The Dinosaur Turd in the Back Yard

So I got this nastygram from the park manager.  In the mail.  On Christmas Eve.  Here it is December and they want me to paint my oil tank.  Or else.

(Insert rude noise here.)

Okay, so they sent a similar little note back in May…  Well, I’ve been busy!  The new nastygram says I have seven days to have the work started or they will “pursue legal action.”  Frankly I don’t know what legal action they can pursue.  I own the tank.  They do not have it within their power to tell me what to do with my property.  The oil company says that while the tank may not be pretty, there is nothing functionally wrong with it.  If there was they wouldn’t be filling it.

Well, it is rather unpleasant looking.

Rereading this latest nastygram it occurred to me that while they said it has to be painted – they didn’t say what kind of paint to use or what color it has to be.

Heh!  >:-}

I have been meaning to do something about the tree that’s growing between the tank and the house.  It actually came in rather handy last summer!  I would open my bedroom window that’s right in the middle of the tree and use a fan to draw in the cool air through the shady branches.  That picture shows things as they were this morning with all of the leaves gone for the year and many of the branches pruned back so the tank can be filled.  Actually, some of the leaves are still there all dead and brown and jammed around the tree on the tank…

So getting rid of my tree was phase one.

Now I can legitimately order the Lumberjack breakfast at Bickford’s!

They also want me to sand off “all the rust” from the tank.  Well, the tank isn’t really all that rusty.  There are several colors of paint on it.  The last was apparently a cheap coat of some kind of silver paint that wasn’t really sticking all that well.  That’s why it looks so bad.  The other thing in the picture besides my electric chainsaw (gotta be ready for the zombie apocalypse!  And it can run on power from the solar system!) is one of my cordless drills fitted with a paint remover pad.  I switched back and forth between two cordless drills while their batteries were charging and ground off most of the loose paint.

After sweeping the dust off of the tank well enough I got down to business and painted it. 

With Rust-oleum Hammered Brown paint. 

So-friking-there!  It looks just like rust.  It’s also a quality rust inhibiting paint.  So the tank should be well protected for the next several years at least.

When all was said and done, I’d say the tank came out pretty well, actually.

Although it does bear a striking resemblance to a huge dinosaur turd right under my bedroom window…  Given that it’s full of processed dino juice it must have been a carnivorous dinosaur.  Who knew there were T-Rex’s running loose in the neighborhood?!