Good morning!!!!

[sodamo]

Someday you have a plan, somedays nothing goes according to plan. Somedays that can be very fortunate.

No PW today…

Having 1st cup of coffee this morning and perusing HD website, as I await Sophie’s return from her walk, researching items for a future project. Click to add item to Cart. I don’t normally buy from HD online but I like the cart to get a feeling of costs and makes a convenient list. Cart greets me with an alert, something wrong concerning an item in the cart. Sure enough it is the scaffold unit I didn’t pickup last week. Now out of stock, therefore no longer available. Not happy as I just know possibility was raised at the time and I very likely could hear about it again. Painting due to start 1st of Jun so not a lot of time. Sip my coffee as I finish my research and promptly update Sophie as she prepares breakfast for the boys.

During 2nd cup of coffee I open Craigslist. Surprise, surprise, there pops a listing for 2 scaffold units, same as I wanted. Posting only 30 minutes old. Immediately email questions to poster hoping for a quick reply. Quick conversation with Sophie and I send a 2nd email asking to Text me and that I could pickup today. Items are located other side of the island, just up the road from Costco. Asking $150 for the pair. HD price locally is just under $300 per set. Before finishing coffee, I get msg answering my questions as to condition and verifies price. Get his address. Only 1 hour 55 minutes travel, but that doesn’t account for the road paving or 3 work crews I encountered yesterday and expect would be there today, so likely 5 hour trip.
Sophie suggests that as I’m going so close I might as well stop in Costco and get a 2nd reeled extension. Who am I to argue when told to get another tool

Off I went. Success. Nice guy. Helped me load. Not pristine condition of course, but 100% serviceable, but he suggested I might want to replace one of the platform boards.

Sophie helped me put together. In a better world I might wire brush and repaint, but if I do it will come after painting the house.

These will most likely be stacked and my outriggers used. With my unit I’ll bridge with aluminum plank at lower level.

This is my new 50ft extension cord

Note it is 12AWG not 14.

Grilled Ribeyes to celebrate.

 

[sodamo]

View attachment 801155
Harvested 65 more pounds of potatoes for a total of 80 pounds from 10 pounds of seed potatoes.

Very nice harvest, Don. Love to cube red potatoes, season, and roast in the air fryer.

 

[Kyle_in_Tex]

Popgadget, if only they built everything to last as long as your antique slide hammer nail puller. That should be the ultimate energy/resources world saving environmental practice.

NO MORE PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE.

Fleet mileage mandates are making vehicles have shorter lifespans, or lifespans with more expensive complications. Especially for gasoline engines.

Here's a few symptoms:

1) Auto Stop, when your engine purposely dies at a red light. Wears out your starter, and your battery gets drained. Efficiency loss reality blows this theory out of the water. The motor has to work harder once you take off to recharge the depleted battery.

2) Low friction piston rings, lose their tight seal, and now engines start burning oil sooner than they should. Also loss of compression kills any mileage that might have been saved in the infancy of the motor. Your O2 sensors get ruined, and your catalytic converters get ruined....Last I heard, burning oil getting into the air is pollution. Things that make you go Hummm....

3) displacement on demand, Active fuel management, ruins V8 engines much sooner than they would have normally lasted.

There are more, but these should give one a grasp of what's going on.

So at the end of the day, vehicles not lasting as long is not a good thing and the environmentalists might have thought they were passing good laws, but now smart people know that what may have seemed a good thing, has turned out not to be so.....and don't get me started on subsidized EV....

With modern oils, and manufacturing being able to hold great quality tolerances, car engines should last 300,000+ miles easily without major problems, but the compromises for squeezing out a few pennies of mileage have gotten us to where we are.

MYs 2024-2026 CAFE Standards and accompanying Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement, NHTSA finalizes CAFE Standards for MYs 2024-2026. The final rule establishes standards that would require an industry-wide fleet average of approximately 49 mpg for passenger cars and light trucks in model year 2026, by increasing fuel efficiency by 8% annually for model years 2024 and 2025, and 10% annually for model year 2026. The agency projects the final standards will save consumers nearly $1,400 in total fuel expenses over the lifetimes of vehicles produced in these model years and avoid the consumption of about 234 billion gallons of gas between model years 2030 to 2050

Of course no mention of the long term downside of all this pie in the sky crap for brains thought processes. Read between the lines, this is why automakers are all creating EV vehicles....to "subsidize" the fossil fuel vehicles. Reality is, more vehicles sooner in the scrap heap.

