Things have changed around here on the vehicular front during the past few months. Besides the Rambler kickin the bucket the GMC has been long gone and now I bought a 1953 Willys Aero Lark. It is best described as something I really didn't need. Figured it would make a good little unique gas saving machine I took the brown pickup on a 170 mile trip one way to pick up this puppy. Between running out of gas on the interstate, getting lost, and fighting random electrical gremlins it was nothing short of a minor miracle that I made it back home in one piece. Paid 400 bucks for it, probably too much for something that is as badly rusted as this thing is. The underside is completely shot, since this thing is unibody it'll be much more challenging for me to fix. Since I had traveled such a distance I wasn't going back empty handed and I put up the 400 bucks to purchase it. Luckily for me the motor runs like a top, it is the best thing about the whole car. Not sure what I am going to do with it now, probably tinker on it and sell it off in the spring. Originally I wanted to gasify it but the motor runs so nice I would hate to ruin it. Which brings me on to my next crazy idea.

I have been thinking about putting on an older cab onto my brown pickup's chassis. There is no practical reason for doing this. I like the uniqueness of older vehicles (although some would say a 77 Ford is already getting pretty old) especially those of the early 50s. There is a 48 Ford F-6 not sitting to far from my parent's house. I pass it almost every day never paying much attention to it, that is until a few days ago.


When I was a young lad about ten years of age my friend and I discovered an old 48 Ford F-1 in his back woods. We did a lot of duct tape body work and had ideas of putting a steam engine at first in it, later the idea would be to use a three wheeler as the motivation. Keep in mind this thing was nothing more than a rusted out shell of a cab and a front clip. It had been sitting on it's side for so long that the driver's side door was completely gone, all that remained was a door handle and the chrome window crank. We tipped it back up and over the years I never quite completely gave up on it. It was my "first" car and I have a lot of fond memories of playing in it and scrounging around for (very) random parts on it. As time went on I became more and more aware that it was a lost cause. Parts got lost, the hood we took off and later my friend's dad threw it into the large garbage pit he had dug and it was buried. I still got it, it now rest on my slab, too far gone to save but not quite ready to junk it.

So now that you know the back story on why I have wanted a 48-52 Ford truck. I decided to stop in and inquire about it. It is owned by a fella I always got along with pretty well. He told me a few people had stopped in over the years to ask about it. Naturally he wanted to know my plans for it. Unlike other people who wanted it for parts, scrap, or even to use as a flower planter I wanted to see it on the road. The guy also wanted to see it back on the road and said I could have it for the low price of 200 bucks. After a quick glance over the truck seemed to be pretty solid as Wisconsin trucks go. It hadn't been on the road since 1963, the guy had bought it from the original owner who is actually still alive. The motor was locked up, the front tires and brakes were off (the guy has long since lost the wheel bearings) and the windows were all shot up thanks to a kid and a bb gun. I was only after the sheet metal anyway but having to get a new windshield is sorta a bummer, I can live with plexi-glass side windows for now. Being a heavy duty truck it has extra gauges and knobs. The wheel openings are a little larger than the F-1 but some metal work oughta take care of that. Otherwise there isn't much difference in the front clip and the cab over it's smaller brethren. After some more talking I come to find out the guy never got the title for it. The previous owner had lost the title in a fire some 30-40 years ago. Naturally the DMV had no record of ownership so the guy couldn't file for a lost title. He figured I should be able to register it as a 77 Ford. I know better and knew the only way this thing is going back on the road it will have to be registered as a 48 Ford. Not wanting to give up I dug and did a little research. A call to the DMV confirmed what the man had told me, there was no record of either the vin number or the plates in their database. So on to plan B. Apparently in this state one can get a title for a titleless vehicle by filling out the correct paper work and having a cop inspect the vin number. So I feel confident enough to plunk down the 200 bucks I don't really have on this puppy. Hopefully there are enough things I can get rid of off of the rest of the truck to pay for itself or very close to it. The idea is to have a old school looking pickup with the easy to find and reliable mechanicals of a 77 Ford. Also I really want to try a gasifier on this.

