Good morning!!!!

[daugen]

Funny note, I shaved off my "salt and pepper" goatee that I've been wearing for over 15 years. My kids have never seen me without it and are having their share of laughs over it....I believe the "salt" portion was overtaking the "pepper" portion.

that's ok, I'll make up for you, decided for next two months, the cold ones, to grow my beard back in, and it comes in
white as Santa Claus. Makes me look older but so be it. I'll stay warmer... I keep it fairly short though.

plumbers came early this morning, fixed my leaking barn water supply pipe, for what was the fifth time. Now that construction is done, and heavy trucks aren't likely coming back there, I'm going to dig a new trench from the barn to the garden shed, which is where the water comes from, half way to the house. Going to use up some one inch pipe I already have, and this time will get the electric line out of there; not used any more since a pole was set right at the barn, and so far I don't know if it's live. No matter what, I'm going to terminate it properly. Both the half inch water line and the live standard (not underground)plastic wiring just dropped in the same trench. No sand, no conduit, just drop it in, five inches under the surface. Five inches. Any wonder it kept breaking?....

So, going to do it over the right way, sink it down at least 18 inches or whatever the rental trencher will go. If I'm not running electric, is there any benefit to running water line through a conduit? Not like I'm going to run cable tv back to the barn...my portable phone reaches, barely, can't imagine why I would want to run anything down there in the future.

Is there a preferred water pipe for underground use? If you go to Radioshack they have special underground burial coax.
Is there a better or stronger water pipe that is sensible? Not like it's going to get UV...
but there sure are all kinds of plastic and i wouldn't put it past the local Lowes to try to pawn off the worst Chinese junk they could buy
What I have is very durable but in 50 foot sections so I would have joints, never a good idea. Might want to buy new.

 

[mostly_gas]

Drew, of course "they" are tools, can you imagine how long it would take to do the dirt work and gravel spreading without the tractor/implements. I don't have projects around here I had in Missouri, so my garage shows the lack of tools .

Buppies, congrats on the anniversary!! It is amazing the staying power of some women

Eric, I also have enjoyed having you around, and hope that the powers that be will allow an indefinite stay!! :2cents::thumbsup:

Kev good luck keeping a straight face, I tried and could not!! :laughing:

Don enjoyed the calf story, when does alligator season start?

Kyle, got off most of my caffeine intake years ago, too many trips to the boys room, plus the anxiousness ... I can also relate to the loss of pepper, That's how I knew it was time to retire!! :drink:

 

[rswyan]

40.7F and overcast @ 11:00... temp has held steady since about 03:00 ... but the big plunge can't be all that far away, since the overnight low for tonight is forecast to be 13F.

The Royal Pleco is gone ... guy has some other fish though, including six Zebra Plecos, which he is trying to get to breed and are not for sale.

I showed The Woman a pic of one that he texted me and of course she said "Ohhh ... I like/want one of those ..."

Yeah ... sure ya do ...

$400 a pop ... or will sell fry for $100 per inch, once he gets them to breed.

:laughing: (It ain't happenin' ...)

That sparked some interested with The Woman however, and a conversation in terms of fish-keeping for fun and profit immediately ensued ... :laughing:

Figured out where the second 55g tank will go, and got The Woman's stamp of approval ... basically the two tanks will be on adjoining walls, which are perpendicular to each other. There's a hole in the corner thru the wall or floor that goes to the basement ... which would make piping air from an air pump in the basement to the tanks pretty easy.

Woman was eyeing the new stand and remarked "you could put another tank underneath the top one, right ?"

And I sez "Mmmm ... well, as a matter of fact, yes ..." :laughing:

Just tested for ammonia and it looks like it reading almost zero ... more yellowish, rather than light green ... so I'm going to dose it again.

The plants I tied to the rocks seem to be putting out roots, trying to attach themselves ... so do the others that I planted in the gravel for that matter.

Need to get back to working on the backdrops.

Hope everyone has a pleasant and enjoyable weekend.

 

[sodamo]

62°F and no rain

Breakfast in town with wife and a couple of errands then back home for an easy day and watch the Patriots.

Be safe
Have a great day

Sent from my iPhone using TractorByNet

 

[sodamo]

Eric
I always look forward to your posts - enlightening, educational, entertaining. So I vote you stay around.

Sent from my iPhone using TractorByNet

 

[Kyle_in_Tex]

rs, that zebra pleco is awesome, but not $400 awesome. Our standard pleco outlived/survived every other fish and is the only reason we kept the aquarium. I bought him at about 1.5" for a few dollars and 7 years later, he's maybe 8". I have to admit, I never fed him for the first 6 years. Somehow he managed just eating the available algae. Now we give him those tetra food discs and he loves them. He craps so much now, I already need to clean the tank again....He doesn't bother the angel fish, nor they him. I have the angels trained to chase me from one end of the tank to the other, using food for motivation of course. It seems they know when I walk past, that "He's" the guy to chase, since I feed them. And it sounds to me like you have "The Woman" on board and will have to start calling her cupcake again.