We need some realists on the boards.


Have many great new high tech ideas helped with performance? Heck yah! But some have not been such great ideas.....You have to try to "think around the bend".

 

[Wagtail]

Good early (Friday) arvo. Overnight Low of 2C and it's presently 13C, overcast and calm.

Last evening's meal/meeting was a very 'robust' one and was ended at 2200... home and needed to stoke the fire so I was late to heading off to bed = a bit of a sleep-in.

I just had a conversation with the "Mad Horse Woman" and it appears that the new horse is a gate-opening escape artist. She's seen him do it twice whilst mixing up a bucket of feed so is looking to actually lock the chain on the two gates of 'her' paddock. Fortunately the horse just likes to open the gates; he doesn't go anywhere after the act.

I'm off to a 'briefing' at 1600 over at the Pony Club for tomorrow's Endurance Race. I believe that I'm doing some sort of traffic control on a blind corner of a public, two lane, section of road. An early (0630) start which should last to mid-afternoon as one of the 'categories' is an 80km course.

Which means that I'll be late checking in to GM tomorrow.

That's about it, take care all.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

There’s a “my old barn” thread where someone is redoing a big old suspension barn, where main floor was suspended from bents with rods. 150 years old I think.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

David, think I’ve seen those extension cords at Costco. None fell in my cart today. Isn’t there issue with using extension cords while on a reel?
Woodchuckdad has a unisaw for sale.

 

[sodamo]

David, think I’ve seen those extension cords at Costco. None fell in my cart today. Isn’t there issue with using extension cords while on a reel?
Woodchuckdad has a unisaw for sale.

First time I have noticed them, but really never looked and except this week only go Costco about 4 times a year, when we need dog food.

I’ve had an overhead reel type in garage since we built without issue. Of course it is kinda opposite as it stays plugged in and the female end extends from the reel. Very handy.

 

[mostly_gas]

Good evening all. 62ºF for the start, partly cloudy sky, light breeze. Putter and bike ride in the morning, nap and putter after lunch. Did find the issue with the locked engine, I am getting new head gasket and case gasket, removing that galled areas on piston and see what happens.
Kyle neat pic last night.
Randy good to hear most horses will calm down after a bit.
Ron good to hear grass mowed, downed limbs moved and disk loaned out. Hope grocery shopping went well and trimming as well. Robin looks ready to dive in.
Kilroy glad you got everything but what you need ??
Drew interested in update on the Marbain blades. Sorry Verizon never showed. Glad cloth work on veggies in garden. nice pics
Billy Glad your truck dealer does honest inspection. Interesting inventory still low.
Paul glad breakfast entertaining. Good to hear Drew all fixed up. Good to hear good method of fence staple removal. Always good to get mowing out of the way. Hope Costco run and little airplane work went well.
Drew I would try blades out with out sharpening them. With the harder material more likely to crack making them too sharp can be counter productive.
Ken glad you could make a working deck. Hope you can track down squeak. Mowing during band practice probably good for your hearing Nice pics
Dennis sorry you are sore. hope you find your blade torque.
Don good to hear Cedarcide went well, chainsaw also worked well. Glad yard mowed again, hope you had energy for potatoes.
Dennis hope Costco run went well. Good luck with shed on new land.
Bill hope town and dump run were successful.
RNG sorry about the issues with the smart switch. Sorry about the cost of hub repair. Good luck getting tractor back together and mowing done.
Jay sorry about the flower loss. Don't add up the cost, you might quit.
Ted glad you got some rain, hope you get a lot more. Hope the dog food production went well. Hope you got some gravel spread. Good luck getting new blades.
David Hope you made progress on pressure washing. Sorry about Costco's price tag.
RS I start with bench grinder and finish with hand file. Hope you found the fitting.
Frits nice pics on blade sharpening.
Dennis the portable A/C would have put you up there with David.
Thomas sorry long day at work. Sorry about gas prices. Hope you got the branches finished.
Mary hope you have a good trip.
Don glad you are improving the RV experience. Nice harvest.
Dennis hope the mowing at lot goes well.
Kyle thanks for the link.
prayer for all, especially Jay/Peg, Kyle /Daughter, /mom's breathing, /learning new job, /friends upcoming new baby, /son's migraines, Bird /aging issues, Ron /heart, Billy /mom hypertension & congestive heart failure, David(moss) /remodel, /divorce, Buppies /new skin cancer spot and treatment, /back surgery healing, /wife knee healing, Thomas /gout, Phil /reflux, Frits /veteran son with mental issues, /granddaughter with Evans Syndrome, Ken /dad possible dementia, Steppenwolfe /son-auto immune disorder, Grev /wife's eye, Ted /knee recovery, /retirement & disability red tape, /family issues, Lou /eye issues, /loss of brother, /heart issues, Doug and wife/health issues, / hand nerve and surgery, /fall and recovery, / wife headaches and heart eval, / David(sadamo)/Sophie's and David's new eye surgery recovery, Chris /neighbor's granddaughter and Covid issues, Scaredy/shoulder dislocation, /marriage dissolving, / friend stop drinking, Paul/ wife's healing from back surgery, Dennis /retirement, /neighbor issues, /land development, /favorable winds not in the forecast there "alligallyitus" and back in hospital, Drew /back operation issues, /friend's wife cancer diagnosis and recovery, mike /wife's healing from surgery, Scotty /back pain, Helogabals /second opinion, /wife's friend situation, Fatjay /father broken hip, Ukraine war, and Country.

