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phase 1 of project is complete

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RealLindaL
PkrBum
2seaoat
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2seaoat



Back in the 1940s the prior owners father would dry dock shrimp boats down at the end of the canal where they had a straight shot from the Bayou. I had planned to get a ten year maintenance dredging permit from the Army Corps of Engineers, but I doubt I could get up and down from the excavator, and by the time ACE would approve the permit, I will be dead. However, the typical fishing boats and pontoon boats do just fine. I am waiting for the surveyor and engineer to shoot some grades for my final road construction. I will rent a bobcat for a week in mid april before I return and get approval for water retention.....sore point. I ran the bobcat at home to repair some of the flood damage, but it is extensive and we will have to bring in about four semis of gravel to repair the winter floods, but the twenty minutes I operated the bobcat have me hopeful I can get in the rental unit and complete my road and the grades will allow compliance to water retention requirements.

It is beginning to be magical, and all the hard work over the last ten years are finally reaching completion. Hell, last year I never figured to be alive today, so it is all bonus time.

2seaoat



I can now feel through my remaining muscle and skin the large 14cm tumor which is so painful. My wife gives my back and legs a rub down about every four days to see what if any changes are happening. She noticed last week the lump. Today when the pain was generating from my right side in the back and I reached around and bingo......I felt the tumor. Without the chemo and without the radiation, they are rapidly growing which explains the pain and now I have a real question as to how come I keep ticking. Nothing more than bending over and cutting some lumber from a standing position, yet even this small amount is having a toll. I figure I will push the envelope gently until I can no longer. More photos of the dock by morning, and maybe tonight but I am watching the duke and kansas game. I do not want to miss the 60 minutes interview.

2seaoat



Just ran out of steam today. It was a beautiful day. We will have breakfast with the granddaughters in the morning, and maybe stick around for the beach, but I will be spending the day with a new point of sale, web site, and some cool background programs. When I was healthy I did all my own websites, but that means my wife would have to learn too much about coding and how a website works. She just needs to update our three remaining web sites, but for sixty dollars a month I have a new host, will be pointing my web sites to the new site, and I will now have two business in two states working off the same consolidated web saving us a ton on maintenance, and the wife can simply input new messages without doing maybe three steps. Here is the dock which we are building the bench. Hope to finish and get dock pipes set by PM Monday.

phase 1 of project is complete - Page 2 20180311

2seaoat



Slow going today. We have created the dock box which will hold ballast as a counterweight to the ramp so when you step on the dock it will be stable. The extensions on both sides of the box will hold a 14' x six inch round dock piling which we hope to position in each of the two box pockets and jet them down using a 3/4 inch pvc pipe threaded to a garden hose. We will use two 15 foot jets to get them down between 6 and 7 feet into the canal bottom. We also got two ten foot dock post to begin repairing the seawall.

I am hoping son, or son in law can help us get the post into the pockets and neither one of us can do the same.

phase 1 of project is complete - Page 2 20180312

Joanimaroni

Joanimaroni

Work work work.... it keeps you going!

RealLindaL



Amazing accomplishments....

knothead

knothead

Mr. Oats, if given the time you could compete with Dale's Marine, good job!

2seaoat



Hard day as we set two posts and propped up two more 14 foot poles in dock box pockets. Had help from granddaughters and daughter......long and hard process. We will get a lift for final set of the big ones if at low tide Wed morning we are unable to get them at 90 degree. Set two ten footers six feet into canal bottom, as the yellow rope shows where one is.....

phase 1 of project is complete - Page 2 20180313

Joanimaroni

Joanimaroni

Looking good!

35phase 1 of project is complete - Page 2 Empty Re: phase 1 of project is complete 3/27/2018, 11:35 pm

2seaoat



This was the correct photo:

phase 1 of project is complete - Page 2 20180314

36phase 1 of project is complete - Page 2 Empty Re: phase 1 of project is complete 3/27/2018, 11:47 pm

2seaoat



The full moon this evening was beautiful overlooking Navarre Beach as the family played UNO. We had six of us playing until the youngest got angry at her sister for making her draw more cards. I won all three games as everybody was trying to stick me with draw four.......but any uno player knows it is about keeping your wild cards to the end, and that more cards is not necessarily a bad thing, until someone is out or says uno.....then you punish them with a pick four.......I felt bad because all the kids and adults were trying to win and I had figured the game out where it was going to be very hard to beat me when I knew I would get wild cards when they were trying to beat me up.

