I Lost My Bearings

I Lost My Bearings
It was the front, left bearing to be exact. I was merrily on my way to Minnesota from our home in Illinois last Sunday when the truck started pulling to the left on the highway and making rather agonizing sounds. The truck’s agonizing sounds started me making agonizing sounds too. I kept my fingers crossed (It’s really hard to drive with your fingers crossed.) and safely made it to the next exit which happened to be Janesville, Wisconsin. After waiting for a service station to open on a Sunday morning, I was able to get the quick diagnosis. Sure enough, the front left wheel bearing was the problem. The service technician said “Hmmm. I’ve never seen one quite that bad before.” Now to him it might have been the first time, but for me I expected that kind of comment. If something really unusual or weird is going to happen, Murphy’s Law seems to pick me as an example.

The part I needed could only be had by a car dealership. Since car dealerships are closed on Sundays in Wisconsin, I was forced to take a diversion for a day and a half in Janesville. Finally by 1:30 on Monday afternoon I was back on my way to Minnesota.

So as things end up, I lost a day and a half of construction time. Since my goal has been to do one wall per week, I decided to tackle a wall with a door entrance. This made things go much quicker and I was able to finish up the wall late on Thursday.

Tom came out to help for a bit on Thursday which helped. (Thanks as usual Tom.) Tom left around 1:30 in the afternoon and about a half an hour later, Tom reappeared without his car. He busted a ball joint on his back rear wheel and walked back up our hill to use the phone. I started thinking that my auto problems might just be contagious. Let’s hope not.

This coming week appears to be a real hot one with temperatures near or above the century mark. The sad part is, I’ve run out of north walls to work on. It looks like I’ll be working early in the mornings and later in the afternoons with a siesta in between. We really could use some rain along with cooler weather, but there’s none in site. I really shouldn’t complain though, the dry weather has helped make my life easier as I build.

This week’s beanie photo goes to Ed the tree frog. Just like the woodchucks, the name of the frog has nothing to do with the name of any cordwood builders in the area.