Pickup fan belt, 2600 pounds of ammonium nitrate

Yesterday Barb and I went to the farm to deliver the potassium chlorate stored in our garage for Boomershoot 2004. We had just barely left the house when this terrible screeching sound would happen when I would speed up the engine. Arggh… another repair. I turned around and came back to the house. The alternator belt was loose so I tightened it. I put my toolkit in the back of the pickup. With our luck the last couple of weeks we would need it before the day was over. But we didn’t. We made it there and back without incident.

We dumped off the 550 pounds of potassium chlorate, rearranged a few things, measured power cord lengths (I need to buy some short extension cords), measured the output of the solar cells (about 180 mA at 3:00 PM). Barb convinced me to lie down on the ground and just experience the fresh air of spring for a few minutes. It was very pleasant, we love the springtime in this area. I put a new lock on the shed, then we drove to Mom and Dad’s place, gave Doug his lock back, said hi to my parents and borrowed the fertilizer truck to go buy the ammonium nitrate. I wanted about 2500 pounds and because of their lack of control in the loading of the truck ended up with 2600 pounds. That is fine, I will be able to store the excess for next year. We drove back to the shed with the truck and off loaded about 700 or 800 pounds into the empty containers. We ran out of time and drove back to visit with Mom and Dad some before we came back home. Ry and I will go back on May 1 or 2 to build a bunch of targets and off load the rest of the AN.

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