 

[rswyan]

53F and clear @ 01:30, heading down to around ... 55F for the low ???

Still that's a far cry from the low this morning.

Rain due in later in the day. That will keep the grass growing at a maddening pace ...

Refilled mealworm feeder with 15 worms (nice warm day, therefore fewer worms ... Mom and Dad should be able to find them insects, assuming they're not loafing)

Woman had dental appointment this afternoon, placed an order for the Espoma Soil Acidifier with The Depot, had Her pick up that up while She was out.

Attempted to remove double female garden hose coupler from the hose it was on in the barn, finally gave up cut the end off the hose and took it up to the shop and put it in the vise. Still couldn't get it even with a pipe wrench ... Brass coupler seized on an aluminum hose end.

I hate aluminum hose ends ...

Gave up and ran down to the corner hardware and picked up another one.

Then got the Water Buffalo hooked up to the hose, got that partially filled.

After than I started working on potting up the Earliglow strawberries. Got all those potted up (20+)

Woman ran down to Canton and shopped for shoes. Also picked chow from Bibibop Asian Fast Food joint. I had their Beef Bulgogi Bowl (with rice noodles) and thought it was outstanding.

Not sure what exactly The Woman ordered but She got hers with rice and wasn't happy with it (rice was dry/hard) ...

She did get a pair of shoes though so that was good ...

After dinner took bow rake and Kubota up to compost/woodlot and got the straggler weeds pulled out the screened compost pile and screened some compost.

Ordered another 40 asparagus plants.

Found out the other day that the soil out in the garden isn't quite as loose as I had hoped it would be. Will till up the areas that don't have anything planted in the them, maybe add more screened compost.

Hope everyone had a great Thursday ...

 

[Wagtail]

David, think I’ve seen those extension cords at Costco. None fell in my cart today. Isn’t there issue with using extension cords while on a reel?

I believe the concern is that the coiled portion remaining on the reel, when 'energised' will produce a magnetic field... Google "degaussing coil" for an explanation. Due to this generated magnetic field, heat will be generated and has the potential to break down the insulation. The produced magnetic field also has the potential to bugger up electronic devices (mobile phones, pacemakers, etc...) if too close to the coil.

(Navy dit ) I remember jury-rigging such a coil to degauss radar CRTs and bridge displays after the ship had transitioned the equator as they'd gone all 'wonky'. Worked a treat!