November 26, 2008
Every so often the chimney on our wood stove needs to be cleaned.  I usually find out when the fire doesn't want to keep the water temperature hot enough.  I hate doing it the hard way so I have found a way that insures that I don't have to exert myself to much.  I open the small door at the base of the chimney and put in my tiger torch and get a good chimney fire going. For starters I have a nice plume of smoke that later turns to a flame up to 18" high.   I let it burn for a while and tap on the chimney and the soot drops to the bottom then I clean out at the base of the chimney and wow!  A nice chimney that draws again.

November 18, 2008
A nice crushing setup.  The working area around and under the conveyors and crusher was nice and neat.  I saw them driving around with a bobcat for cleaning up.  I thought that was kind of neat. Notice the line of conveyors running out on the right for stockpiling the finished product.  Sure saves on operating costs to stockpile this way.

November 4, 2008
This was one of those days when there was no wind.  Coming back from coffee break I noticed that the dragline was nicely mirrored on the surface of the water.  It's not something I see to often during the day and defiantly not while I'm working.

October 20, 2008
Now that the fire is out it's cleanup time.  All the steel and wire gets raked together and buried.  Then the concrete gets broken up and buried in the pits under the barn or in the lagoon that I cleaned out.

October 18, 2008
The fire department picked today to burn this barn so I had to move my dragline farther from the barn.  The wind was blowing from the south and they were concerned that my machine was to close.  It's amazing how fast a fire can spread.  It took about 5 to 8 minuets for the fire to spread throughout the barn from the fire they set at the left end of the barn.  The dragline is parked behind the fire truck on the right side of the picture.

October 13, 2008
I love the beautiful fall colors.  It's a pretty drive to our place in fall.  Too bad it only lasts for a short time.  And if it gets windy then the colored time is shortened.

October 11, 2008
Just cleaned up one lagoon and right away another one.  Walked the dragline for about a mile.   You enjoy the smell for about 10 minuets and then don't even notice it.  This is where you find out if you know what a dragline is all about.   You can see what you're doing and you have to watch that you don't dig holes into the clay liner.

October 8, 2008
Its been a long time since I cleaned out a lagoon.  I cleaned out this one three years ago.   This time they waited too long.  The sediment stretched out farther than I could reach.   The sediment comes from the sewage that is dumped into this corner of the lagoon.

September 28, 2008
When I left Blumenort this afternoon I saw a fire in the east.  It looked like it could be a mile or so east of PTH 12.   It turned out to be a full 4 miles east.  Someone was burning windrows of trees piled up from clearing the land.   It actually looked like it was a good day to burn with all the water sitting on the field.

September 1, 2008
One of many hills along the road.  This is located somewhere along I-94 in eastern Montana or western North Dakota.   It seemed like a lot of this area was set up for cattle.  When you left the interstate everything was fenced off and you went over a cattle gate when you entered the service road.

August 31, 2008
This is what I call a bare bones rest stop.  I guess because it's so dry they don't even have grass.   That way they don't have to water or mow to maintain it.  Even the building was just washroom.   It is located in Idaho on I-84

August 30, 2008
We traveled along Highway 101 along the coast.  This was one of many scenes we saw of the Pacific Ocean.

August 29, 2008
I got to sit in a plane I heard about as a child.  This plane was built in the '40's.  Here I'm sitting in the seat that Howard Hughs sat in to fly this plane.  This plane is made of laminated wood.   Most of the wood used was birch.

Every pilot needs a co-pilot and here is mine.

Can't forget my dragline fix for the day.   This is a 1988 70D.

August 28, 2008
I watched a 418 Linkbelt being unloaded.  The machine is going to be stripped down and sold as parts.  As it sits on the lowbed it weighs about 100,000 lbs.  The location is at Seattle Tractor in Tukwila, WA.  I get some of my parts from here.

Next I watched them load this NW 95-70.  It was located at Maytown, WA.  They were so concerned with weight that they removed the fairlead at the front of the machine.  They guys figured that they saved about a 1000 lbs.

Our next stop was in Stephenson, WA.  Here I checked out an 88B.  The serial number says that it is older than my machine but a lot of the parts had less wear than mine.  Probably helped that it was not used as a dragline.  It gets less wear and tear that way.

August 26, 2008
We went for a walk at the UBC campus.  There were some nice big trees along the walking trails.  Take note of the new tree growing out of the old stump.

There are some nice walking trails on the UBC campus.  They are nice for walking even if it has just rained overnight.

August 25, 2008
I had a nice birds eye view of the container shipping docks in Vancouver.  In fact a lot of the sea gulls were lower than I was.  This gives some idea of the volume of shipping being done. BC. & The shadow in the foreground is from the tower that I was on.

August 23, 2008
This has got to be one of the bigger trucks around.  It is capable of hauling 350 tons on one load.  It is located in Sparwood, BC.

August 8, 2008
Anyone care to make a guess how many yards of gravel are in this pile or the previous day.  This pile took about 5 hours to take out of the water and pile here.  Maybe I should make it interesting and give the closest guess a pen for a prize.  Might find out if anyone is looking.  I'll give it a month for the guesses to come in by email.  Today's pile is with the 88B and yesterdays is piled with the 80D.

August 7, 2008
This pile of gravel took about 9 hours to pile here. Check my next entry and look at the two pictures and make a guess as to the size of the piles.

July 1, 2008
We went to the Canada Day fireworks in Steinbach.  Would sure be nice to have a camera that you could set the shutter speed so that the shot would remain sharp even in the dark.