David's Mad May Shopping Spree

I always thought I was pretty good at spending money , but this boy puts me to shame.In the last month he has acquired:
-a flat-bed one ton truck
-a forklift
-massive piles of wood for docks and decking
-a huge8500 watts/8.6kw generater/welding machine with a nice utility trailer
-a 40ft by 40ft barge
-a 2 story steel building to put on the barge
-100 feet of concrete breakwater

And now he is looking at buying a spudbarge ( for pile-driving) and a link-belt cable crane with a clamshell bucket for dredging . It will go on the 40ftx40ft barge and will be capable of earning a hundred thousand dollars a day on the river, whoohoo!Hope he takes me shopping!

He also just got a call from the guy that wants to give him free mobile homes and told him he has another 14 for him, that makes 24 in total, I see a city on the river in the near future!

The truck broke down the second time they drove it, so they used the forklift to push it back into the yard (it came in handy already!)A universal joint was replaced and a tuneup done on the truck.A clogged fuel line was discovered and repaired and its running well now.

It took 3 days of trying for them to get the 40x40 barge and the cement breakwaters here. They would go out to the mouth of the river and wait but the sea swells were so high they were swallowing the boat in the troughs.On the third night, things finally calmed down enough for them to go and get them.They left here at 3 in the afternoon and got back at 7 the next morning. Even with two tug boats they could'nt fight the freshet enough to move it all at once, so the docks were brought in first and the next night the Green Hornet brought in the barge.

When they were bringing in the docks, one was inadvertently cut completely loose and went swirling downstream in the raging freshet. The tugs quickly manovered into place and caught it between them and pushed it back to the house were it was securely moored.It was amazing to watch those tugs dance that dock back into place, I had no idea they were so nimble. They concrete docks will come in very handy at the new marina to protect us from boat wake.

The deck on the barge was in quite bad shape so David has hired a crew to strip off the old wood and lay down new wood.Its a huge job, they are about a third the way done now.

The generator/welder was taken off the utility trailer and will be installed in one of the containers here on the property. David is going to turn the container into a toolshop/welding shop. The trailer was hoisted by forklift and put on top of a container to keep the driveway clear.What a fun toy a forklift is, I even learned how to drive it. Never know when that will come in handy!

Davids Growing Empire

I always fancied myself a bit of a psychic, but when I wrote last year that David would be building several thousand feet of floating real estate, I had no idea how true that would turn out to be. I hadnt known him for very long at that point but was very impressed by his tremendous energy and ability to get things done. Silly me , I was just envisioning him getting his house finished and building something on top of the barge.It now looks like he may have his own floating CITY in the not too distant future.

Since the beginning of this year, he has been hard at work doing all the research and paperwork to aquire a large water lease just down the river from here.While he waits for city hall to process the application, he has been busy hunting down deals on material and tools to build the docks and floats he will need at the new marina. So far he has aquired the material for over 1400 feet of docks/floats. Some of the material is being stored at another marina for the moment, but alot of it has already been moved down here and stored on his barge ( meatlocker 17- so named as it's original purpose was as a live holding tank for fish).Work has begun on the dock building process and they should be making 2-3 a day.

The docks are wood over large pastic wrapped styrofoam with tubes built in underneath to carry water and electrical components.There is a guard-rail on the outside and they will have a lightpost added once they are in position.

While searching on craigslist one day he found a man that wanted to give away 10 mobile homes so he could redevelop his trailerpark. David is aquiring those and having them shipped down here and stored across the road. He is going to build floats for them and refit them with all they need to be floathomes off the grid.
The idea is to make them as self sufficient as possible and green.To that end he is looking at putting in water desalinaters, holding tanks for fresh water and black tanks for sewage, some form of macerator or composting toilet, propane hot water and heat and solar power for energy.As far as the energy thing is concerned there are many options to be considered and tested, so thats not in stone yet.

David found his barge last year, sunk at the bottom of the river. He pumped it out at low tide and got it floating.With the help of friends, he got it towed home and has been storing it here for the last year. The plan was to someday build a huge home/art studio on it. It has 8 huge rooms inside of it( used to be large fish holding rooms with pipes to flush water through each of the rooms)Several of the rooms are presently flooded due to holes punched in the sides. Since moving the barge to its new location beside his house, it ended up sitting on a piling at low tide which has done a fair amount of damage to it. David has been busy all week cutting and welding large patches over all the holes. Once he is finished, the tanks can be pumped out and it will finally sit straight in the water.In the meantime it is serving duty as a work platform to store material and build docks.

I cant wait to see whats next. David has about 5 projects on the go at once. He is working on the water lease deal. Buying, moving, storing material, getting his tugboat rebuilt so he can start using it, working on finishing his house and building docks and floats.Im exhausted just thinking about it all. He should be his own country by this time next year.