As much as I don't like to go to Dallas for company business, I went today and I will be there four days next week. Next week is recurrent Taxi & Engine Runup training. Today I attended the Women in Maintenance luncheon honoring Southwest Airlines (SWA) President, Colleen Barrett. While working for SWA for over 15 years, I have never met Colleen. I guess that is another negative of working the graveyard shift. Anyway, Colleen started as secretary for SWA back in 1967. Today's luncheon was to honor Colleen and all she has done for SWA and women in aviation. It was a hoot. We heard a lot of humorous stories of past male co workers and bosses. We were laughing the whole time. Colleen is really a compassionate, caring lady that loves to award teamwork and hard work. I got to sit with coworkers from Houston. A mechanic coworker from Houston also attended the luncheon. I haven't seen her in over a year. A year ago she had fallen at work and cracked her cheek bone. When she was ready to come back to work, she was told she had to lift 90 pounds (as a mechanic) in a "return to work" fitness test. Like me, she was livid over the ordeal. I really don't understand why we are told we need to lift 90 or 100 pounds when the requirements we were hired under still states up to 50 pounds. It really baffles me. Anyway, I had a good time today and glad I went.
Since my last post, I have been working on my neighbor's back fence line clearing it for a new fence. There is an old barbed wire fence there, so I have to remove all the barbed wire. I am rolling it up in 2 foot diameter circles to make Christmas wreaths. It is heavily wooded along this fence row. I have been using the Big Red Beast's backhoe and thumb to clear a lot of the brush. It is slower than dozing the brush with the loader bucket, but it leaves more fertile soil and ground cover in place.
Since my last post, I have been working on my neighbor's back fence line clearing it for a new fence. There is an old barbed wire fence there, so I have to remove all the barbed wire. I am rolling it up in 2 foot diameter circles to make Christmas wreaths. It is heavily wooded along this fence row. I have been using the Big Red Beast's backhoe and thumb to clear a lot of the brush. It is slower than dozing the brush with the loader bucket, but it leaves more fertile soil and ground cover in place.
I have also been working on their driveway. It is a long easement and has a lot of pot holes. For fuel money only, I have been hauling loamy clay and spreading it on their driveway. Imagine my surprise when they brought over a handful of 20 dollar bills and gave them to me. I think I need to get busy finishing their driveway. I have been waiting for some dryer weather, as I don't want to give them a bigger mud mess to drive through.
I installed a tool box finally. I decided I needed one when I drove the Mahindra over to work on my neighbor's driveway. I am glad I added a tool box on the 6520, as it really is handy to have odds and ends along with you. Tools are good to have also! Along with the tool box, I added an inexpensive temperature gauge to the canopy. This is my way of reminding myself to stop having fun when it is too hot and go inside and take a break. I can work for hours and need the reminder of that gauge staring at me. While I was wiring in my forward canopy work lights, Luke came out and snapped a few photos. I took some of him also.
I installed a tool box finally. I decided I needed one when I drove the Mahindra over to work on my neighbor's driveway. I am glad I added a tool box on the 6520, as it really is handy to have odds and ends along with you. Tools are good to have also! Along with the tool box, I added an inexpensive temperature gauge to the canopy. This is my way of reminding myself to stop having fun when it is too hot and go inside and take a break. I can work for hours and need the reminder of that gauge staring at me. While I was wiring in my forward canopy work lights, Luke came out and snapped a few photos. I took some of him also.
You can view them here. I had a few large logs laying in the way of cutting the grass, so I took almost a whole afternoon doing nothing but cutting up large logs. I cut so many logs with the chainsaw my hands tingled all evening. Needless to say I didn't finish cutting up the logs. These logs are larger in diameter than the length of my 20 inch chain saw! The afternoon I was cutting firewood, I brought my ferrets, Sneaky & Phoebe, along with Luke's cat, Milo, outside in their carry cages while I opened up 4 roach bombs in the house. I took the critters out to the barn and put them on the tailgate of my truck. Sneaky and Phoebe thought it just another reason for more raisins, while Milo continued to Meow until she fell asleep.
Dad's lawn mower is broken and since my zero turn mower is faster, I have been hauling it over on my 20 foot gooseneck trailer. It takes a lot of fuel to pull the gooseneck. I had an old pop-up tent trailer laying out by the barn just begging me to fix it up. So I took a few days and had it narrowed and the railroad iron counterweight welded on the tongue, removed. It was added to balance out the compact air conditioner added in the back wall of the pop-up. Then I installed a 2x6 treated deck to it, along with complex, detailed, hinged ramps and an up latch assembly. As I had the trailer hitched to my truck, I employed the 6520's loader bucket as a floor jack and lifted the rear of the trailer up to install jack stand seated on 8 inch thick blocks of oak. It is finished now except installing the light's wiring harness. I need to get a license plate for it also. But for now, I have "borrowed" the plate off of the gooseneck. I do need to repack the wheel bearings. No telling how many miles my friend, Josephine, put on it before giving it to me.
It looks like I will not be getting any concrete poured this month. My truck's air conditioner has a slow leak in it and after next week's trip to Dallas for recurrent taxi training, I have to put it in the shop for further troubleshooting. I had the coil replaced two years and ago, so I hope it isn't that again. When I took it in last Tuesday morning, the technician said the leak is low in the system. So it could be some road debris that caused a leak in a line. I hope it is something that simple, as components are $$$$ to replace. So stop back later to see if I gave all my $$$$ to the air conditioning repair shop!
Oh yeah, I have been invited to Kentucky to work in a chicken house. Well, to see a chicken house and go horseback riding. I don't know when I will get to go. My question is, can you guess who did the inviting?
hugs, Brandi
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