I do sorta feel bad tearing into the brown truck. We have had a lot of adventures together, but my hope is the cab and front clip will be reborn on a dually truck chassis and the brown pickup will live on in a much heavier duty sense. I do know where there is this dually 1 ton chassis.......

With the first frost of the season last week the rush is on. Projects that I have been seriously slacking on will have to get done now or lie dormant all winter long. Two projects that absolutely need to be finished right away is putting in the wood furnace and cutting firewood. I have no cash for propane this winter and with no real job prospects on the horizon wood heat is the only option. I have plenty of dead wood to cut, lots of scrap wood from the fallen down barn to cut as well. A wood shed would be nice too, I might tear down some more of the mobile home to provide for said woodshed. I managed to get my old mobile home jacked up, it'll probably get moved Sunday. If I can sell it that might provide me with some much needed dough to keep going through the winter along with a bunch of logs I cut down.

Another project I would love to finish would be the garage. I cleaned off the cement slab which was a big job in and of itself. I have a whole ton of old telephone poles around the property that were used for various buildings/windbreaks. More than enough to build me a pole style garage. The tricky part will be covering the thing and the roof. Might have to be on the hunt for more tin for the roof, the walls I might try to cover with a combination of slab wood and planking.

My job is winding down, down to one truck to unload on Saturday nights. In some ways I wish it was done with already, from my rough calculations I would be farther ahead collecting unemployment than going into work. Also with last week's silo fiasco at the receiving plant the creamery's future is in jeopardy. Seems now with the milk glut no one wants low quality can milk anymore. There  may not be a buyer for the milk. No buyer = no job. I read in the paper how the unemployment rate is going down where I live, I can say beyond a doubt it is going down for only two reasons. One is most people who can't find a job move to somewhere they can, two most people already exhausted their unemployment benefits. It sure ain't going down because of new jobs. This is all the more reason to motivate me to finish cleaning up the scrap steal around my place. Fall and winter are usually bad times for work anyway.

As you may have noticed there have been fewer pictures of my progress around here, rest assured it isn't because progress has been slow more like I haven't had a working digital camera. That to is yet another project. Words can only describe so much. Fortunately all that requires is a different non scratched cover for my cell phone.

Seems I live in a rather nosey neighborhood. People drive very slowly past my house staring at it. Sometimes they'll come at a complete stop and stare and if they are really nosey they'll turn around and get a second look. I am a private person and this bugs me. A little bit of staring whatever I can handle that but stopping and turning around to get a second look is a little ridiculous.

I took a trip down to the local tree nursery and was happy to find out they were having a half off sale on everything. I picked up a few different varieties of pine trees and shrubs. They had 5-6 feet tall trees for 20 bucks. I bought 5 pines to go along with the small 2 foot tall white pines I had planted earlier this week in a row. Also got a couple of grape vines too. The truck was loaded down with enough weight in plants to the point where the tire was rubbing on the wooden flatbed. I moved a couple of shrubs over to the one side and it was just enough to give me the clearance I needed to get those plants safely home without blowing a tire. Working all day today I got everything in except for the vines.Those things are quite heavy with them big root balls. My brother helped me get the trees from off the truck in one piece. I'll tell you one thing it was much easier getting the trees loaded at the nursery when one has a skid steer at their disposal. Earlier this week I had gotten a couple of  apple trees planted and a weeping willow. Below picture is of the flippin' awesome apple trees. The willow is hiding out by the back of the Rambler.

The soil is a little more clayish by the Rambler and holds in a bit more water than the soil in the yard. Figured the willow would be happier in a more wet sort of environment. I am far from done with my tree planting. As soon as I am done cleaning up the rest of the mess from tearing down the addition I plan on going to my parents forest and grabbing a bunch more trees and a ton of shrubs. This accomplishes two things, one it screens my house from nosey people and it makes for less yard for me to mow. I also want to get my paws on some blueberry bushes as well.