Removing the Tire from the Rim and the Taste of Failure.

Let me start, dear readers, by saying that today, was extremely, really, a whole lot, magnificently, ball shitingly cold. Let me put it this way. The high for the day was 21 degrees with a 40 mile an hour wind with a wind chill factor of 16 degrees. Oh and it was snowing.

Sideways.

Out adventure to remove the tire the other day had only resulted in cursing and swearing and accusing each other of doing it wrong. If I had thought that removing the tire from the backhoe was the hard part, I had no idea what was in store for me now.

This is what failure looks like.

Now, when ever I had seen someone pry the tire off the rim, they were using something called a tire spoon. Which I do not own. Also, as I mentioned before, tire spoons for backhoe tires cost around 200$. Which means I am never going to own one.

Which meant that we were trying to pry the tire off the rim using, two huge pry bars meant for digging, a large but weird squarish pry bar meant for who knows what, a crow bar, two smaller pry bars, a mallet and a sledgehammer.

We coated the tire rim with hot soapy water like the videos had showed, shoved the pry bars under the tire rim, lifted one small section of the tire up, and proceeded to make no progress whatsoever at all ever.

So today we awoke, the taste of failure still lingering in our mouths, and we came up with a plan. And by we I mean Scott. And by plan I mean that he walked into the living room where I was cleaning up something, and told me we needed to build a forge.

His plan in a nutshell, was to take the weird ass square pry bar that we have never used for anything, and make a goddamned tire spoon. I said okay we can do that. Because if there is one thing I've learned it's when life gives you land, you put a forge on it. Except of course that it was 16 degrees outside and snowing sideways. Scott suggesting using the wood stove, I suggested not making the house smell like ass. So we came up with a new plan, a better plan.

We would just grind the pry bar down, into the shape of a tire spoon.

There was no way this could go wrong!*

So we put on our war outfits. We needed not only to be wearing safety glasses, and dust masks, but also needed to be as warm as possible without wearing anything that we couldn't clean right away because metal flakes.

I am not proud. I am ninja.

You know what, this is one of those pictures that really defines my life. I look like a hobo from the poor planet in outer space, wearing a hat that looks like it belongs to a blind 12 year girl, preparing to go outside in the middle of a shit balls cold winter to make a tool I can't afford to do a job that I don't fully understand so I can fix a piece of machinery I can't even drive.

You know, I have lived this life and even I have trouble understanding how I got here.

So anyway we get ready and pumped up and stagger to the shed against the wind and prop the door open and fit new disks into the grinders and I hold the bar while Scott works. All in all it went pretty well, even though the wind was the coldest thing ever in the history of ever and the shed doesn't have windows so we have to keep the door open both because the lights inside the shed are kinda shitty and also because our old school safety glasses fogged up to the point it looked like we were trying to work in Silent Hill.**

I also became intimately aware that when your hands stop that burning feeling and go kinda numb, you can't really use them for things anymore. Which you would think would be a no brainier, except that I kept trying to use them for things because my brain refuse to believe in the cold. Also if you are wondering why I wasn't wearing good gloves, I was wearing good gloves. Carhart super insulated outdoor work gloves. And they still let me down. Even if I refused to acknowledge it.

Which is also how I dropped four eggs on the floor this afternoon.

Anyway.

We got it done and sanded it down and it...actually looks like a tire spoon. Which is kinda amazing if you think about it.

Also dust masks? Itchy. As. Hell.

Now if you excuse me I have to go drink hooch because the past two days I have been the coldest in the history of ever and I think I need alcohol to fix it. It's like remember all those failed invasions of Russia in the wintertime? New appreciation for that.

*This is a lie.

** This was a horror game that took place in a town that was always foggy. It was also a movie but I pretend it wasn't because the movie was pretty goddamned bad.

Backhoe Lug Nuts are the Devil.

Well, we lucked out because yesterday it warmed up to a balmy 28 degrees instead of a frigid 27! The first thing that happened was us snapping one of the extensions my uncle had lent us with his pneumatic tool.

Which meant that the day was already off to a great start. He had also lent us a ¾ breaker bar and ratchet. However, we made the decision to go get our own breaker bar and ratchet, because I was afraid if we broke too many of his things my uncle would never talk to us again which can never happen because my aunt makes, like, really really good desserts.

Now the thing is, many, many places sell 1/2 breaker bars and ratchets, or 1/4 breaker bars and ratchets, but not many sell 3/4 breaker bars and ratchets. And by not many I mean two. Only two places sold them within driving distance. So we hopped in the car and sped off to the store that's like, too damn far away and I almost feel asleep twice during the drive because breaking other peoples things is hard work.

Well we get to the store in question and we go in and lo and behold they have what we need. So we sped back to the house, slapped our brand new breaker bar and extension and socket onto the lug, grabbed our 6 foot long pipe (the persuader) and began. We heaved and grunted and cursed at the cold uncaring universe.

And then we bent the head of the breaker bar. 

