9.28.2018

 There was a little rain this morning but Jim was able to get outside and continue some pole barn work, building up the girts on the building.

 The snowblower was scheduled to arrive today; Jim was told he would get a call 30 minutes before they arrived.  Of course, that didn't happen.  Jim also was under the impression that it would be delivered by a semi truck; instead, a bigger box truck came up the driveway in the early afternoon.

However, you can see from this picture that it wasn't strapped down properly or positioned correctly on the pallet.  So instead of just pulling up to the truck with the Bobcat and taking off the pallet with the forks, it was a big production.  Jim had to get up on the truck and try to help the driver get things positioned.  Seeing as how this attachment weighs about 800 pounds, no one was moving it by hand!

They tried to position it sideways so that Jim would be able to hook on to the attachment directly with the Bobcat, but that was extremely difficult too.

Jim finally was able to use the straps and pull it towards the end of the truck with the Bobcat.

But as you can see, it is sitting very precariously on the pallet so it wasn't easy.

Finally, it was to the point where Jim could reach into the back of the truck and connect to the attachment.

Bringing it off the truck...

Whew - success!  As you can see, it looks almost brand new!  The decals aren't even scratched or dirty.  Jim really found a wonderful piece of equipment.

Just from visual inspection, the only issue is that one of the connections has a tear in the wire housing - it looks like it got pinched at some point.  Jim will contact the dealer to see if they will help with that.

That is one mean looking snowblower!

But no time to play - back to working on the pole barn!  He got the header started in the back...

The outside headers are all complete!

Jim started working on the permanent bracing but this took some calculation.  Jim had to figure out exactly where the brace would end up after the concrete pad is poured.

Next step is to create the mortise sections on the posts for the inside headers.  These cuts have to be deeper so Jim got out his bigger saw.

 To make the chiseling part of this job a tad easier, Jim bought a new chisel - that is a big one!

Starting to chisel out the cuts...

Makes this job a bit easier to have a bigger chisel!

Cleaning up the area...

First one all done!

Then Jim "fixed the newel post" - so much of our family jokes come from Christmas Vacation!  Just in case you aren't familiar with the scene...

 

Jim's version...cutting off the top of the interior posts...

End-of-the-day picture - Jim got 2 more posts cut out and the first piece of interior header put in place!
 

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