Good morning!!!!

   / Good morning!!!! #192,181  
68 outside right now, heading to lower 90's. Dry, no rain in the forecast and starting to get humid, later.

Managed to get a walk in with the weed whacker yesterday. Really hot for that. The activity abruptly ended when I found a ground bee nest and one managed to get up under my shirt as I was flailing about. Got me right on the nipple. I must be getting an allergy build up as each sting appears to hurt a lot more, swell more and just overall seems harder to deal with. Or maybe it was where the SOB got me.

I retreated to the house and putzed around cleaning up clippings and doing some weeding after that. On alert for the bees of course.

Today, I hope to finish the weed whacking on the fence lines. Only three or four miles worth. And, maybe go get some groceries and whatnot supplies.

Have a good day all. Enjoy the weekend. Be safe.
 
   / Good morning!!!! #192,182  
Paul if I remember correctly Sky King started with a "bamboo bomber". What got upgrade on little plane?

Correct. The original “Songbird” was a Cessna T-50, and was replaced with a 310 in later episodes.

When I did the major panel overhaul last fall, it only got one GI275, setup as an HSI, the plan was for two with the other as a PFD, but the second one didn’t get done as it wasn’t in stock and I got tired of waiting. This visit was to install the second one, add a temperature probe to give TAS and a wind vector on the displays, as well as to remove the vacuum pump and associated plumbing.
 
   / Good morning!!!! #192,183  
Good Morning
72° with a high of 93 for today, another dry day.

Yesterday was a hot one. Started with moving hay to the barn from the hay shed before it got too hot. Then water the sod sod and concrete before continuing with the cleanup in the shop to move the alpaca wares. (The actual move should happen today). I changed the water in the plasma table and cleaned it out. It’s amazing to me that if I add borax to get the ph of the water to 9, that neither the steel slats or the drop that’s in the water don’t rust.
After lunch did an AC service call for a friends restaurant, changed a condenser fan motor.

This morning a crew is coming to rip the shingles off the back of the garage roof to get ready for the framers that are coming on Monday. I’m not disappointed that others are doing that work for me in this heat, not to mention that the roof is 12/12 pitch.
 
   / Good morning!!!! #192,184  
Still working on the New Hope = Lambertville bridge
Nice bridge shot Ken.

Going to be 90F today, then hotter as the days wear on.

Headed back to Nevada today-- taking the Ventrac mower with me. Mowing season in CA is all but done due to dry conditions and wildfire risk. Since I flood irrigate in Nevada, the pasture is always green so I mow there all summer long. I should probably purchase a 2nd dedicated mower but dang those things are expensive.

Hope everyone has a great day !!!
 
   / Good morning!!!! #192,185  
Morning all, 78 to 86 and sunny.
Got the first cuts on the planks done to "square" them, off by less than 1/4" for the 7 foot length.
Router and flush trim bit is next, so I can get the two surfaces closer to mating for glue up.
Jointing fun with a circular saw and router....
The 60 tooth, narrow kerf, ripping blade worked pretty well.
Looks like after trimming it will be about 24" wide when joined.

Son's friends are here, for them pool time. If they wake up this morning :cool:

Back to the day job,

Be well,
 
   / Good morning!!!! #192,186  
Plowhog, people are surprised I trailer my ZT down to my VA lot to mow, but it's a lot cheaper than buying a 2nd mower. Plus insurance guy said once I put a shed there and keep anything there it will increase insurance rate, now my liability covers it.

I clipped up tomatoes last night when it got cooler out, didn't take long. These plants are very stiff and they dont move to the trellis very easy to clip them, so had to wait till they got taller. beans have already grown to top of 4 ft trellis and are reaching up in the air, until they get too big, then they will grow back down the trellis. Have green peppers on, and green tomatoes.
Watered garden good, and some of wife's flowers.

Wife was out early this morning when it was still in 60's, now up to 80.

I found a youtube video on a 600 sf cabin, turns out it was in Ohio close to where I went to the Kubota dealer last week. smaller than we want, but cute. Another one of the homesteading channels on youtube, apparently they have several cabins on their property they rent as air bnbs.
Also looked again at the Zook amish built modular cabins, until I got their price list. wow, I have less money invested in my place here, with a house twice the size, a nice barn, etc... Their smallest one is 22x26 and is almost $200k, set on your foundation. Prices go up from there. they are all done inside, wood floors, pine wood walls, all the electrical and plumbing.

