Good morning!!!!

[Buppies]

Good morning from te sunny south rain out three days in a row this week now really behind

New unit installed heating and air very cool this morning. Thermostat is smarter than me and wifi comparable. Trane unit super quiet and 15 seer so should be cheaper to run than the old one

Riptides good luck in job search

Larro happy belated to wife


ronjhall happy belated to your mom. Moms are special people

Mossflowerwoods has been busy glad to see things are going his way. Wish he could send loggers my way

Roy losing sleep is never a good thing. Glad you got rested

This is a short trip for us back home tomorrow but nice to get away even if for a short time

 

[deerseeker001]

45 with sunny Skies this Morning with a high of 69.Today we are going to City Wide Garage Sale.

 

[txdon]

Of all the beef products, isn't a relatively lean steak the "healthiest" to eat and get protein?
I eat beef perhaps once a week, sometimes every two weeks. Mostly chicken and pork otherwise.
No scrapple for me...

Don't worry over which meat is un-healthy, they all are about the same. Enjoy while you can, knowledge can be a real appetite spoiler.

Good morning! 68˚ heading to the 90s, clear sky. This is cut and bale time in the county. There is a bumper hay crop with the rain and for many this is the first time this season they have been able to get into the fields after the rains.

My yard requires mowing every 5 days to see the snakes. I'm worried that my keen snake-eye will be out of practice with the wearing of the "I don't care what lurks in the grass" snake boots.

 

[farmer2009]

71 this morning and headed to 88 today. Chicken coops are mowed along with the driveway. Just yard and barn left. Loader bucket it finished also.



Off to the river port to get wife some river Rock for the flower beds. Thinking about 4 tons.

Happy belated birthday to Ron and Larro's ladies.

Drew. Buy the acre. Sow in grass. Fence with 5 strands barbed wire. Buy calf. Feed a good mineral, water, and a few soybean hulls. Take to slaughter house. Have all the prime cuts and ground beef you want for about $4/ lb. Sounds like a good plan. . That's how we eat so much beef.

 

[DABSGT]

Txdon looks like a speed bump to me!
Larro happy birthday to Margie, hope she had a special day.

June 6 and the only reminder in the local paper was in a Snoopy comic. Sad!
Thank you to all who presently serve or who have served in the past. Remember all who made the ultimate sacrifice .

Sent from my iPad using TractorByNet

 

[Larro Darro]

Good Morning. 0915, sunny, 81F with 78% humidity. Forecast high of 90F with 20% chance of rain today, and a low of 71F tonight. I took Margie to catch her ride this morning. She is off to Kissimmee {near Orlando} for a week long election conference. Some of her cohorts are going to see the Mouse tonight. After that ride, I doubt if she will feel like joining them. I came on into work three hours early. I figured it was better to sit around here and get paid than to drive home and do the same.

Hope everyone has a good weekend,

Larro

a very comfortable 62 degrees going up to 82 today, in clouds and likely some thunderstorms this afternoon.
So....off this morning to see what's going on at the country club, big golf weekend which is of zero interest to me, just curious as a newbie what's going on there. Then I head North on the same road to Edenton where after the parade gets through town I'm going to find their high school where the tractor meet is:Upcoming June Events - Visit Edenton - Chowan County - North Carolina.
Not going to be able to do a huge amount of walking with my right foot just zapped for a plantar's wart. (yes that nitrogen does make one's eyes water after they hold it on for awhile...)

But my camera trigger finger will work just fine.

I pass the local butcher shop on the way Request Rejected
where I learned every conceivable way of using/eating a pig. So much of this stuff looked
seriously unhealthy. Not quite like Larro's or Don's careful meal planning at all...
Of course even our local Food Lion has pickled pigs feet, tails, etc.
enough to make one a vegan...

I might stop there on the way home and see if they have any deals. The last time I went I caught the tail end of strip steak sale for 7 dollars a pound, and it was prime for sure. I bought a dozen, and carefully froze most. I listened to the butcher's advice to get every last bit of air out of the wrap. The local supermarkets just don't stock this top end meat but then I don't want to pay for it anyway. I'm seriously cheap when it comes to meat. Over 5 bucks a pound, it had better be mighty enticing... I can afford it, I just refuse to spend it. I guess that defines cheap, who knows. We all set lines in the sand like this, in our own ways.

Of all the beef products, isn't a relatively lean steak the "healthiest" to eat and get protein?
I eat beef perhaps once a week, sometimes every two weeks. Mostly chicken and pork otherwise.
No scrapple for me...

Boneless chicken breasts, frozen, are still at 1.99 on sale, almost a permanent sale. Seems unfair the chicken farmers get so little for their product so I guess you have to do seriously big numbers to make it work. Can you imagine having an equivalent 50,000 cattle? considering what hamburger costs we should be paying at least 2.50 for chicken.
Perhaps there is more cost in raising each pound of beef vs chicken. I'm plenty old enough to know when beef was much, much less expensive.

but I surely digress. Have a great weekend.

Drew, after spending so much time in 1718, that town will always be Queen Anne's Creek to me.

