Polish American Engineering

When we started gate guarding again in November, we had no cell service and decided to buy an external antenna. The antenna has to be mounted on a pole to get it up in the air. I bought two 10 foot lengths of emt electrical pipe and two u-bolt clamps to hold the two pieces together. now I have a pole 18 foot tall. Setting it on the trailer adds another foot and a half.

The step ladder is tied to the trailer on this side at three places and you can see a rope going to the ground on the other side. That is attatched to my very long screwdriver that was pounded into the ground.(I did not have anything else that would work) The antenna is tied to the trailer and to the ladder. There are also a couple of zip ties holding the antenna to the ladder.This worked good until the wind really got strong. Than the pipe started to bend and I had to make an emergency save.

I found a 12 inch long nail on the ground and pounded that in and attatched a rope to it and to the antenna where the pieces are bolted together. Than another rope tied to the hitch of the trailer back to the antenna. This stopped the swaying.
All is good now.
Sometimes it helps to be part Polish......LOL
love to all of ya
Jim and Linda

5th WHEEL STEPS

Hi All

A while back I designed and built a set of take apart steps for gate guarding. After posting on this blog, Jim and Bobbie Chapman saw them and wanted a set. So I sold them a set. Bobbie posted pictures of Jim painting them and assembling them on their blog.
Shortly after some one who is also gate guarding saw Bobbies blog and wanted to know who made them. She refered them to me and I built and sold them a set also.
Just the other day Bobbie called and said someone else who is gate guarding wanted a set of steps. So I now have  a third set done waiting for delivery.
RV steps are not the greatest, they are weak, the risers are different heights and normally only three steps. Mine are a very comfortable 4 steps, with all even risers. They can be adjusted to fit the height of the rv.

Thank you Jim and Bobbie for posting on your blog.
Their blog is much more read than ours. They have over a 100,000 hits while I have just over 12,000.

Thanks again Bobbie and Jim. Now I will have money for the Hollywood Casino in Tunica, MS!!!!
Have a great day.
Boring as all get out here.
love to ya
Jim and Linda

Caliche mud

Here are a few more pictures of the caliche mud from our last storm. The mud is probably similar to mud anywhere. Here is it brown with lots of rocks in it. It sticks to your shoes and clothes and builds up as you walk so pretty soon you are walking on an inch of mud...that is when it is not sucking your shoes off. It is slick and goey. When you are going in and out of the trailer every time you log someone in than it is a mess to clean off of your shoes, hence the water hose and piece of plywood.

 

 

 

 

Hope this answers some questions about caliche.

have a great afternoon

love to all of ya

Jim

It is really quiet here.
   We are averaging about 3-4 in's a day. And they all leave in the afternoon. They have  had a reclaim rig on site and gone back into the well to rework parts of it to increase flow. There are two well side by side here and they were both redone. It took about 2-3 days for each one.
  They also have a crew in working on repairing the pad. After the big storm of a few days ago, the guys working the reclaim rig really tore up the ground. There is also a man made pond on site that they use to get water for drilling. They are going to fill the pond back in.
  Linda and I are going stir crazy. There is crap on tv, you can only read so much and the ground is so rough it is hard to walk. So we sit inside and are bored. And eat.
  Yesterday was another great sunset. This part of Texas is very rolling low hills and mostly scrub brush, with some trees that may get up to about fifteen foot or so. So typically you can see quite a ways if you are on top of one of the hills. There is nothing to block the sunset and the cloud cover is usually kind of long flat clouds in strange patterns which make for great sunrises and sunsets.

In our previous location we faced  straight north and got the morning sun thru the big windows. Now we are facing almost straight south and get the afternoon sun. So I do not pay attention to the sunrise, but we do see the sunset.
  I know this is kind of rambly, but da-n I am bored!!! So instead of eating I am writing. I spend time using Microsoft streets and trips program to plan out our return to Indiana/Illinois in May. Currently I am thinking of heading east out of San Antonio to Baton Rouge, LA than heading north on Mississippi 61 to Natchez and pick up the Natchez trace (http://byways.org/explore/byways/2285/travel.html.
 Following that for a while and than head to Tunica, MS for a couple of nights, before heading to Woodstock IL.
O.K. I have wasted enough of your time.
Have a wonderful day today
and be happy you can stay busy
Love to all of ya,
Jim and Linda

The four letter word of gate guarding.....RAIN

Good morning from mud city

  South Texas, when it rains, turns to mud. The caliche is mighty dusty when its dry and the dust is very fine and gets into everything. You can not seal up your rv tight enough to keep it out.

  But...when it rains like it has here for the last two days all of that dust turns to mud. And walking in the mud to check in a truck is a chore. The suction wants to pull your shoes off, and we have our shoes laced very loose so that we can just slip into them quickly.

   We have a piece of plywood by the rug that we can wipe a lot of the mud off on, and the water hose is right there to rinse off the shoes and the plywood for the next use. Saves a lot of mud on the steps and rugs inside.

  The trucks really get muddy. Here are a few pictures I took yesterday....

I had problems getting the pictures in. They changed settings on the blogger and had to upload the pictures to Picas and than put on blog. That took a while to figure out, so this post is a couple of days later than when I started typing it.
It is sunny today (Thursday) and the mud is drying out.
Have a great day,
love to all of ya
Jim and Linda

Washing the trailer

Yesterday we washed the trailer, including the roof. We knew it was bad, but when I got onto the roof it was all brown. It is supposed to be white. Everything on the roof was covered in dust.
I hauled up the bucket, scrub brush and hose and got started.

And the mud started rolling off.

We are now starting the year off "clean".....at least for a couple of days!!!

Still not sure what is going on at this gate.  Instead of equipment coming in, it is being hauled out.  We keep hoping that things will get busy now that the holidays are over.

Take care,

Jim and Linda

We survived another one....(year that is)

Happy New Year
May the new year bring you much happiness and joy. May your love for spouse and family stay strong. May you prosper, and be happy.

  Yesterday I drove into Pleasanton and met Jim Chapman for lunch. We ate at a Mexican restaurant that I had spotted a while back. The inside reminds you of "Restaurant Impossible", but the food was excellent. I had built a set of stairs for Jim and Bobbie, like the ones that I made for us and delivered those to Jim with a quick lesson on assembly. He was supposed to stop at Wal-Mart for paint.
  While in town I went to the H-E-B grocery store. They had lobster tails for $4.99 each so I bought 4 of them. We will have them today with baked potatoes for our new years meal. The tails are small....maybe I should have bought 6.....darn, too late now.

  Things are quite boring here on site. We got here on Dec. 21st, and since than have had a total of 17 in and outs.....that's a little over one a day!!!! Linda has been coming to bed about 2am and I am still getting up at 4am. We have heard that they will be bringing in a reclaim rig after today sometime. This is a small, truck mounted rig that they go back into the well with to redrill and improve the flow. Should take less than a week to do that.

I drove into San Antonio late last week to pick up the wood for Chapman's steps and two sets of 24 inch full extension drawer slides. I remade the silverware and kitchen utensils drawers, making them 9 inches longer. This helps eliminate the clutter that we have been fighting trying to pack so much into one drawer. Also just drove around and enjoyed a visit to the big city, and traffic...
  Other than than, not much going on here. Four more months to go. We will start heading back to Indiana/Illinois the first of May.

Have a wonderful day, enjoy the parades and football games.
As always,
Love to all of ya
Jim and Linda