tower work

I've been working hard on getting the tank ready to haul back to the foundation...welding in floor joists, laying in floors, cutting in and framing out windows.

Here's the floor joists. 2 1/2" pipe on 2' centers.

I had a bunch of salvaged 2 x 10's to use for the floors. It took quite bit of head-scratchin' to figure out how to get all the floor boards cut to the correct curvature of the tank. Each board hits the tank wall at a different place, creating a wide variety of chords. I couldn't cut them too big and bring them in to size as they wouldn't fit in the tank and, if they were too small, well, then they're too small! It worked out pretty well, though.

The windows were also very tricky. Not only was it difficult to cut out the hole correctly using a cutting torch on 1/4" steel, but the curves made it hard to get the size right and the windows I am using--scavenged from somewhere so long ago I don;t even remember where I got them--are a bizarre trapezoid shape. I'll make the windows operable as I'm pretty sure the tower will be hot inside if I can't ventilate it with open windows.

moved the tank tower

I admit it: my heavy equipment--road grader, dump truck, crane--are much about being Tonka toys for a big kid. Albeit very large and very heavy, but, still, it's me in a bigger sand box doing what I used to do as a kid.

There, I said it. But, what's even better is when you can have a real kid helping you. I had done as much to the tower as I could down at the barn: installed two floors and windows and door. Now, it was time to move it on back to where the tower will be raised and my son, Soren, assisted me in the ceremonial dragging of the 10,000 lb steel tank back to it's location.

I knew that the only thing I own that has a chance of being able to drag this heavy thing was my road grader. I welded two steel lugs 180 degrees from each other on the tank end and hooked up wire rope with clevis links. Fired up the grader and off we went. I'll let the video speak for itself (along with Soren's commentary while he was filming.)

Next will be getting Mille, my 1954 NW 25 crane up my road so it can do the heavy lifting at the tower site.

missed it

Yesterday on my way to work, driving fast, late, I passed by a young woman walking along side the road. Not a tourist dressed in the latest colors, but a local needing something.
"Wanna ride?" I asked, pulling over.
She looked in at me. A heavy woman, young, with angry brown eyebrows and thick lips.
She did, but it turns out she was going to Chelan, and I to Manson.
"Oh, well," I said.
"Thanks anyway." She walked with a quick stride of someone late for something, a big Walmart purse up high on her shoulder.
The rest of my drive to work I turned this interchange over and over in my mind. I should have driven her to Chelan and then doubled back to Manson. She's got 5 miles to walk. No doubt someone else will pick her up. And probably somebody did, but it misses the point.
I had the opportunity to offer kindness. I could have finally met this woman who I've wondered about for a long time. You see, I know about her. She lives in a trailer I drive by most every day. She has three big, mean dogs tied up short in her yard next to over-turned apple bins for shelter. If, when, they're loose they chase my car. There's a baby stroller that hasn't moved in the driveway for years. There's usually a load of laundry hanging up inside against the one large trailer window. Another window is broken out--sometimes it has a piece of plywood up against it and sometimes not. Driving by, I've wondered outloud to my kids about that: why it's open sometimes and not others. Even toyed with the idea of going up to the door, knocking and offering to fix it. I haven't, of course--too awkward.
And here I had the chance to meet her, to find out about what her story is, to save her feet those 5 miles.
I missed it. I miss alot of these. Sorry, God. Keep trying please.

The place between the two

Worked on my tower today. Such a dynamic day: rain, sun, purple clouds, hail, strip the coat off, coat back on, snow, blue sky. A day of opposites all stiched together.
I was thinking more about that while I was standing next to my metal saw. I had 36 brackets to make out of 1" x 1" x 1/4" thick angle iron. This meant making 36 cuts at the power metal saw, a big contraption on wheels with lubricant pump[ that feeds the cut with water/oil mix. Anyways, standing there watching the cuts, I got to thinking about the auction where I got this band saw. After I bought it, I found out that the auction was due to the guy's death which was a suicide.
And here I was using the tool he most likely spent quite a bit of time staring at while operating it--just like I was now. What were his thoughts? Despair, anger, loneliness...most likely all those that then turned to just an empty dullness, since suicide is just the final move for a life already mostly dead.
My thoughts, and my project is so different than that man's reality. Building a giant fort for my kids to play in. Giviing life, finally, to a crazy dream that I've had since my own childhood. Standing and coaxing the blade in the cut and humming songs and feelings so blessed that I had this whole day to play, to create.

Those two very different states of mind--his and mine--can turn on a dime, can change in a moment. A dog is gone, a dog comes home. A car's on the road, a car's in the ditch, a person loved is suddenly a person being buried. It's so damned hard to understand how this package must come this way, this gift of life. Like take-out food brought home with things inside you don't want, this bittersweet mix of all of it--best and worst. In what happens to us, iin what we are capable of, in what we witness in others and happening to others. I don't have anything more to say about that. I do know this, though: for me, God and the way of following God I choose (I'll call that religion) are at this intersection of the sweet and bitter. Showing me, helping me, holding me.