My brother was a dad's yesterday afternoon and mowed 1 1/2 hrs in the heat. A little more done.
K_mowed1_Farm_OH.jpg
 
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   / Good morning!!!! #192,187  
Good Morning,
Ct, 68 to start going to 90 or so ! It’s supposed to be a bit cooler today but I can’t feel the difference! 😉

Got my walk in fairly early but was still pretty sweaty by the end !

Drew, I don’t think that Bill has much traffic up his way so probably not too dangerous on a mower commute!

The other set of grands came over about 5 yesterday for a swim with their parents ! Nana bought Kentucky Fried Chicken with some fries and coleslaw ! They brought a bottle of wine for the adults, good evening for it ! We were supposed to go out together but those plans got axed ! 😉

Mike, sorry about your 🐝 bite !! That does sound painful ! I’m always worried when I’m out bush hogging the field that I don’t hit a yellow jacket nest ! 😳

Scott(vt) hope trip went well and nothing was forgotten.
Mostly, actually Kathleen left her suitcase in our upstairs bedroom! So now she will have to bring another when we go up next Thursday for a week and a half !

This weekend we have the youngest sons and DIL’s kids starting today until Sunday afternoon! Should be an adventure! 😉😁

Hope all have a Good Friday ! 🙏
 
   / Good morning!!!! #192,188  
good morning, 77 going to 94

Watered early and weeded some. Plan to continue in the tree planting areas picking up shelters and staking some more

D heading out again going overseas. Parts unknown. Glad she is on diplomatic passport
 
   / Good morning!!!! #192,190  
I have hard water and the "spray" type drip emitters clog up pretty quickly. I've had good luck with these though.

Yes, those work great. Majority of my drippers are those 'flag' type. Everything getting under 1 gal/hour has this type.

The front section unscrews, allowing it to be cleaned out. Only the low flow drippers gave me problems clogging, these haven't clogged yet.
 
   / Good morning!!!! #192,191  
New gearbox for PHD came today, early. I don't have old one off yet. PTO shaft only goes on part way and sticks, some rust buildup in the shaft hole I need to clean up. Other than that, looks to be the same. Need to pick up oil for it, and find a cooler day to install it.
86deg out now.

Oldest son found an AI website that generates songs, based on title or words you feed it, and genre you pick. He did one called 2 kitties in trouble, turned out good, and funny...
 
   / Good morning!!!! #192,192  
Day got changed quickly. County road grader was out early this morning. Road needed grading bad. Then truck that spread dust control coated the road. They use Salt Brine to control dust. I never drive on roads here when there is fresh coating of it on road. Grocery shopping will have to wait a couple of days. I did get grass mowed before it started raining. Back in house enjoying setting in front of fan.
 
   / Good morning!!!! #192,193  
got a pink ***** willow planted with much difficulty.
ground was dry and rock hard
wow do/did I miss my tractor and planting augers. I used to have three sizes...

nephew's son helped me, then we cleaned out the rv cabinets and washed and detailed my car.
all good. By then the heat had done me in.

so my line of defense for looking at the sand mound and trying to absorb Lake Drew
is now a willow tree at the far end, two dappled willow shrubs, a pink ***** willow tree and then two
more dappled willows.

will be watering this every other day for some time until we get a good drenching rain

shirt went splat as I took it off, a/c sure feels good. a bit drained feeling

edit: what a hoot
sorry willow tree, we can't call you by your beloved name little kitty
 

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   / Good morning!!!! #192,194  
Good morning! Low of 60°, only going up to 75°. Heavy cloud cover, supposed to have very good chances of showers and thunderstorms today.... leftovers from TS Alberto.

Spotty to heavy clouds yesterday kept the temp around 85°, no storms materialized (n). Did get almost 3/4" from the storm on Wednesday.

Assessment of the storm damage was better than expected. Seems most of the flowering shrubs / plants took the brunt. Mostly all of the asiatic lilies had the flowers removed. Clematis plants looked like they went through a grinder......