This, this is what trying looks like. Also, failure.*

We went back inside. Did I mention that it was 27 28 motherfucking degrees outside? We called my uncle. He said to heat the bolts up with a torch.

Okay.

So after some digging around in the shed we found a rinky dink little propane torch. We lit it off, and the wind put it out. We lit it up again and the wind really put it out. We lit it again, sheltered it with our bodies like it was our own infant, and got it into the tire well and we were in business.

Imagine standing outside, wearing two sets of thermals, fleece, insulated gloves, a hat and wool socks, hunched over holding a propane touch up against a lug nut in 28 degree weather with wind gusts of up to thirty miles an hour and you will not even come close to imagining how much this sucked.

It really, really sucked.

After a while the oil we had placed on the lugs began to bubble up and then we placed on the whole breaker bar/extension/socket/persuader combo again. Using a stump, some boards and a jack we were able to support the whole rig to allow me to keep the torch focused like a fucking laser beam on that lug. 

If you ever wondered what sadness looks like, this is it.

So with me holding steady Scott put his entire weight down onto the persuader. And there was an almighty sound. At first we thought something had broken. I was looking right at my uncles breaker bar, thinking that he was going to kill us, because my eyes refused to believe what they were seeing. Everything was intact. The lug had finally loosed.

Quickly Scott pulled the pipe off and cranked it loose and then I moved the torch to the next one and then we repeated the process until the second to last one when the propane torch started to die. Then we freaked out and did arcane things to it and lit it again and again and then I had to hold the can at some bizarre angle to keep it going and freaking out that it would fail on the last lug because of course we didn't have any refills for it because that would be the smart thing to have.

Yet, somehow, somehow the torch lasted until we were able to loosed the last bolt and then pull the tire off and set it on the ground to wild applause.

Pictured: wild applause.

And then we went and became flushed with our own success and then we tried to take the tire off the rim and failed magnificently and said aw fuck it and I went inside and drank the rest of that bottle of wine.

*Scott took all of these pictures. I was gripped too

deep in the throws of holy shit balls it's cold.

Our Quest to Fix Our Backhoe Continues.

I am drinking wine right now, as I type this. That should give you an indication of how today went. Events were set in motion when the inner tube for the backhoe tire arrived. We gathered around, unpacked it, and immediately realized it was huge. Like ridiculously huge. You know back when you were a kid and you got a flat on your bicycle tire, how you would have to take the inner tube out and replace it?

This is just like that. Except that inner tube is like the size of a cat and this inner tube is the size of a rhino.

So you know, a tad bit heavier.

Then were all like, yay we can install it! And then we were all like, how do we install it? So we watched two Youtube videos of people taking backhoe tires off of the rims. One was of a group of fat guys in some sort of auto body shop where they jumped up and down on the tire and used this special magical tool and cursed a lot and giggled at each other like little school girls when one of them fucked up.

The second video we watched was in Spanish.

A group of Hispanic guys, still using there magical tire taking off and putting on tool, wrestled the tire off of the rim. One guy was dressed really, really, well. Like dress shirt and vest well. Scott kept making comments like, “look right there, they are using the same pry bars we have” or “Look how hard he is struggling with that” or “I think we will have to use a mallet to take that off as well.” While I kept saying things like “Why is he dressed so well to take a freakin tire off?” Along with “I don't speak Spanish, but I just know what the camera guy is doing is giving them unnecessary advice” and “stop filming his ass and film the tire FOCUS! FOCUS!”

Sometimes it's amazing we get anything done at all.

Now, lest I have confused you, the videos were about taking the tire off the rim. Not removing the rim and tire from the backhoe. Removing the rim and tire from the backhoe should be easy, just like taking a tire off a car right?

Ha ha ha huaaugghhh.

Yep. Also, about this point it started to snow. Not ones to be intimidated by a little thing like the weather, we trooped outside and began. First we found the correct socket, and a breaker bar to go with it, and went out to the tire. Optimistically we put the bar onto the bolt and heaved.

Nothing.

So we sat and looked at it for a while. Then Scott went and got some sort of oil in a can that is supposed to be magic at loosing bolts or some shit I don't understand, applied it to the bolts, and then went and got a six foot long schedule 40 pipe. So we put the breaker bar back on and put the pipe on the end of the handle because leverage motherfuckers. So we got out our fucking grrrr faces on, and pushed.

Annndd nothing.

So then we repositioned the bar so that we were pulling down, and he held the ratchet while I hung my entire body weight off of the bar. Which did nothing but threaten to break the ratchet. So we stopped.

Then we went back inside where it was not snowing. Then we cursed. Then we called my uncle. Who said we could borrow a few tools. So we drove to his house, in the snow, got the tools, got a run down of how much this was really gonna suck, got back in the car and drove home in the snow.

So tomorrow, in the snow, in 27 degree weather, we are going to attempt to take the tire off of the backhoe. Oh you know that magical tool they were using to take the tire off the rim?