The full moon also means those two hundred pound 14 foot dock poles will be easier to straighten out as we will try to do the same around 7am which should be a really low tide with the moon on the other side of the earth. We will see if I need to order the lift Thursday which I should probably do the same because the live oaks have some dead branches and when they fall they can kill someone. The new lifts are really cool. I rented from Navarre rental and they have four pads which support the lift and automatically level the unit. It is sweet because it establishes a nice stable base and finished staining on house in Navarre all by myself last year while my wife put new flooring in the home. No sauna needed today.......sweated until my clothes were wet. Wife gets to go to the beach with the grandkids......I may do some staining, and I think my son has a boat for the day.....we will see but this sweating has really helped the urine flow and color. Pain was minimal today.

PkrBum

PkrBum

That's so sweet that the little ones let you win. Kind children.

knothead

knothead

PkrBum wrote:That's so sweet that the little ones let you win. Kind children.

Laughing Laughing Laughing

2seaoat



I did not win. The girls legitimately won about four dollars apiece. Their dad was kind of piszed that they had all these pennies and quarters and wanted to know who gave them that much money. I explained that they each were given twenty pennies and when one of us were out of pennies, the remaining one with the highest stack won eight quarters. Well the first six games those little snots got into poker as they were cleaning us out of our change charge. When your grand kids beat you in poker......it is time to give it up.

I told them when we get back home, I am only playing if they open their piggy banks, which they quickly told me nope papa......we have them in our little safes. Now I really want to play at their house. "What's wrong Kate" My papa took all the money in my piggy bank........great.....I coached her teacher.

2seaoat



Hard work. Not feeling worth a chit. Hope for some rain this weekend because we will put down four more pallets of sod. Not me. I can hardly operate the bobcat and getting in and out has become a nightmare. I see neighbors fishing the canal, and I am thinking......with so little time left, why am I not fishing. Took down a huge pine and have been burning it today. We have a dangerous live oak branch which is partially dead, and I am hoping I can have the strength to have someone lift me in the bobcat bucket and cut it. New chain. In the morning I am good for about 1/2 hour of work. It was ugly yesterday with 9 visits to the bathroom. I have become stable today, but each day I am getting weaker. Oncologists and shots on Wed. My friend has come down to visit for a few weeks and my wife told me he is shocked with my decline, and said on some plumbing issues yesterday I did not make a lick of sense......flushing and watery uncontrollable stools have a way of draining a person. Took my potassium supplements and a few bottles of gatorade. I feel like a lucky person to still be here despite the struggle. My wife will invite all the forum members to the project after I pass. People will enjoy the same long after I am gone, and to that end I am happy.

2seaoat



Gravel cost about 5 dollars a ton without delivery in Illinois.  My 1 ton dump truck is about 8 thousand pounds and it is licensed for 16,000 lbs.  So we can get four and half tons.  I just got delivered 20 tons in two deliveries for 40 tons total.  The driver handed me the bill and it was $750 dollars, and I celebrated because last year we spent $1,200 for two loads......nope the second driver handed me the bill and in 1 year it went up to $1,500 for two loads.......a total rip off as there is no way to justify a 20% increase in one year.   I think everybody is on the come down here.   I go to our pit in Illinois and it is a father son operation and they have not raised their price per ton for five years, so to give you an idea how out of whack there is about $900 difference.  No wonder the streams are full of red clay because contractors cut corners instead of using gravel, they use the clay and put a light dusting on the roads.