I use Press and Seal when freezing meat {as well as freezer bag}. It works pretty well for me.

In beef, fat equals flavor. I don't eat it very often, but I like a well marbled steak when I have one. And at least part of the high price of beef can be marked up to Iowa being the first presidential preference primary, and the corn lobby having more influence than their number warrant.

 

[Kyle_in_Tex]

80F and partly sunny/cloudy @ 13:00 ...

Never made it up to the shop last night ... was just too whipped.

I know that feeling well.

 

[Larro Darro]

June 6 and the only reminder in the local paper was in a Snoopy comic. Sad!
Thank you to all who presently serve or who have served in the past. Remember all who made the ultimate sacrifice .

Sent from my iPad using TractorByNet

Well said. My Daddy didn't go ashore on June 6th. He came across the Atlantic, landing in France on August 18th. He took the walking tour of France that summer and fall, until he was shot twice and captured in early winter. He spent 6 long months as a POW. Like most of that generation, he always said he didn't do anything special, just what had to be done.

 

[sodamo]

68°F and .5 inches rain last 24 hours.

Happy belated birthday to Mrs Larro

Be safe
Have a great day

David Sent from my iPad Air using TractorByNet

 

[rswyan]

65F and sunny @ 11:30 ... heading up to a high of 77F ...

Will cut and split wood for awhile, then drop the box blade, pull the loader, and stick the MMM on and get the front lawn mowed.

Managed to better than double the size of the (split) wood pile @ the shop yesterday ... mostly pine and a little hardwood (maple, oak) ... worked until it was so dark I had to knock off because it was no longer safe ... quit around 21:45 ...

Still far short of Thomas' cord per day pace though ...

Thomas, are you cutting logs into rounds while you split, or they already cut ?

... And finally, I don't know about sycamore, but the oak around here splits much more easily when it's dry. And the dryer the better.

I can now confirm that the same is certainly true for sycamore ...

I pulled one of the smaller logs and cut it into rounds, thinking I'd maybe split the smaller stuff, and leave the large ones to dry for a few months ... was really surprising how much even the small rounds weigh.

Yeah, that ain't gonna happen ... a 10" or 11" round is so hard to split, that it will stall the engine on the splitter. Got several of them stuck on the wedge and had to use a chain and the cylinder to pull them off ... no easy feat when the round is as tall as the wedge and there's no wood sticking up for the chain to catch.

Found this up on hardwoodinfo.com:

"It is resistant to splitting due to the interlocked grain."

Yeah, no kiddin' ...

Looks like all of it is going to have to dry for awhile before it can be split.

Dang valve cover is still leaking on the splitter engine ... guess I might have to pony up for a new valve cover if the next stab at making a gasket that will seal doesn't take ... and the screw on the air cleaner cover backs itself out ... just not enough thread on the stamped steel plate it screws into.

Still have a couple of leaks on the hydraulics as well ... one on the supply side where the hose connects to a 90 degree swivel at the inlet to the log lift valve ... and another at the rear of the cylinder, where the end plate should be sealing to the cylinder tube. Cylinder probably needs disassembled and seals replaced.

Hope everyone has an enjoyable and productive weekend.

 

[rswyan]

If any of your buddies trap shoot, one might have a sack of lead shot he'd let you borrow ...

Great idea ... and actually a local TBN friend does shoot trap ... so that's a possibility :thumbsup:

but I have a hard time imagining even lead providing enough clamping force in all the right places. Those overgrown alligator clips artists and woodworkers use might work, but you'd probably have the same problem with distortion I ran into with the bungee cords.

Right ...

I wonder if one of those vacuum food packaging machines could be used? Put the glued up sole and shoe in a bag, suck all the air out, and wala! Boot stuck inside a plastic bag! :laughing:

LOL ... additional waterproofing :thumbsup:

 

[rswyan]

Off today. Headed to Bryan (where my van is broke down at BIL's place) to put the gas tank/new fuel pump in it.

Kyle,

The van a General Motors product ?

I guess they are notorious for the fuel pumps going bad ...

I've heard that a lot of folks just cut a hole in the floor to facilitate replacing the fuel pump and avoid having to pull the tank.

I've also heard that part of the issue might be keeping the pump cool ... have friends (in the expediting biz) that won't let their GM vans go much below a half tank before they fill it up, to try and avoid the issue.

 

[rswyan]

Bup and rip,

Glad to hear you guys got your HVAC issues sorted out ... :thumbsup:

 

[8n Bruce]

Hi Kyle & RS always found a restricted fuel filter would take out a fuel pump real quick .Usually if a filter was found to cause a drivability concern ,the pump burnt up in a few hundred miles after replacing the filter. 30 yrs. GM drivability trouble shooter. Have seen water in fuel cause enough restriction to do this . Long time reader ,specially like this thread ,you are all such great guys . Thanks for the nice reading , Bruce

 

[RedNeckGeek]

66F when I got up this morning and sunny to partly cloudy today. High around 95F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph.

