by 
P&H 5700 Mining Shovel – Todays picture shows one of six real 5700 shovels that was built. They are the worlds largest 2 crawler cable shovels. This week I continue to work on the crawlers and should get the second set roughed in by Sat. afternoon. I plan to have the revolving house mounted on the car body and will post the next project picture Sat. afternoon. There will still be a lot to do on the lower structures but I will then move to the Gantry on the top deck of the machine next. The gantry is the next main part of the model I want to get built so I can get closer to setting up the boom assembly mounting on the front of the revolving house. I can’t wait to see the boom and the bucket mounted to the rest of the model for the first time. I can already see this is a larger model than the Silver Spade but not quite as tall. I am building it so it can be un assembled to fit through my workshop door and then reassembled in the front garage. We will remove the boom and possibly the gantry to transport it to Cleveland to Chuck’s open House in July along with the Hitachi , the two monster haul trucks and the twin trailer coal hauler.
Weightwatchers- Last night we went out to Applebees for my birthday and Deb and I each got the house salad with the dressing on the side and a order of chicken nuggets with the sauce on the side. It wasn’t much of a birthday meal especially when i could have had a free dessert , ha,ha. Actually Bruce and Barb treated us to the meal for my birthday. They are also on a strict diet and they are actually losing more than we are so we are happy for them too.
Seems every week there is some reason to go out and eat a big meal. But we managed to stay in control on Mothers Day and on my Birthday so we are happy about that. We know if we are not losing weight, we are probably gaining it back. So it is a good feeling we are back on track again.
Frozen grass seed- It will be interesting to see if my grass seed takes off or not with these freezing nights in the 20’s . We could have a cold summer as last summer was cool and we only used our air conditioning two nights all summer.
Vacation to nowhere- Nicole and Bill are flying to Italy on vacation and in between the volcanic ash issues overseas and the airline strike that is supposed to happen this month they could be spending the whole vacation at the airport gift shop as they may never even leave the airport, ha,ha. Hopefully they will go and have a great time.
Have a great Thurs. !!
