Jeep

Went out to play in the Mud flats yesterday. Had a great time. The Jeep is so light and the tires are quite wide so we could go where no one else could, even some of the four wheelers. Lots of fun but I bet right about now someone hates me. They are going to look at my tracks and think if they did it so can I. No you can't!




It is quite funny out on the clay. Even in 2 wheel drive it lacks the HP to spin the tires. I am running around on the top of 30 feet of sticky clay gumbo and I can't even spin a doughnut. Pathetic. After we left we did some hill climbing, some of the slopes must have been in excess of 50 degrees so I guess that is something.

We were supposed to have good footage of pulling out on the road and shaking off the mud. You can see it sticking to the side of the tires in the pic. Some one pushed the wrong button so no footage. It was quite amusing, like driving between two brown waterfalls. If you have ever run in gumbo then got up to speed you will have an idea what it was like.



The dog has taken to sleeping on the stairs in the trailer. I think she misses the closed space of her kennel. The cone keeps her out you see. Doesn't look comfortable does it?

Catch up if you can!

Wow lots going on. The Dog in true form has taken a rather minor break and turned it into a months long ordeal. She chewed through her splint one night and licked and gnawed herself right down to the tendons. Oh but wait there is more! She then proceeded to bight the pad off the bottom of that foot.



We now have to drive up and over the hill to Ennis twice a week to have the wounds drained, cleaned, abraded, sterilized and packaged back up. She will be out of the splint long before she has healed up. My advice, BUY THE DAMN CONE FIRST NEXT TIME!

The family was up to do a little digging over our break. I think great fun was had by all. We were out at this location called the Lion's place.


It is the homesteaded sheep ranch of the Lion's brothers from the early teens. Great little stream running through the place, lots of Garnets to be had. My brother came with his (my?) brothers-in-law and they got some gopher shooting in prior to digging. The little guy had a blast.



Real neat slot canyon on the place, little waterfalls and pools with overhanging plants and cactus. It is called the rock garden by the people who own the land now.



Stopped and explored an old overland stage stop on the way back to camp. Didn't find much. Some old horseshoe nails and a shovel handle.


Rail News:
Several things going on.

One my little nephew got to sit in No. 8 to ring the bell and blow the whistle. Little boys and trains, made for each other.



The Nevada City Depot has little natural ventilation so I made some ornamental window screens to help. Painted to match the locomotives.





A rail crossing was also in need of repair. Dirt washed down from the road was filling the tracks in and the driving rods on the steam engine were just kissing the ground. I dug it all out, discovering in the process that one of the timbers was bad, removed and replaced it.



I have spent allot of time driving No. 8 as one of our engineers quit.
Action Video!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6B07i3hRuw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrY1Fo7HmGc

The more time I spent in it the more the horrible growl from the trans axle bothered me. Before we pulled it offline it was making a rhythmic crunch. Normally we could work on the old girl while the steam engine is running but that is shut down due to fire danger. We cleaned up, repaired, rebuilt and assembled a spare trans axle only to find out in the moment of insertion that it is slightly different even if visually identical. We are running an 1 7/8 axle and the spare is 2 1/16. No big deal the mounts are the same, and the larger axle would be stronger except we only had one hub. Hard to drive a train with only one back wheel. We could (and did) order one but it would be 4 days before it arrived. Now it was going to get difficult. Canceling one of our trains for the day has a ripple effect through out the towns of Nevada and Virginia Cities. Lots of money is lost and not just by us. Pulling both of our trains offline for 5 days would be a very unpopular move.




We had a full set of gears for either axle and could rebuild the bad one real quick except for one issue, it was bent. Some time in the distant past something very bad happened and a 1/4 bow in a 36" axle was the result. Several misguided attempts were made with jacks and hammers before we hit upon the proper tool. It is called a Jim Crow (don't ask me why) and is used to bend railroad rail for curves. It was up to the task of straightening our axle. It is my new "must have one" thing for Christmas.



Well we did it, the 1/4 inch wobble was cut to 1/16. Sure you wouldn't want to take that out on the road but under a under a glorified speeder car traveling 6 MPH it was high cotton. She is back on the rails today after a down time of 1 1/2 days, whisper smooth.