, an opportunity to work in a furniture/cabinet shop has opened up, so I've been sanding stool seats and legs a bit this week ( see the stools here or below). Coming up I'll be lending a hand to our glass-blowing friends over at Tandem Studio and Gallery who are in the middle of a gallery remodel at their studio in Dresden, ME. If you're in the market for hand-made glass anything, give them a holler!

Hand-blown tumblers.

These hand-made stools are available directly from craftsman Paul Baines at his website.

The truck all loaded up with brace stock.

Its not that often that I have a good reason to stand on top of the truck, so I take all the chances I can get.

All loaded up.

Three week old chickens, examining the wider world of the laundry room. Occasionally one gets pushed out and lands on the floor looking incredibly bewildered.

More chickens exploring the chicken condo.

I've added a roosting board in the middle since many of them are beginning to roost on various things in the condo. They still all sleep in a pile near the heat lamp though.

That's the news from the Country Estate. Until next time, like Garrison Keillor says, Be well, Do good work, and Keep in touch.

----w----