The son's RV has some hail dents in the siding, small enough that you have to look in the glare angle to see them.... WHEW! He's not going to submit a claim to insurance.
Not a mark on our RV, which is parked 10' away from his, same angle.... but our siding is probably twice as thick.
Only a few tree branches down, lots of leaves everywhere.

Power was out for us for 4 1/2 hours, other areas almost 8 hours. Apparently a very strong downburst took out 12 power poles and a couple larger transformers. The news showed a video from an area 20 miles south of us where they had to use road graders to push the hail off the road... almost a foot thick! Other reports of damage to homes including broken windows. I think we were lucky.

Changed the oil in the generator yesterday. Still had the original "break-in" oil. Finally went past the 10 hour break in period. With today's manufacturing process, I was surprised they still did break-ins. 1 hour at no load. 4 hours with a light load, another 5 hours at heavy load. Worked out almost perfect to the schedule.

Going to piddle in the shop today, want to make some covers for the drip irrigation manifolds. Just using some scrap PT pieces, just a 12"x12"x 6" with a lid. More of a "decorative" project than utilitarian. It will keep them from getting buried in the mulch though.

Going to take a few moments and enjoy the current 68°, and another cup of coffee out on the porch.

Everyone have a great day!
 
   / Good morning!!!! #192,195  
86F with a mix of sun and clouds @ 11:00, DP 71F, HU 62% ... heading up to around 90F for the day's high. Scattered showers and thunderstorms developing this afternoon.

Weather guy on the local news said last night we are just in the beginning stages of drought ... so some rainfall would certainly be welcome.

Made the run down to the mower shop yesterday afternoon after turning on the AC in the shop and picked up the o-rings for the valve covers.

After that I headed over to Fin Feather Fur and grabbed a box of #4 and a box of #8 shotgun shells. Had a look at a Gamo pellet rifle while I was there.

Have not seen any groundhogs out back since my last shots ... but I suspect they are still there.

Then I swung by Tractor Supply to pick up some Cub Cadet Yellow paint. Thought it looked like it had too much orange in it so grabbed a can of Rust-oleum which was lighter. Should have stuck with other one.

Since I was close to North Canton and getting a little hungry at that point I rain over to LJS and picked up 3 pieces of fish and munched on that on the way back to the house.

Headed back up to the shop after I got back home and started carving on the frame of the Cub using a rotary burr and a stone in a couple of die grinders:

IMG_3308 copy.jpg

After I got that done I removed the left valve cover which I had put on previously and replaced the o-ring on it and the right side valve cover and got those put back on and torqued down.

At that point I ran down to the closest TSC in Canal Fulton and picked a can of the correct Cub Cadet Yellow.

When I got back I put the engine cover back on and got it screwed down and things buttoned up.

Used some Rust-oleum Self-Etching Primer which I dabbed on with a flux brush. Gave that 30 minutes to dry and then top-coated it with the yellow.

Gonna need at least another coat of that, have to wait 24 hours before reshooting a 2nd coat.

After that I spent some time working on the piece for the lowered rear hitch with the needle scaler, was pretty rough but it should clean up nicely.

The spacing for the holes for the rake tines line up perfectly for mounting on the Cub:

IMG_3309 copy.jpg

Got 2 sides and 3/4 of the 3rd side cleaned off. Will finish scaling that up today.

Once I have the Cub out of the shop I'll radius the corners on it and weld on a piece where the hole for the hitch pin will go to reinforce and thicken it up some.

Then use some muriatic acid to clean it all the way down to bare metal. Then primer and top-coat.

Switched the AC over to Econo mode and left it running before I closed up and headed down to the house.

Hopefully it will be fairly cool when I get up there in a few minutes.

Hope everyone is having a decent Friday ... (y)
 
   / Good morning!!!! #192,196  
Drew, I’m sure you are a great uncle, in more ways than one.

Here in Hawaii, Uncle and Aunty are often used as terms of respect younger people talking to older. Very common for both Sophie and I to be addressed thusly by complete strangers.
 
   / Good morning!!!! #192,199  
LS, is a son keeping RV at your place? I thought a son sold your old house next door.
Yes, the middle son who came back from Washington State, with the two GS. (One whose ex-wife was abusing the boys).
It was the youngest son who bought the old house, then sold it a year later for $120K profit. He hasn't spoken to us since moving out.
 

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