Cordless Drill Limitations

Isaiah and Phil were drilling 3/4" holes last night, as their final task for the day. The drill gave up the ghost ("electric smoke smell" said Isaiah).

Our friend in the know said we shouldn't have tried anything larger than about 3/8". Oops. Good to know.

Phil headed out first thing to get a corded drill. He tried to call me from the hardware store, but my phone didn't get the message for several hours. Rather than buy the floor model, he headed up to town.

It was 2pm by the time he and the boys returned. They had what they needed, but what a long trip!

I finished the cleats.

Phil went to put the concrete mixer on the tractor.

It wasn't as easy as simply hooking up, though. The tractor has a PTO (power take off), and attachments have a shaft that fits in and drives them. The concrete mixer's shaft was too long (Phil says that's quite common), which required grinding off the excess. Then various hookups and such, but after a couple of hours, the concrete mixer was ready.

Phil mixed a small batch of mortar. He said later that, in the future, it would be better to leave batches of only a couple of gallons out of the mixer, and save the mixer for large loads.

The mortar went between some concrete blocks Phil picked up today. In order to get the tractor, complete with fully loaded concrete mixer, into the enclosure, we need a strong bridge. Phil began to build the bridge today, mortaring the corner supports.

The older boys have now taken turns three days in a row making us cookies: after peanut butter and snickerdoodles, today we had oatmeal raisin. Though I've been a fairly militant mother about mostly avoiding sugar (the 33 pound bag of Rapadura has lasted well over a year now, and we have about a third to go), I dearly remember all the cookie baking times I had as a girl, and all the surreptitious dough sampling that went with that (teehee).

Joe right now tackles Phil. Phil will hug him, and Joe will hammer his hand up and down. I said it made me think of Charles the Hammer (or Charles Martel, the grandfather of Charlemagne). Somehow that has morphed into Joe the Bammer. I think he likes his nickname.

It was another happy day. Not as productive as I might have wished, but happy nonetheless.