Good morning!!!!

[Buppies]

Diesel up to $4.99 a gallon going to get costly again

 

[KilroyJC]

Yes

And what type of sawmill?

 

[KilroyJC]

Yes

And what type of sawmill?

Wood Mizer LX 65. I am still waiting for some accessory parts (”Supply Chain Issues” ) but I have enough to start squaring cants and making boards for the “real” sawmill shed. But first, I need to make a whole bunch of stickers! Which will help me dial in, fine tune, and practice with the mill before making “real” lumber

 

[KilroyJC]

just got off hour long phone call with a high school classmate I have not seen since 1967. He was one of my best friends in junior high.
His parents were local dairy farmers, big Swedish looking folks, men with great big barrel chests so they could toss those hay bales around like toys.
My friend was an EE working for navy subcontractors doing defense electronics work, much of which was at Willow Grove and then at air station on Chesapeake.
He retired to Bangor PA, way North of here, 60 miles up in the mountains, wanted affordable home and land.
And now he has multiple mylenoma and just finished his third chemo. Voice was hoarse but it sure sounded like him.
He was so delighted to talk to me, we had truly lost touch with each other.

Might have been tenth grade, 1965 or so when I was having a real problem in Algebra class. It just seemed like a foreign language and I wasn't getting it.
I kept wondering when I would ever actually use my knowledge of what a co-sin was. Later on in life doing mechanical drawing and carpentry, then that math sometimes
came into play, but didn't seem very often to me. Like calculating where a tree will fall. But my friend tutored me for six weeks or so, after school, and I got to see the flow of equations
and why 6+A/Y-2 might actually be useful. On a test.

I can't go see him, he's in a kind of isolation now, low blood counts, but we are going to connect by zoom.
I think I'm going to subscribe so I can just offer him a link to click on. I've had to learn the hosting part for church so
if it's a small fee to join versus driving costs of 30 bucks for gas each time, zoom isn't so bad. He is pretty hoarse so I'm trying to connect
other than just sending pics by email of something to brighten his day. He has farmer genes like I do, his are much deeper, but we were good friends.

He went to the NJ shore with my family in our old Chevy stationwagon, windows down, no air, and it was the first time he had ever been in the ocean. He had never walked on a beach
or swum in the ocean, or felt a big wave pound on his big chest in the water. He would laugh as the water banged into him, it was a force of nature he had never experienced.
It was really fun to watch. We talked about that daytrip to the shore today.

a trip down memory lane I hadn't expected.

multiple mylenoma (sp?)
bilateral adrenal lymphoma & multiple melanomas
lymphatic lymphoma

makes me wonder if the soil is radioactive here............all classmates.
My Mother, Father and Uncle all died of cancer.
they all smoke and drank.
I try to go heavy on the broccoli and the blueberries instead.
And since I have an open bottle of a nice red blend, which I like to cook with,
I might say a toast to an old friend to get to old age with me.

Ask him if he was ever at the old Bomarc site at Dix - that might explain the myelomas. . .

 

[KilroyJC]

50F and partly cloudy @ 11:30, looks pretty sunny out there to me. LWS reports the low hit 34.7F here this morning ... but that station is down by the lakes, so it may have been even lower here.

Calling for a high of 56F today but with generally sunny skies later. Winds are currently light, out of the north @ 2 mph. Hope that continues for the rest of the day.

I spent yesterday morning doing more research on materials needed for the barn and putting together a list of that.

Also watched a couple of videos. One was a guy putting up a vapor barrier, which was helpful. He said 8' wide sheeting was probably about as big as he'd want to work with working alone. That's good news, as the space between the trusses is around 8' and the spacing on the ceiling joists will be 4'.

He also recommended using cardboard squares as caps to prevent tearing and pull outs.

Forced myself to go outside even though it was cold, wet, and dreary ... just to acclimate to the cooler temps that are due in the coming days.

Topped off the hydraulic fluid in the Kubota and then ran what was left of the previously screened clay through the screener a second time. I'll need to move the pile of large chucks that came from that today back over to where it will get some sun so it can dry up a little more.

While I was doing that Fedex dropped off the new framing nailer:

View attachment 765582​

Looks to be a fairly nice unit, only 0.1 of a pound heavier (7.4 lbs) than the Porter Cable FR350 it's replacing and includes a hook so it can be hung on rafters while you're working, 5 year warranty from Milwaukee. Only real downside so far, is that didn't include a hard plastic case like the Porter Cable did (Porter Cable no longer does either apparently)

Well, that and I don't remember them being quite as heavy as they seem to be these days ...

Home Depot recently dropped the price on these by $70, which is about how much less it was than the Porter Cable unit ... which made it too tempting to resist.

Got the hopper feeder refilled, also two suet feeders. Lots of customers this morning ...

Saw a momma deer strolling through the back yard yesterday afternoon. Those little buggers headed right into the garden and flower bed ...

I banged on the window and they scattered and headed off to the woods.

Started researching pneumatic staplers when I came back inside for the day, as I figured that the 1/4" Craftsman crown stapler might be a little narrow for holding up the vapor barrier and I didn't want to try and use a manual stapler to set all those staples.

Found out Arrow makes one - the PT50 - which uses the same (wider) T50 staples which we already have a bunch of for our manual staple guns:

View attachment 765585​

It has the bump feature - just depress the trigger and push it against whatever you're trying to staple - which could be handy.

The local Home Depot had one in stock so I placed an order for that. Made the run over there last night to pick it up after The Woman got home.

Oh yeah ...



Knew that wasn't going to last ...

They asked Her to work this weekend ... and She agreed ...

Agenda for the rest of today:

Might be a good today to ride the Cub once the sun comes back out and try to get caught up with the mowing, as I'm still a little tired from the "big push" the other day.

But before I do that I think I'll head back over to Home Depot.

I noticed last night when I was over there that they had all their trees and shrubs on clearance at 50% off. It looked they had one Tulip Tree left, along with some nice ornamentals, fruit trees and burning bushes. Been wanting one of those Tulip Trees for a while now .

This will, no doubt, get me in "big trouble" ...

Beyond that whatever else comes up.

Hope everyone has a great Saturday ...

Stapling hammer is good for vapor barriers, insulation, “Posted” signs, rough upholstery, and uses standard T50 staples, and doesn’t require air or electric…

 

[KilroyJC]

Our local gas station was $3.27 and now $3.37...here we go again.

Thursday night our local price was 3.24.
Friday lunchtime was 3.35
this morning was 3.59.

glad I topped everything off on Wednesday!

 

[sodamo]

Drew, so sorry to hear about your old friend. What a wonderful jaunt down memory lane.
As for Zoom, our Happy Hour group is still doing the 40 min free sessions. One guy acts as host and sends us the link/invite every Sunday.

 

[Popgadget]

What did you use for range markers, Paul?.

Azek 1x3 flush to the surface so the mower won’t hit them.

 

[Popgadget]

Sometimes, those sessions are just what the doctor ordered ... relax and have some fun.

Absolutely. We played what ever someone through out there whether we knew it or not.

 

[sodamo]

Kyle Given the current price of diesel, I’m holding some of my bulk in reserve and schlepping 5g cans again. Have a 400g min for delivery, but not at $5+/g.