Starting at about 3PM yesterday a series of thunderstorms tracked overhead, huge, bruise purple clouds full of lightning, wind, and rain. The first barely wet the ground and lasted only a minute or two, and I thought we were done for the day. But at about 6 the sky again turned black and an even bigger storm started heading in from the east, following the same track as the earlier one. Lightning was much more frequent, enough to bring out a CalFire spotter plane to look for "smokes" where the lightning touched down. A neighbor to the east called just as all this was kicking off and provided a blow-by-blow preview of what was about to happen here as first the wind then the pounding rain hit his place.



This time the lightning and thunder were much more frequent and closer, and the wind strong enough to drench the front porch viewpoint from which I'd watched the first one. But again the cloud passed in only fifteen minutes. I'd planned to use the grill for dinner, but thought it best to check the weather radar to see if any more was on the way. Sure enough, an even bigger cell was headed in, this time some twenty miles long north to south. Got a fire going anyway, and was just sitting down under the patio cover to enjoy a meal as the first drops began to fall. It started off gently enough, but quickly built. Even more lightning than last time, both cloud-to-cloud and cloud-to-ground, and wind strong enough to carry the rain under the patio cover, driving me back inside with my plate. But dinner would have to wait because I couldn't miss what was happening outside.

By this time the sun was low in the sky and shining into the rain producing a nice double rainbow (regrettably the photo doesn't do it justice).



As the storm advanced into the sunset, the sky turned bright orange as the rain continued to fall.



It took a little more than an hour for the clouds to pass. The blue sky returned, but not without crimson tinged accents on what was left of the storm. All told we ended up with about 0.37" for the day, small potatoes compared to what the folks in Texas and Virginia saw, but rare for this time of year in California.



Later I learned that there had been several fires from the strikes, all of them dealt with quickly. In 2008 a similar storm cost this community over 200 homes, some say due to the slow response of the fire fighting agencies. It's certainly dry enough to do the same now, and it was great to see the spotter plane on the job and hear that men were on the ground almost immediately.

 

[daugen]

Well, cameras don't work well when you leave the freshly charged batteries on the kitchen table and drive off without them. Bummer, I was definitely in old tractor land this morning. Pleasant drive an hour North East to Edenton NC where I got there just in time for the parade to enter the high school. I got there, hard time to park for sure, and was really disappointed there were so few tractors there. The reason of course for that is they were in the parade coming right at me.

And I was standing there feeling seriously foolish holding a camera with no batteries in it, sigh. Quite a few smaller older JD's, a marvelous assortment of over a dozen Farmalls of all letters, all smoothly purring by, versus the noisier JD's.
Surprising number of older JD's with what must be worn clutches, as when they pushed the hand clutch forward (what I grew up with) the tractors would jump forward worrisomely since they were all lined up close to each other. I was waiting for a rearender to happen. Whereas the Farmalls purred through like luxury liners.
Few other brands, except wow, this is Ford Country. A number of Ford Workmasters restored beautifully, at least ten Fords overall. Thought of Larro and others as they paraded by.
Funny, no 8N's, you always see them, but mostly 30-50hp rowcrop tractors that once I'm sure worked the local fields. And now were barn queens with a few exceptions.

The oddest was one fellow driving a rototiller with a sulky, sort of like the Asians do.

A nice part of the parade was that at least one out six drivers were women. Older usually, and clearly had many seat hours. The best tractor was not because it was fancy or anything but it was a mid size Farmall with a utility hauler on the three point hitch nicely configured to carry his wife along on her wheelchair. They knew everyone. I just thought it was nice for them to have found a way to get around the farm together. Not the setup for conversation, maybe he wanted it that way.... Now we drive UTV's...

Lot of craft exhibits, a forge of sorts and one guy with a big iron cook pot heating up with a wood fire under it, filled with one inch squares of what looked like suet or pig fat. First I thought he was melting candle wax but no...
making soap? His neighboring exhibitors were a little worried the whole thing would catch on fire and I walked on with a smile.

Some really old knives on display, clearly work knives that looked like they came out of the iron age, very crude and home made looking. Probably made locally by a blacksmith two or three hundred years ago.

and no pictures. Six lashes with a wet noodle.

 

[Eric Salop]

Lovely atmospheric sunset RNG. Your UTV should be clean after that downpour.

and no pictures. Six lashes with a wet noodle.

Maybe nothing from your camera Drew but your great descriptions of the day made some good pictures in my head - and you gave them me with sound too !

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Txdon looks like a speed bump to me!
Larro happy birthday to Margie, hope she had a special day.

June 6 and the only reminder in the local paper was in a Snoopy comic. Sad!my
Thank you to all who presently serve or who have served in the past. Remember all who made the ultimate sacrifice .

Sent from my iPad using TractorByNet

My dad was disappointed it wasnt mentioned on the news this morning. he went across a few days later.

 

[dave1949]

68F & sunny. T'was a super outside day, 70F, nice breeze, sunshine, low humidity. I made good use of the weather on the field clearing project for six hours then it was No mas, No mas.

Have a good weekend all.

 

[DABSGT]

I was out playing with the dogs and they kept heading towards the hill behind my property went to see what they were interested in this is what I found. Wonder if related to Larro's.

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