Well, we had a lot of fun playing in the dirt!

Since we don't want a repeat of last winter of the water intake, and our Uncle, a expert machine operator, was visiting, we began the assault up to the creek with our D7 bulldozer and backhoe.

By the time my Uncle left, we got a brand new dirt road pioneered in, so it is now a little surprising that we can drive right up the road, which was before barely accessible by quad, right to the box with our trucks!

The D7 did pay a bit of a price for all that work: one of the Idler frame shafts broke, and both brakes started begging for adjustment. I limped it back home to the shop, and brought up our almost equally as worn out 1937 Cat Twenty two (Whom I call Mad Cat), about 15,000 pounds lighter than the D7.

Despite the change in size, Mad Cat is perfect for burying the exposed pipe leading down the hill. We got the first 200 feet of pipe covered, and we will work our way back down the mountain until it is all covered.

Perhaps the biggest change to come would be to the intake system itself. The dam-to-overflow box was barley adequate for irrigating our fields so dad is going to have a excavator come in, rip out the system, and set up a infiltration system; a series of intake pipes under a layer of drain rock, all under a large pool, in the middle of the creek.

Heh. I'll like being able to "pressure wash" in the shower while the field is being irrigated!

Project Hornet (1936 Twenty two) has slowed down a lot with the re-introduction of school. The governer is reassembled, but that's it. I am currently polishing up the Magneto for Installation. Once that's done, I'll work on the rest of the engine.