It’s time to start preparing for getting older. Moving the 200# rocks is not as easy as it used to be so I am now compensating for my infirm condition by buying a mechanical aid. Hence the purchase of a brand new mini excavator! It can only pick up a 500# rock but I figured that was enough. It will also dig the new water line trenches I had planned on installing. I might even try to get a new power line 50A, 240V line installed to the machine shed. It will definitely help with the new rock wall I want to install on the front hillside. I had to drive over to Idaho mid week to pick it up. It rode just fine once we figured out how to lower the boom to the trailer deck so that we could strap the boom in place and stop all movement. The new and improved farm diesel pickup got almost 15 MPG, which is a big improvement over the old pickup which only got 10 MPG.

I have been reading up on common problems with the mini excavators and I need to go through and check all hydraulic connections, all fluid levels, every bolt needs to be tightened and it needs to be greased up. Once all of that is done then I should be ready to make it do some work. That is going to be my next week’s project.

I had to repair a wooden block toy that used to be Sarah’s when she was a baby. The box was coming apart so I ended up removing one side, sanding it down and then gluing it back together. I got a little clamp happy but I truly believe that there can never be enough clamps on a project. We use the box to pick up all the wooden blocks scattered all over the living room, so it is needed. We put together a wooden toy chest last week so when the grandson is gone all of the toys can be easily corralled and controlled.

The Gingerman scored a “Glimakra standard countermarch 10 pedal floor loom” from Facebook marketplace for free. I just know it is big! We had to move the table and chair and clear out a whole corner of Annmarie’s office so the loom can be assembled. The kid’s brought down half of it this weekend. We have some pictures of it when it was assembled so it will be fun to get it together. It is 90 years old! The paperwork came with it. It looks like a few pieces had to be recreated as they broke/wore out. We won’t really know if it is all there until we try and assemble it. We are hoping we at least have one of the two pieces so we can just mirror a missing piece and cut it out ourselves. It will be a long weekend to get it assembled correctly. Annmarie is super excited! It is designed to speed up production and we are starting to get a lot of alpaca fiber so she could make rugs for the house fairly quickly. I am told there may be something else I have to make that will make it easier to put the thread onto the loom. She had a name for it but I forgot what it was.