My buddy who is helping me and we have know each other since fifth grade is an expert on poop as he was a fossil hunter for the Field Museum and identified animal species as his full time job was a process engineer making plastic off natural gas.  He was so excited about the animals he was finding on our project.  He has a place in Cape Coral and said the butterflies are amazing.  He was working the shore of one of our ponds trimming trees and brush when he found about a day old Bear poop.  Our neighbor across the street has had them in his garbage twice and had called Santa Rosa County, but what a beautiful natural environment once your carefully clear away the overgrowth.  In the forties there were two houses on the property, plus two commercial buildings.  I had to tear down everything after Ivan and then I got sick and it became a jungle.  The older man I bought it from kept it cut for about three years, but then his health and mine declined.  When I got down here after a couple years I was shocked.  It is hard to maintain cut areas as it is a jungle.  I return to Illinois on Monday afternoon and get my shots on Wed.  My friend has volunteered to drive me down the first week of May after I fix the flood damage on the islands.  I am not doing any more cat scans or other expensive tests......it is time, and I am very proud of this beautiful natural area and am amazed at my energy level which is always best the week before a shot.  I will post photos before I leave.

Joanimaroni

Joanimaroni

Anxious to see the photos.

RealLindaL



Joanimaroni wrote:Anxious to see the photos.

Makes two of us. Absolutely phenomenal what this man manages to accomplish...STILL.

44phase 1 of project is complete - Page 2 Empty Re: phase 1 of project is complete 4/14/2018, 10:53 am

Joanimaroni

Joanimaroni

He wears me out.

2seaoat



I did not have the strength to get out of the bobcat. I had to adapt by rolling on my side and getting out of the seat backwards. Starting to get a tad dangerous as my legs are unsteady and when I stretch after hours in the bobcat that step down is getting tricky. I will clean up the flood mess in Illinois, but I will have to be particularly careful because my wife will not be there. My neighbor is a volunteer fireman and he keeps a close eye on me since the decline, and I will keep a cell phone on me at all times. Bad weather in Illinois so I may leave at 3am Tuesday morning. That unfortunately gets me in Birmingham at 7am to 8am and the traffic is horrible. I probably will leave a little later, and relax Monday night. Hope to make it to Northwest Illinois late Tuesday, or will spend the night near home if I get tired. I do best in the car.

It is incredible how easily I can operate a bobcat Ill. The turning is done by two steering yokes which you pull back and forth. It gives my arms a huge workout which does not strain my tendons as the muscle is all but gone. A real benefit of the last few days is the incredible amount of sweating I am doing. My Urine has lightened and I am convinced that this crazy hard work is keeping me alive. Our friends who have been helping us just wore out and suggested that I have lost my mine with as bad as I am doing working like a fool. They decided to go over to Destin and enjoy the day exploring. We will go out to eat tonight, but I still have 20 tons of gravel to sprinkle on the roads.

It is incredibly fulfilling to clean things up with the bobcat. I can barely walk, but when I get in the Bobcat I feel like Weaver in Aliens when she gets into the large robot......it gives me strength which just the flip of a hand. I will post a few photos in a minute.

2seaoat



I apologize because my pond photos did not show the pond. Here is the final process of sprinkling gravel over the road clay. Makes a good road bed with little deflection, and the gravel is great to keep that red clay from getting all over things. It will only require adding gravel over the years and scraping it level.

phase 1 of project is complete - Page 2 20180410

knothead

knothead

2seaoat wrote:I apologize because my pond photos did not show the pond.  Here is the final process of sprinkling gravel over the road clay.  Makes a good road bed with little deflection, and the gravel is great to keep that red clay from getting all over things.  It will only require adding gravel over the years and scraping it level.

phase 1 of project is complete - Page 2 20180410

You are awesome Mr. Oats . . . .

48phase 1 of project is complete - Page 2 Empty Re: phase 1 of project is complete 4/15/2018, 12:33 am

2seaoat



I have been running bobcats for thirty five years. I have put 2400 hours on my T-190 so it is like riding a bike.....in about ten minutes I am good. The problem is all the kids now are using hand controls to run raising the bucket and tilting the bucket while I am an old timer who still needs to get a machine with foot controls. Now my muscles are atrophy stage and my wife had to massage the legs and feet. I had some big dirt trucks on it all day Friday and although it has been dry, there was little deflection. Will do some sodding next week and this rain tonight is perfect.

RealLindaL



knothead wrote:You are awesome Mr. Oats . . . .

Good to hear from you, knot, on this rainy Gulf Coast night. But "awesome" doesn't even begin to describe what this man has been able to accomplish in his situation. I think his friends may be right that he's nuts, but hey, pushing himself has worked for him for a decade. Why stop now? lol

RealLindaL



Safe travels home to IL, Sea,whenever you decide to leave.

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