As part of our agreement we were allowed to clean up the battle pond area, mow the area, and rebuild the storage shed for our use. We started our first workday this past weekend and it was some work.. what I thought was a 1 day build.. will be a total of 3 workdays the way things are looking. The shed will be built upon the remains of the old transmitter impound shed that had rotted away. At one point it was a nice little building but as it used untreated siding.. it rotted away over an unknown period of years. The building is approximately 8x8 so that should give us room for rakes, shovels, small mower, shelves, and other things we need to host events and more importantly a place to store 50lb CO2 bottles overnight. We started by clearing all the small trees, sticker bushes, and other vegetation that had grown around the shed. Once that was done Ted got in on the mower and chopped it all down. We found a big metal pipe buried in the brush so I had to tow that off but was briefly stuck due to the soft ground but got out. Once the mowing was done Doug and John (our new guy, God bless him) worked on the shed. The first issue with the shed is overall it was not plum/square and the front had sunk down lower than the rest of the shed. Also some of the 4x4 had rotted so we had to discard those as well. The solution was to dig out the bottoms of the poles, dig another hole nearby, and lever the shed up until it was level.. with a 2x4 sideways across the fulcrum of some 2x4's.. which was levered by our new young recruit John (this is where the God bless him) comes in. We broke for lunch and headed over to the Thirsty Parrot for some very good cheeseburgers and hung out for a bit. The Thirsty Parrot is a small bar and grill that the biker crowd (not banditos.. bankers that dress like them and drive their 30K Harleys around and stop by) likes to visit. As they are not bound by city rules of course .. this day it was the Smokey Parrot but the waitress turned on a fan and all was well. After lunch work on the shed resumed with framing after which the flooring started to go in but by that point it was nearly 4pm with darkness approaching a pond with no lights in the area .. not even close. While the shed was being worked on Ted and Johnny worked on painting the siding and trim pieces which were not pressure treated I am sorry to say. Oh well next time.. we get treated. At the end of the day we packed up and set a date for 2 weeks away to work on the shed further. I took a nice shot of the sun setting over the pond.. a shot I like to take of most any pond/lake when I get the chance... its one of the things that keeps me coming back to all this... I want to thank Doug, Ted, and John for the volunteer labor and donations as well as Dirty Dave who donated but was unable to attend for medical reasons.. he is now on injured reserve.... (elbow) If you want to follow the build then please follow our facebook page which can be reached at https://www.facebook.com/texasnavalbrigade Build event page - View: https://www.facebook.com/events/1837958839808316/
Hahaha ... and Ted.. and Doug.. and John.... and Dirty Dave!! (I want to give all due credit where its due)
We all look forward to it. I am not sure if we will do a regional this year yet I will have to see whats left on the IRC schedule.. its getting full!
