Good morning!!!!

[buckeyefarmer]

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...

 

[ronjhall]

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.

 

[daugen]

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

 

[LS Tractor Owner]

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 . 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!

 

[rswyan]

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:

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:

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 ...

 

[sodamo]

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.

 

[sodamo]

Phil, you’re quite the artist.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

LS, is a son keeping RV at your place? I thought a son sold your old house next door.

 

[LS Tractor Owner]

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.

 

[sodamo]

Ahhhhh, family. Gotta just love them.