The Freezing Ground

Sadly, we are approaching Winter. Which also means that it is almost the end of construction season. Dad and I have been struggling to get all of our jobs done before it's too late ! But Dad has been doing some serious excavator research, so I think that there may be one in our near future ! Well I just thought that I would make a quick post here, I am not too sure if anybody actually reads this, but if you do I didn't want to bore you !
Cheers
Brianna

Good Estimations.

Well last night we went up to Back Bay to look at a job with Reggie. The guy wantes a lawn the whole way around th lawn and some fill put in to sover up the ledge sticking out. We were walking around and trying to get a good estimate of what it is going to take to do the job. I was thinking in my head "4 hours of dozing, 2 or 3 loads of gravel, and at least 5 loads of topsoil. Right after we left we were driving down the road trying to get a figure to give to the guy. Dad said excactly what I was thinking. I have never been good at getting a picture in my head of what I think it is going to look like, but I was pretty excited that I as right on when it came to this job. I can't wait to get started, but we have to wait for a really saunny day to start spreading topsoil or it will pack too tightly and you will basically have concrete

Bobcat !

So today is a typical Tuesday for me ! I walked over from school and am helping dad on a lawn job. Right now I am on 'idle' so I thought I would do some quick blogging. I am just chillin' waiting for dad to find more stumps and rocks to dig up from the soon-to-be lawn. Well I better get back to work !

The Finishing Touches to Red Solo Truck

So last night while my mom and I were at bootcamp, dad went up to a friend of his house to get new tires for the dumptruck. We had traded him for the old set of pads off of the dozer, ands he was supposed to have them tonight. He had been in Quebec all week and Dad was pretty eager to go out and get them so we could finish up. The dumptruck is almost road-ready. We are hopefully going to take it up to the pit sometime soon so we can load some gravel on and see how much power she actually has in her !
My mom is working on her air brakes right now so that she can drive the truck this summer. It will be the best thing ever, dad will be bulldozing, I will be running equipment with him, or sitting in the pit loading gravel, and mom will be hauling it ! It's the company I have always wanted :)
I am so excited to really get working. We have just really been focusing our time on the weekend jobs, and the rain us held us back quite a bit. So I am pretty eager to start coming home from school and getting straight to work !
-Brianna

Charlotte County Pickers !

So this weekend, we decided to go on a parts run for the dumptruck. Fuel tanks for 1 1984 International are few and far between, and very expensive to buy new. So we went on a junk hunt ! A friend of ours up in Bonny River has an extensive "Graveyard" of trucks. We searched around for a bit and found a pretty good fuel tank off of like a '81 International. While dad hacked off the old rusty bolts I went on a little hunt of my own. I love collecting the emblims off of trucks. (the metal decal-like things on the sides of trucks that have the name on them) There are tons of old half tons, and dumptrucks that were back there and I was basically like a kid in a candy store.
In about an hour I had 3 Chevy Symbols, an S10 International, the letters D-O-D-G-E and my favourite, the hood ornament off of a 1970 (or so) Autocar dumptruck. Dad got the fuel tank off and we were done there. On the way back home we made a few phone calls to a friend of ours that makes a living collecting old heavby equipment junk. I have plenty of truck decals, but would love to have a few John Deeres, and I really want a Freightliner, and maybe a Louisville. Hopefully I get the chance to go up and visit this playground of parts this weekend ! 
-Brianna

Grading the Easy Way !

So today we were doing a job grading up a pad for a house. Usually Friday night jobs are "Family Time" in our household. Mom was picking rocks, dad was on the dozer, and I was taking shots with the leveler thing. Now for all of you that don't know, when you are grading up a pad you have to continuiously take shots to make sure that you have everything even. On older models, you have a 16x zoomed camera (adjustable) and a pole with measurements on it. Somebody takes the pole and stands it up on the ground in various places to make sure it is level. Usually this is a pain, but the newest way of doing this is amazing and I got to try it tonight. There is a tripod setup somewhere, and you carry a pole similar to the one used for taking shots, but it has an adjustable screen on it. You walk it around and place it on the ground and it beeps fast when the grade neds to go down, slow when it needs to go up, and continuious when it is in between. It is a lot easier to use and a lot quicker.
When we first started using it we had out doubts. after finishing about half of the pad we started taking shots the old fashioned way and were within one inch over the whole pad. (which is as close as your going to get) I just walked around behind the dozer checking it in different places and we got it pretty-near perfect !
I thought this was a pretty cool way to do this, and it definetely made the process a lot faster.
Hopefully we will get an early start tomorrow and get some rolling done, then move onto the next job !
-Brianna

Bulldozin' in the Rain !

Well today after school, I am going to change into my Carhartt Pants, and my flannel coat and going bulldozing with my daddy. We have a pad for a houe to finish up, and we just got a new compacter this morning so I am quite excited to try that out (despite the fact that it is raining and grose out) Our dozer doesn't have an enclosed cab, just a canopy but it still kind of keeps you dry. I am pretty excited as i haven't really been on the dozer a whole lot this year, but kind of nervous because we are working on ledge and there is a lot of mowing that needs to be done with a KX-080 Kobelco and it is quite scary ! Anyway I guess if i want to be a full time operator I need to face my fears and work on the ledge !
Wish me luck !
-Brianna