It's 200$.

Which means that Holly is never going to own one. Which means that even if we remove the tire and rim from King (I named my backhoe King) we will be trying to pull the tire off of the rim with pry bars and wishes and cursing and tears of poverty.

So, ah, may god have mercy on our souls?

So King the Backhoe has a Flat Tire.

Sometime during this arctic snow filled winter, we looked out the window to discover that King the backhoe was leaning a whole lot to the right. When the snow finally melted we discovered that the right rear tire was flat. You know, the huge rear tire that backhoes have, right? The one the makes you question who thought it was a good idea in the first place to make a tire that size?

Yeah that one.

So then we were all like fuck. Then Scott reinflated it with fix-a-flat and did some other weird ass shit to it that I didn't understand and probably involved sorcery somehow. You know, because if Scott had magic powers he would totally spend them fixing tires. Because healing and lightning hands are over rated. Anyway, we were all like, whelp that solves the problem.

Until a week later, when it was flat again.

So then Scott was like, we are going to have to buy another tire. And I was all like, how much do tires cost? And he was all like, I dunno. And I was all like, to the Internet!

So then we discovered that they START at 400$. START. As in the lowest price you are ever gonna see. As in you will never see one cheaper then this that is usable. As in there goes your food budget for like, two fucking months hope you enjoy your off brand Raman Noodles.

So after I blacked out from price overload and woke up on the floor, we decided that we needed to come up with a plan. A better plan. So we started to ask around. Anybody. Everybody.

Then we asked my uncle. Who asked his friend who also owns a backhoe. And he said to just to buy a inner tube, and stick it our currently tubeless tire, and then do some shit I don't understand that involves patching the tire from the inside* and then do some more shit I really, really don't understand**, and then we will have a fully functional tire!

So we went online and looked up the price of tubes. Have you ever done that thing where you do a search and then you lean really far back from the monitor because you are kinda afraid of what you might see there? Well we did that and then we found out the price.

It was 64$. Not six thousand. 64 freakin dollars. Thank the dear lord sweet baby Jesus.

I would also like to take this moment to point out that my uncle should be made a saint at this point. Or maybe we could all get together and try to make him the pope. Except that would cut into his life of delivering mail and watching movies with explosions in them.

Anyway, stay tuned for updates as do terrible, horrible arcane things to our backhoe tire.

Really, from your end, it only gets better from here.

*This sounds like a nightmare to try to do.

** This sounds like the kind of nightmare where I have to lick Satans butthole.

Tearing down the old bunny shed (with smashing.)

So today we tore down the old bunny barn. Seeing as how they don't need it anymore. Plus it was kinda sitting where we want to put that house.

First thing this morning, and by first thing I mean after I had fed everybody and Scott started the laundry and I cleaned out the peep cages and did internet things and ate breakfast, we tore down the old bunny barn.

There was of course the obligatory beating on the damn thing with sledge hammers bit. Followed by the getting myself angry at the whole world bit.

Okay it went down like this. Scott and me got on opposing walls and standing outside the structure started wailing on the support boards. I took a shitty swing and saw it barely dent the wood. So I fixed my stance and swung again and again. And shit all nothing happened. Meanwhile I could here Scott on the other side smashing and thrunching his way through the other side like this was easy. So, I stared at that asshole board. I took a breath. A warm humid wind blew past me, ruffling my shirt and hat.

I call it PMS anger. It has no reason. It has no logic. It is pure. It simply is.

I gathered it to me like a shield. I took every single thing that had ever pissed me off and pushed it down into a little ball of rage. And then I swung.

Then the whole fucking building fell down.

I am not fucking kidding.

I hit that board so fucking hard it splintered into a million pieces and apparently that was the only thing holding that fucker up.

I would like to say that I held that sledge hammer in one hand and stood valiantly with my chest puffed out like Captain Motherfucking America while the building collapsed before me, possibly in front of a sunset and with everyone who had ever said anything mean to me watching in the back ground in awed silence.

What really happened was that I heard a second loud crack after hitting the board and the whole fucking structure kind shivered a bit and then started falling and I ran for it amid the sounds of tearing and smashing. But if anybody ever makes a movie about my life we will just assume that the Captain America version is how it went down.*

After that we decided to bring in King, the best backhoe in the whole wide world, to tear the rest of it apart.

And tear he did.

King took what would have been two days worth of work in less then an hour. He tore that fucker apart like it was made out of those flimsy shitty toothpicks that suck. You know that scene from Jurassic park where the T rex pushes the car up on two wheels with his head while he's trying to figure out why this thing he just killed tastes like ass?

Yeah. King totally did that, except replace 'car' with 'shed' and 'T rex' with 'backhoe.'

King wrecked that shit like it was a shit wrecking party. He tore and smashed and stabbed and crushed and pummeled that building out of existence.

And it was awesome.

It was awesome.

* If anyone ever asks, you were totally there and it was super sweet.