As part of the continuing updates to our property, we’ve added some additional walkways. These serve three purposes. 1) We found that lots of dirt was being tracked into the bunkhouse, so that needed to be addressed; 2) the bunkhouse felt separate from the rest of the buildings and 3) we expect to replace the lean-to ‘barn’ to be replaced with an actual barn, so these walkways will help link everything together. So, we hoped extending the walkway would help incorporate the buildings.

This is one of the few tasks that we decided to hire a contractor to complete. Unfortunately, our calls to local contractors proved frustrating. We couldn’t get local folks to respond. Finally, Ann reached out to Wine Country Landscaping in Milton-Freewater, about an hour away. They gave us a free estimate and had great reviews. It’s a young company, but they are eager to grow, easy to work with, and did a great job. In fact, the guys repaired some concrete for free just to make everything look better, something they were not required to do.

At this rate, I see no reason we can’t hold some kind of jeep event next year. I’ll announce something  by January.

Here are some pre-concrete photos. This first one shows the gravel in front of the shop, an annoyance when moving something with smaller wheels from the concrete to the asphalt. To the right of the shop is a form for the new propane tank pad.

After: The concrete now runs the northern side of the shop. The white building in back is a series of lean-tos that are super inefficient space wise. We will repurpose the lean-to materials in to a hay barn and shelter for the cows and a barn will replace the existing structure. To the right is the guesthouse.

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A reader shared a rare look at a Willys Electric Light Plant, including the sleeves during cranking. In the pic below, the Willys Electric Light Plant is on the left and a rare Alamo (electric light plant?) is on the right.

Here is a video of the sleeve functioning:

Some more pics:

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Ann and her son Daniel will be traveling to NY, Philly, and DC over the next two weeks, so I will be juggling animals, chores, and managing the completion of 200′ of new walkways. I suspect she will be having much more fun than I! This may also affect updates …

The purpose of the walkways is 1) to reduce the dirt tracked into the bunkhouse, 2) to better marry the bunkhouse and the rest of the buildings together, 3) to make an access path for mowers/UTV from the west of the buildings to the east and 4) to prep the area for the new barn. With the pathways in place, we can then finish up the landscaping of the bunkhouse.

Before the walkways:

Levels found and walkways dug. Forms, gravel bed, and cement to come this weekend.

This coming Saturday, the forms will be layed, rebar positioned, and concrete poured.

On the jeep front, we have decided that the next project will be setting up our corral system. Once that is done, we plan to set aside other property project updates in favor of me working on Biscuit and/or the race jeep starting roughly in early November.

UPDATE: Here is another Drifters Jeep Club jacket for sale on eBay, this time for $60. The name on this one is “Crash”. It is a Large.

The San Gabriel Valley area Drifters Jeep Club still exists. 

View all the information on eBay

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This jacket sold in 2019/2020. It was priced at $199, but when I clicked on the “watch” button I received an offer of $175 from the seller.

UPDATE: Ann’s family descended upon our place this past weekend. We are only catching up with everything now. The property worked great for the family event and should work great for a jeep event, once we get one organized. 

Earlier this week, we managed to collect all the corral panels Ann won at the auction, including the 24′-long heavy metal fence (with an added 12′ foot gate). With the help of a tractor bucket, I was able to carry it home on our 18′ trailer (Dave, we’ve put those straps you’ve sent us to good use!). 

While loading the gate, a man came by in a truck to check on us. It turns out, he is the owner of the auction facility (Mr. Booker of Booker auctions). He asked where we lived and we said Prosser. Given he’s a long time resident of the Tri-Cities, I jokingly asked if he knew the former owner of our property in Prosser, Merlin Brown, as he was a bit notorious around these parts. Sure enough, somehow Mr. Booker had met Merlin while camping one time. Mr. Booker noted, “I thought I was a pretty good bullshitter, but that Merlin, he was over the top”. 

Meanwhile, in “slicer” news … I discovered that when I plugged in the slicer, it didn’t work. After dissembling the power box, I found the power lines weren’t attached to anything (see lower left circle and arrow).  Why didn’t they at least cap or cut the ends?

After some discussions with my uncle, we figured out that the former owner (Walmart) must have disabled/decommissioned before selling it by pulling the wire the power wire between the cord and the board (likely a safety thing). So, after unable to find any schematics online, we made and educated guess and I wired the hot and common wires to the board near that lower arrow on the left. Viola, it now works!

I also discovered one of the foots was an incorrect length (by half an inch see upper right arrow above), making the slicer unstable. It took a while to find at our local ACE store, but I finally found another 4″ metric Phillips bolt to properly adjust the footer to the correct length. 

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Originally Posted Sept 23: Ann’s family will be here this weekend, so the next updates will likely be Monday. So, we’ve been busily tidying up the property, inside and out. However, we did sneak away on Thursday to pickup some items Ann won at a local auction.

The principal purpose was to buy some corral panels (we couldn’t justify buying new ones at $200+ per panel), scoring about 200 feet of 12′ long panels at a great price. But, she also spotted a meat slicer for sale at the auction.

Ever since working at restaurants, I’ve always wanted a quality slicer, but it’s hard to justify the purchase. So, Ann surprised me by winning an auction for a Bizerba GSP HD 13″ slicer! Plus, it came with a stainless steel cart. Priced new (to my surprise) without the cart at between $4k-$7k. Meanwhile, a stainless cart goes for a minimum of $1500 all by itself. So, I was pretty shocked that she snagged the slicer plus a cart for less than $600.  I’d say she scored!