Oct 2 - rocky, almost finished

I finished "grouting" the top flat rocks on the rock wall yesterday, putting grout in apostrophes because it's not really grout, it's mortar made with play sand and portland cement. I want to do some more with the face of the wall, inserting mortar in some of the larger spaces, but I'll have to create a non-runny mixture for that application. Perhaps if I spray the face with water then it will be lubricated enough for the mortar to adhere ... hmmm.

I diddled with my Homelite chainsaw yesterday. Boy, that purchase was a mistake. I got it running easily enough, even though I never even started the motor last year. Then I couldn't get the chain moving. Off with the chain and bar and then off with the clutch, finally figured out that it was the brake that was causing the problem. It's rubbing, probably always has now that I think of how the darn thing runs, and there is no adjustment. If I hold it at the same time that I hold the handle, it runs ok. Perhaps I'll simply bungee it to the handle, leaving it free, but then I don't have a quick brake ... but I can always hit the "off" switch. As I said, this purchase was a mistake.

A small maple had fallen down by my burn pile, so I cut that up and put the pieces in the woodpile. Another small maple was standing dead, between there and the road and I cut that as well. I should probably have a go at sharpening the chain. I've got the tool but never tried it. We were going to do the same with Jason's, which is so dull that he probably can't cut a refrigerated stick of butter until the chain warms up :).

Jim's coming over this morning for 9am and we'll take down that hemlock. Hopefully it won't fall on the barn. Yes, I'll have my hard-hat on. I'm just about finished burning the last batch of hemlock, so timing is perfect. This one will sit until 2013 before I start burning it. The one tree will make more than two cords of wood, so I'll have to setup a place to pile the wood.

What else did I do ... not much. I could have gone biking, but these other activities used up much of the day. I'll go tomorrow.

Oh yes, I did do some fiddling with the computer (see, I fiddle and diddle) -- setting up Linux/VMware/Windows to run on another drive. That way if the "live" drive fails, I have a place to start working again on this pc. I also archived all the emails in my Outlook.pst because Outlook wasn't compacting the file, leaving it at 650mb even though there was only 250mb of emails. I archived everything, created a new .pst, imported the contacts and calendar to this new .pst and filed away the old in case there's a problem. My "live" .pst file is now only a few mb, making it easier to take quick backups. What I really need to do is create a script that 1) stops Outlook, 2) backs up the file, 3) restarts Outlook, and I can have that script run every night. I'll have to research that one. My archive file is now 1.7gb, but with weekly backups and since I don't archive very often -- a couple of times per year -- I can always go back to a working version of that file if it gets corrupted.

Onward ...