Windfarming Date(s): November 24, 2005. Album by John Pratt. 1 - 24 of 45 Total. 168 Visits.
1 Early morning... very cold. These are the people I work with, starting far left; James, Steven, Zack, and Buck.
2 We have to bolt the crane to the Base and Mid sections of the windmill so that it can be raised up and set. The cheeseball in the foreground is Jeff.
3 This is a view to the north. Most of the windmills are to the south. Basically, this is what the site looks like before we put up the sections. We have to try and line up all the holes in the base with the protruding bolts. Then we hit the bolts that may hang up on the base with a hammer, until they aren't stuck anymore.
4 View to the South. The semi's truck these things up along the ridgelines and to the individual sites.
5 Yes, here's your hero posing for a photo. Please notice the gloves. I've been going through a pair every 3 days. Also, you can see why it's so dusty up there.
6 Here's James again. Also, you get to see how the cranes lift the peice vertically so that they can swing the base and then we can mount it. Huh huh... I said "mount" :)
7 Kinda a repeat of last picture, though this time around you get to see what a true cheeseball "peaches" / Jeff is.
8 This is inside the base, up on the top of it, once the mid section has been mounted. Actually we're in the process of mounting it. If you see the bolts laying in the upper left corner of the photo, we have to take 120 of those 20lb bastards, and insert them from the bottom up so that we can attach the nut and tighten it down.
9 If you look close you can see my eyes behind the terminator sunglasses. Anyway... once we get all the bolts in, we get the crane dude to give us 1/2 the weight of the base. This allows us to tighten the nuts down further. Then we ratchet them down as people climb up to the top to detatch the crane. The railing in the background protects us from falling 80 feet to our deaths, as there is a big hole in the floor, which will eventually make it easier for anyone to haul things up to the cell, when it is set.
10 Ok, here's me on the board over the hole I just talked about. This is a view down 80 feet. Someone has to stand on this while doing the following: putting in bolts, ratching, and multiplying. The height is kinda one of those things you don't want to think about while you're out there.
11 Same view, blurry, without a flash
12 Here's Buck and Jeff hand tightening the nuts and bolts.
13 Zack, and Steven for that matter, are crew from the Turner Crane team. I think Zack used to rodeo. In any event, you'll see the nuts and bolts are in.. .and dude is ready to climb up. Also in this pic you see the 2 sections of ladder that we will need to make one section. We do this with some drilling, some bolt adjustment and etc. That slider in the middle of the ladder prevents us from falling all the way down, in the event that we slip.
14 Here's Buck with the Multiplyer. It's rapidly becoming one of those machines that I would like to take out to a field and go crazy on... "office space" style with a bat. It weighs 80lbs. Notice that this 80lb bohemoth needs to be moved around 120 times at shoulder heigth.
15 Since it's such a windy place everyone rocks a constant sunglasses tan because of windburn. You'll see it featured here on my face. Also, the reason we use the multiplyer is because it tightens down the nuts and bolts to a level of 32900 pounds of pressure per square inch. So.. thankfully the base and mid sections are screwed together tightly. But, the stupid thing makes a really loud high pitched whine and that is inside a tube which already echos like crazy. Hence the reason for the earplugs.
16 Here's a view downward over the ladder. We climb up at this point to help move the multiplyer from above, since it's a little easier.
17 Down to the left of the ladder is the electricty box that we have to wire up once the mid is attached. It allows the lights to illuminate the rest of the tower.
18 Even up on the ladder I like to be harnessed in. Thankfully they've issued us some safety stuff including little bungeee chords that are attached to our backs. So we can fall without being too scared. But since we can't detach ourselves, because the bungees are on our backs, if we do fall we have to wait for someone to pull us up. Also, I think you'll find me unshaved in most of these pics. Since they only give you a day off every two weeks or so... and I only have time to eat and sleep when home.
19 LOL, here's some fun stuff. We're throwing rocks. There is sometimes lots of down time, so we are forced to entertain ourselves. Sometimes the semis get stuck behind cranes, sometimes they blow tires, sometimes people are just incompetant. In this case we sat around for 2 hours waiting for stuff. There was a nice little competition to knock branches off of a dead tree though.
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21 I felt I should get lots of pics, just in case I needed to blackmail my cohorts out of some fundage or something of that nature :)
