May 17, 2012

I went to Cap St Jacques this morning and filled a medium size bag with garbage from the shoreline. I am out of habit and forgot to take a photo of the full bag. I took a photo of a "red admiral " butterfly instead during my cleaning job.           They reported on the news this morning this is a record year for butterfly's.
Canada's butterfly migration is largest on record

May 14, 2012

I went to the rusted engine in the bog/swamp again this morning. The pistons are seized from BOTH sides, the up and down. I was thinking it was just the visible topside that was rusted. I tried the sledgehammer with a piece of steel in the cylinder to smash it down and out, but the pistons don't budge a bit.So the crankshaft is stuck as it is rusted to the connecting rods that go to the pistons. I collected all the metal bits I took off and smashed off and threw them out. I am/was surprised by the amount of cast iron in the engine and how fast the cast iron rusts once exposed to the air.
I am going to have to move the engine as it is now.

Maybe I will try one more time, but I have to set the engine up in a better position to hit the pistons. It should come out, shouldn't it?

May 11, 2012

The Blogger interface is from HELL. As usual it puts the last photo I upload as first instead of last. The opposite of what I want.
Anyways I showed up today to take out the bolts holding the engine crankshaft on. When I first arrived I thought "This is not going to work. Look how rusted they are!" I tried one half heartedly and gave up. Then I picked a random bolt and said to myself lets give this my best try. IT WORKED! I got one bolt off! Once I got one bolt off I knew I could get others off. I was happy removing and taking photos. I finally finished removing all the bolts. The crankshaft is still stuck. It might come free if I hit it with the sledgehammer , so I have to bring it back again. I took off another pound off the weight of the engine I guess, as I took off 4 of the 5 half circles the bolts were holding on.

 My secondary mission was successful as well. I moved the three used car-truck tires out of the bog-swamp closer to the trail for future pick-up. I disturbed the two ducks hanging out, but that's life.
 I also found some leftover metal scrap that ants were using as shelter. Sorry ants the garbage has to go.

On the pathway one of the rocks that cross the trickle of a stream in the bog needed fixing . It was loose, I nearly fell in when I stood on it, so I put a smaller rock under one side. A while later a young man on a bike crossed using the rocks. If I had not fixed that rock would he have fallen in? What would happen then in that stream of time? When you do a proper job nobody notices, is the old joke.

10 bolts removed and 3 of the 5 metal half circles off.

First bolt removed!

First bolt removed viewed up close

May 08, 2012

Bad news. I found three more tires in the bog-swamp area. I wonder how they got there?
I took the sledgehammer to the engine block and tried smashing it after I discovered it was made out of cast iron.
It shattered a bit, but not significantly. I took off maybe ten pounds of weight.
There are some ducks hanging out, but the bog is drying up.Predators can get them and their eggs if the have any.
A woodpecker of some kind showed up after my attempt to smash the engine block. I took four photos but none came out. They are tough to photograph.

whats left to smash

bringing rebar to bin

rebar at the bin

At Cheval Blanc woods, I took out a garbage bag with bottles and garbage I had put in it, but I forgot to take a photo before putting it in the bin here. My second trip back into the park was to get the rebar-cement combo. There was 4 leftover pieces you can see in the photo. So the sewage drain removal is officially half finished. I need to bring the sledgehammer again and smash whats left.
It has been raining, so I haven't taken any photos. From the big cement smash in the past, I went back and cut the internal rebar with my bolt cutters. Now the pieces of cement are manageable-small enough for a human to handle. I hope to throw out a few pieces a week over the summer. Eventually it will be gone. If you don't give up the fight, you don't lose!