What’s Up With That?

What’s Up With That? was Originally Posted on October 16, 2013 by lavarock

I am not much for spicy things because I never saw the point in them. Why would you want to burn your mouth or worse, on purpose? Maybe other people don’t feel a burning sensation like I do, but TV programs side with me.

So today I had to go to the Post Office in Captain Cook and decided to go to a local fast food restaurant for some carryout. I decided to try something different and chose Korean Chicken. Although not super hot, it is chicken with sesame coating that has a tang to it. It is served on a bed of shredded cabbage and comes with a scoop of macaroni salad and two scoops of rice.

Although the macaroni salad gives a bit of relief over the spice, I was lucky to have a jug of iced tea to drink, although milk would have been better.

My snack is a local favorite too, sweet crystallized ginger, which also has a lingering tingle to the taste buds.

As for the day, it started out very sunny and clear so I decided to paint the small deck. “Deck” may be a misnomer as people will think of a structure, which this is not. I have been drying my coffee on a raised platform covered with shade cloth. That allows the wet coffee parchment to drip its moisture through the cloth to the ground. It does not work as well as it could for a number of reasons. The platform is too low to the ground and the canopy is too high above it. If it were to rain in that configuration, the beans would get wet again. I had removed the legs of the canopy and would flip it down over the platform, but that keeps me from being able to get underneath.

The best setup is to use a wooden deck and turn the beans as they dry. Many people use clear plastic roofing to cover the coffee and that roofing is high enough to allow someone to walk underneath and rake the beans (turning them so they dry better). My new “deck” as it were will be closer to that then before.

I have been designing this in my mind for quite some time, hoping I could make it until I had construction help the beginning of next year. I decided I had to spend some money on a solution in the meantime. You would think that a couple of pieces of plywood would do the job, but it gets expensive.

Since the canopy is 10 by 20 feet, I decided upon 2 pieces of 4 by 8 foot pieces of plywood. They will fit nicely under the canopy and allow for some overhang of the roof. Then I will reuse the canopy, removing the soon to rip woven plastic roofing and replace it with some clear plastic panels to let the sunlight through. I also needed a way to hold the plastic panels to the already built metal framework of the canopy. This canopy is a 10 by 20 “garage” with open ends and sides and a roof that is tall in the center, not unlike a long tent with open sides and end. I am replacing what would normally be canvas but in my case is just woven plastic.

So to replace the roofing with plastic panels, I had to figure some way to brace them better. I bought some fence parts and  will use PVC pipe to add extra support so the panels don’t sag. I have not figured out how the panels will keep from flying off in the wind yet. I could drill holes through the plastic and fasten them into the PVC supports but I would then have to cover the holes.

Because this may be a temporary structure for the rest of the year, I hate to make permanent changes that I can’t undo. I’d like to use the panels as part of a more permanent structure I need to build. The final design will also include an area for me to pulp the coffee cherry to prepare it for drying. That makes the deck larger and necessitates being able to walk under the  structure. For now the platform will be raised on top of perhaps 3 stacked concrete blocks.

 So, some plywood, paint and plastic roofing should be pretty cheap, right? Well, the plywood needs to be flat with few if any knotholes so beans don’t egt stuck. The paint needs to be pretty waterproof as wet beans will be resting on it. That also restricts the type of paint that can be used.

So my little project so far is 2 pieces of nice and fairly thick plywood at $35 each. Deck paint was $45 and looks like it will only cover the top of the plywood with 2 coats. The clear panels were $35 each and I needed 6. Luckily I have some concrete blocks here and they are cheap as are the fasteners and PVC.

If my permanent structure was not going to be a sturdy, walk-under type, or I did not use clear roofing, then I would have taken the legs of this roof and added wheels in the 6 locations and added a ramp on either side. That would allow me to retract the roof and have the beans sit in the sunlight. The drawback to that is that roof has to cover the beans if it rains. Rather than try to get outside at first spot of rain to move the roof, I would have designed it to cover the beans automatically. Having the roof on a ramp that is slightly pitched would allow it to roll down the ramps by gravity. A small electro-magnet would hold the roof in position until a rain sensor turned off the electro-magnet.

I know, I get too complicated. In some countries they throw a tarp on the ground and put the wet beans on it. They flip the beans to let them dry evenly and when it rains, they just fold the tarp up so no water gets inside. Cheap and effective when you have labor costs in the range of pennies a day. If I was in a foreign country I could still have my roof, but would pay a guy pennies a day to stand by and when it rained, press the button to move the roof!

Finally, I was reviewing my taxes from a couple years ago. I had a cellphone bill and multiple phone services. My local service was $45 a month and did not cover long distance. My long distance was $19 a month. MY toll free number was $2 a month and so on. The telephone costs were tremendous until I started converting everything to VOIP. I now have all but the cellphone down to under $8 a month.

The Ironman Race is over and our town is returning to normal. I hope that our visitors had a good time and will take back great memories. The race was streamed live on the internet and should be available on a network or PPV in the near future.

I ordered an antenna to try to pick up the Maui TV stations over the air, but it looks as though there really is a hill in the way. There are a few things I can try, but I may be out of luck. However I have a couple people who this antenna would work well for. I made sure that if it didn’t work here, I had a plan-B.

Speaking of “Plan-B”, there is a rather large bout up in town sitting beside the road in a warehouse location. The name on the boat is Plan B. I wonder what Plan A was and if this boat is sitting there to take the place of the other in case of disaster?

The boat is on a trailer and I guess you would have to take it to the marina and back it into the water. If you don’t have someone to help you, you would back it down the ramp, get out to see where the water is, get back in and turn off the motor, get out and crank the boat into the water. You know that I would do it differently. I would take the rain sensor and mount it on the far end of the boat. Then backing down the ramp as the sensor touched the water, the electro-magnet would release…