Didn't get a whole lot done in the shop the last couple of days. I ran out of propane for the heater and the tank for the house was getting low so the Missus called the gas guys and she asked if they could fill up my shop tank while they were here. No go on that - they don't do that any more so I had to take the tank for a lovely drive in the country and get it filled at one of their other places instead of the one that is within walking distance of the shack. Things went smoothly enough but when I went to pull out the credit card the lady said cash or checks only. Fortunately, I went to the bank the other day and hadn't spent all my cash yet.
The guy at the gas place gave me a hand loading the tank back into the truck. The tank weighs 70 lbs empty and 170 lbs full. If the truck sat about 5 or six inches lower I could muscle it in by myself without straining myself but I was glad for the help. Getting it hooked back up at the house was a bit of a struggle. With the snow, rain, warm-up, and refreeze, the ground is covered with a couple of inches of crusty snow. It's hard to shovel and even harder to roll a 170 lb tank across. After all the years of rolling tanks, I don't have a bit of trouble on concrete but the propane tank kept breaking through the crust, plus there's a couple of obstacles to work around. Just one more thing that's going to be a deciding factor one of these day when I have to decide if I should move into town.
I am kind of curious what other people do if they have a tank like mine. It used to be anyone with a house trailer had a couple of these tanks to supply them. I'm sure some folks with cabins around here have these as well. Maybe they just use a different supplier. I can't imagine everyone taking their tank in every time it needs a refill.
Anyway, my cinch straps came in the mail yesterday. These should work well to strap things down on the Himalayan panniers. I ordered these from Strapworks.com. They've got all kinds of webbing and hardware for most any type of strap you could imagine. Mine worked out to $12.00, shipping included. Hard to beat that. I also ordered some plastic tubing for the bike so I can mount my bicycle panniers on the side of the gas tank without scratching anything. I was planning on splitting the tubing and fastening it on and make it somewhat permanent since it's clear and wouldn't be too noticeable. I ordered 3/4" OD x 5/8" ID and that's what the package said. Only thing is, it's actually 11/16" OD x 9/16" ID. It's not worth the hassle to send back so when it warms up a bit I'll look into another solution. I'm thinking now just cut a piece of bicycle inner tube and wrap around the tank protector when I put the panniers on and then take the inner tube off when I'm not using them.
The other photo is how I spent the rest of my day after fooling around with the propane tank. I finished off my book and then put the jigsaw puzzle together I got for Christmas. With the cold weather we are supposed to have the next few days, I'm thinking another book, another puzzle and some work down the basement on a couple of things. Mostly concentrate on staying warm.
3 comments:
Could you just get another LP tank, maybe 250 gallons? I have a second LP tank for the pool heater.
That's certainly an option but I don't use all that much LP. I priced out a 40 lb tank - $75.00. One of those plus what I've got would probably last me a year. With the smaller tank as my back-up, I could wait until my son or the older grandson was around to give me a hand moving the refilled big tank.
The real issue is I can see down the road I'm not going to be able to do all the things I once did. As the Missus so politely pointed out to me after falling off the bike while loading it into the back of the truck, it's about time I figured out I'm not a kid anymore and I should get some help for some of these things. She's right, of course, but I just haven't quite got a handle on that yet.
Ha! Well she's probably right.
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