Bent Bit

The number of unique experiences at Kaiam grows... I've broken many a drill bit in my time, but I've never seen one bend like this one did. I was making a bracket for our new hydraulic oil filter and it required a hole for a bolt. So, starting with a punch, then a small drill bit, then a little bit larger, finally I worked my way up to this one. It sat nicely in the hole, it's point recessed easily in the existing cavity. Then I pressed the trigger on the Dewalt only to have it nearly jump out of my hands. At first I was puzzled, I had the drill straight up and down, why did it buck like that? Upon trying to recenter the bit, the reason was obvious and the result just demanded a photo...

Bent Bit

The number of unique experiences at Kaiam grows... I've broken many a
drill bit in my time, but I've never seen one bend like this one did. I
was making a bracket for our new hydraulic oil filter and it required a
hole for a bolt. So, starting with a punch, then a small drill bit,
then a little bit larger, finally I worked my way up to this one. It
sat nicely in the hole, it's point recessed easily in the existing
cavity. Then I pressed the trigger on the Dewalt only to have it nearly
jump out of my hands. At first I was puzzled, I had the drill straight
up and down, why did it buck like that? Upon trying to recenter the
bit, the reason was obvious and the result just demanded a photo...

How the ???

 

What are the chances of this???
Welcome to our washing/swimming spot on the river. This big rock right
in the middle of the stream is a good indication of the water level when
you look down on it from the back end of the airstrip. If it's been
rainy, the water comes up towards the top of this rock, but when it's
dry, you can see even more than you can in this picture, so currently
we're at about average river height. However, you'll notice an
interesting feature delicately balanced on this stone. Last night the
rains flooded down the river and lifted this tree trunk up and deposited
it where you see it now. It was perfectly balanced so that the kid on
the left caused the whole thing to see-saw. It was just heavey enough
though that he couldn't rock it off it's perch and it took Boaz and
about eight kids to roll the thing back into the river while I stood by
and got video of the splash it made.

Work Progress

Well, here's a photo of the current progress as of today. We've broken
through all the big hills and we're down to the original helicopter pad
that the little machine was delivered at in 2005 (the flat spot on the
right). All the area in front has to be filled from the yet remaining
hill on the left so that the flyover area is wide enough for the planes
to come down. To give you a sense of the scale we're working with, look
at the edge of the dirt and grass of the helicopter pad. There's a grey
and black verticle smudge... Well, that's a guy walking on the other
side of the airstrip... Yeah, this is a big project. Unfortunately we
haven't been able to do much work this year yet as it's still pretty
rainy, but there are a few days that it's dry enough to drive for a
couple hours. In the last thirty-five days I've gotten fifty hours of
driving in... Not very impressive, but the work done in that time is
pretty dramatic. Most of the dirt you're looking at is new as of that
fifty driving hours.

Happy Birthday To Me..

I bet you can't guess what I did for my birthday this year... No really,
I bet you can't...
Yesterday afternoon two guys came into Kaiam after having a tussle with
a wild boar, a pretty good sized one (we saw it today) that the third
guy with them finally killed before it killed them. One had the
stereotypically humorous boar tusk to the left butt cheek (go ahead, try
not to chuckle), while the other was bucked into a tree and dislocated
his shoulder. We spent the remaining portion of the day (I say "we" but
it should be clarified that our health worker has gone on sabbatical to
the bush, so a bunch of amateurs were left to muddle through as best as
we could figure) trying to reset a shoulder using the "weight" method,
which, unfortunately, proved to be unsuccessful. But the butt was
bandaged beautifully.
Today (my birthday), I had the wonderful experience of a feverishly sick
baby who wasn't holding down food. So, I got to learn about malaria and
administer some medicine to a 16 to 18 month old baby while waiting for
more detailed descriptions and pictures of how to set a shoulder to come
from Anton and the hospital staff back at Mambis. When the emails
arrived, it was a matter of figuring out how best I wanted to cause Mose
pain with the ultimate goal of a functional appendage. I settled on a
combination of the "Kayakers" and the "Yupera" method. Yupera is the
X-Ray tech from the hospital in Mambis who explained that by having the
individual face down on a table with the arm dangling, then pulling it
straight toward the floor with the palm facing "up" from the patient's
perspective you slowly rotate the arm in small circular motion until it
"pops" back in place. The "Kayakers" method helped with a 2nd person
pushing on the ball of the shoulder to help it slide into place. Having
two people was almost necessary because the guys here are deceptively
strong and only made of muscles. And since Mose's arm had been
dislocated all night, it was somewhat tight by this point.
Watching Mose's facial expressions was pretty amazing. He'd had a
permanent grimace on his face since I saw him yesterday, but when that
shoulder "popped" (and yes, they sure do pop) there was the sudden look
of both surprise and relief washing across his face. Add that to the
list of "firsts"...
I can't say I've ever had a birthday quite like this one...

Dry Morning Work

Yesterday morning was an early morning as we didn't have any rain for
two entire days and I fully expected to get a lot of dirt moving done.
I quietly ate my breakfast and went down to the shop, retrieved the
key, did my prestart checks: oil check, brake fluid check, coolant
check, belt tension check, power steering fluid check... Everything
looked good so I mounted the machine while thinking about how much fun
it was going to be to wake up the valley with the sound of the tractor
springing to life.

With an evil smile on my lips I pushed in the clutch and readied my hand
to start the machine when the machine responded in kind with a fairly
healthy *BANG*! Being quite early in the morning and still somewhat
groggy myself, this sudden sound surprised me, but just as much it
confused me. Bang? What goes bang?

When troubleshooting, it's best to start at the incident and work
through it again... Ok, release the clutch, push it back in- whoosh...
no resistance on the clutch... oh no... Broke my clutch cable... again.

I succeeded in waking up my cohorts, but not with the sound of a machine
billowing out black noise in the morning sun. It was my desperate plea
to come help me strip the machine to put in our spare clutch cable.

Get out the tools, squeeze inside a dash built for a six year olds
hands, pump out the recently filled fuel tank, loosen frame brackets,
drop the tank three inches and wedge one hand past to the clutch cable
and remove it with half a finger... Got it. Now reverse the process to
install.

Four hours later I was tightening up the last bolt from underneath the
machine when I hear Jeff say: "Here comes the rain."... you've got to
be kidding me. First dry morning this year and I spend the whole work
day under the machine rather than on it. Welcome to Kaiam.

Good news was that my clutch cable repair still looks to be in the same
shape as when I installed it. However, the same can't be said for the
reused bracket that holds the cable to the peddle. Still, this repair
day turned out to be much better than the three days it took to get the
machine up and running when the cable broke last time.

Tree Kangaroo

We have a new housemate: this tree kangaroo (otherwise known as a
cus-cus) Jeff found him while out looking for more timber for our house
project. They had felled a tree when the mother fell with the tree,
then ran up another one close by. After felling a second tree she got
scared and ran down onto the ground where these guys were quick to catch
her. In her pouch was this not-so-little baby cus-cus, which means that
the mother, by all accounts, was huge.

The biggest problem with a cus-cus housemate is the fact that they like
to be awake when I like to sleep. The first night of his acquisition,
we were concerned that neighborhood dogs might retrieve him off the
front porch so he slept inside with us. Big mistake. The little guy
smashed into the walls of his rather roomy cage at break-neck speed,
which needless to say, generated quite the ruckus. And even though the
two other guys in the house said the next morning "Yeah, I heard him
too!" their snores were adding to my auditory discomfort and a restless
night.

But other than that, sure, makes a great pet! :-|