Just About....

This past Saturday (23 Feb 2013), BIL Mark and I went to a small auction a couple miles from our house. I think that there were probably, besides the auctioneer, about a dozen "English" there, and around 75-80 Amish. Most of the items on the sale were geared toward Amish, but I (and Mark) enjoy some of the same types of things.

Besides, I helped a neighbor haul some of the things up there, so I knew a lot of what was on the sale. I also knew I wanted.....er.....NEEDED a few things they had.

Like 95 new concrete blocks for 35¢ each....

There were also a few small things I paid $1 for, and a forge for $5.



Mark got a pretty good size pile of galvanized tin for next to nothing. So, we had concrete blocks, tin, and a few other things to haul back. One of our Amish neighbors bought the other stack of 90 blocks (he paid 45¢ for his....snicker....), so he asked if I would haul them for him. Then, HIS BIL asked if we had room for a mower he bought (one of the old horse drawn hay mowers), and some other things, since they went to pretty much the same place.

Well, we loaded up the trailer in short order, then headed out to unload it. Since it was warming up pretty good, we nearly got stuck in his yard! We were lucky to escape. At his BIL's house, we didn't even go into the lane, we just dumped his things by the road, and he took them on up to the house on a sled.

They rode back to the auction, and helped us load our stuff and even paid for gas!

Well, Mark decided that it had better be frozen out before we attempt to get the trailer back to his "tin pile", so we waited until this morning to get the trailer unloaded. It was still kind of "fun" getting the trailer to move in the direction I wanted it to, but the tin got unloaded, and we never would have gotten it back there if the ground wasn't frozen.

Speaking of tin......

Over the past month or two (with taking time out for having the flu....), I have been trying to round up all the materials I need for building my shop. It hasn't been EASY, but it hasn't been HARD, either! The biggest problem has been steering around the weather.

I managed to spot a good sized pile of tin nearby, and finally got a hold of the owner 2-3 weeks ago, and made the deal.

Of course, being sick during the week of 50 degree high temps we had didn't help. Right when I started to feel better, we got 6" of snow.

That effectively ended any chance of hauling tin until the snow melted. Since there is supposed to be another winter storm heading our way this evening and tomorrow, I decided to drive by the "stack" of tin, and see if it were feasible to try to dig some out. I was pleasantly surprised to see most of the snow gone from the top of the tin. I only had to slide it from two pieces. After that, the pile was "fair game".

I came home, hooked up the trailer (that I had just UN-hooked a couple hours earlier....), and we headed into town to see what we could do. It didn't take long to load 19 sheets of 20' tin onto my 16' trailer. It just "feels" better, knowing the tin is in MY yard, instead of his. He also has a few boards there we need, but I am pretty sure I have enough tin. There is still a good sized pile laying there, so if I run short, it SHOULDN'T be hard to get a couple more sheets.



I think I am down to a couple 2x10's and some 2x4's, and I am ready to get started.

Remember, everyone is invited to come join in the "shop raising"!

HOPEFULLY, sometime in April.