Drew, I have to admit after shaving it off and feeling "nude" on the face, my skin felt as if I had put on some menthol type cooling lotion, even though I did not. If your lady friend avoids you like the plague, I would have to guess it might be that facial hair....(banjos twanging in the background)....

Speaking of facial hair, Grizzly Adams passed away. I can honestly say you will NEVER find me voluntarily wrestling with a full grown grizzly bear.


Sunlight just broke out here after a damp, rainy, cold morning. Wheeeee!

 

[buckeyefarmer]

I have never heard of a culvert called a tile before. Not a northern or eastern thing.

Taking the wife out for her birthday. Today isn't her birthday, but that's the excuse we will use. Her birthday is Christmas, so we never eat out then. Thinking about going to some kind of Roadhouse place, maybe it's Texas Roadhouse, not sure of the name, know there's a new one in town that we haven't been to. We'll do a little Yee Hawing there...

spent a few minutes in the tractor getting some pellets in from the barn. Y'all might take my tractor card away, when you hear I only put 12.4 hrs on my cab tractor all of last year. Hard to believe, but I never took the backhoe off last year, and did all my mowing with the little MF. Rained last night so I put some good tire tracks in the yard.

 

[Novfon]

Excellent home-made crawler tractor

 

[mostly_gas]

Don't remember this in the forecast Glad I have the fireplace to play with :thumbsup:

 

[txdon]

Don enjoyed the calf story, when does alligator season start?

FEB 1. Chicago Details soon. (Unless you are smart enough to figure out ahead of time.) Hint - SHS

 

[sseelhoff]

Hard for me to believe it is a year since I intruded into this Good Morning thread. At the time my love affair with compact tractors made me think I may have something in common, despite speaking at times an almost foreign language. Since then I have come to appreciate it is more than just tractors, it is the not too serious outlook on life, whatever that decides to throw at us.

As I don't have a Green Card, I'm not sure if Muhammed is going to let me stay on here after my guest year and use up more of his valuable server storage space with yet more pictures of sheep. I have already taken you through a complete year with the sheep, so anything I say in the future can only be repeating things.

Come to think of it, at my age I'm at the point where everything is likely to get repeated. Even so, if you could put up with me a little longer, I'd like to still hang around, so if Muhammed asks if you can tolerate a slightly cheeky Brit for another year, would you please put in a good word for me.

Good morning y'all.

 

[daugen]

Welcome Novfon. Is that you on the home made crawler or are you just showing a video?
If it is yours, more info please. Remarkable power from that little Lifan motor; good gearing I guess.

 

[daugen]

I have never heard of a culvert called a tile before. Not a northern or eastern thing.
Boy I'm glad you wrote this because I was feeling especially ignorant never having heard the term used that way.
I've heard of tiles on the floor, tiles on the roof, and even tiles on the side of a lunar rocket, but not in a ditch.

When the storm system came through last night the tail end brought high winds, easily gusting over 40mph. Lots of tree limbs down, place was a real mess this morning. Picked up about six loads of sticks. But worst of all, there has been a death in the family.
Not a good week for our road. First that nurse gets killed in an accident at the end of my street, then, sniff...one of my little critters bit the dust big time.
Limb hit one of my turtles and whooeey lots of pieces. He was buried this afternoon. Luckily a smaller sibling was tougher and took a hard hit and kept
on trucking.

 

[daugen]

oh Eric,
oh won't you stay a little bit longer
please, please please say you will....
I bet your wife won't mind
I bet your sheep won't mind
just one more post, please, please please

 

[300UGUY]

Funny note, I shaved off my "salt and pepper" goatee that I've been wearing for over 15 years. My kids have never seen me without it and are having their share of laughs over it....I believe the "salt" portion was overtaking the "pepper" portion.

that's ok, I'll make up for you, decided for next two months, the cold ones, to grow my beard back in, and it comes in
white as Santa Claus. Makes me look older but so be it. I'll stay warmer... I keep it fairly short though.

plumbers came early this morning, fixed my leaking barn water supply pipe, for what was the fifth time. Now that construction is done, and heavy trucks aren't likely coming back there, I'm going to dig a new trench from the barn to the garden shed, which is where the water comes from, half way to the house. Going to use up some one inch pipe I already have, and this time will get the electric line out of there; not used any more since a pole was set right at the barn, and so far I don't know if it's live. No matter what, I'm going to terminate it properly. Both the half inch water line and the live standard (not underground)plastic wiring just dropped in the same trench. No sand, no conduit, just drop it in, five inches under the surface. Five inches. Any wonder it kept breaking?....

So, going to do it over the right way, sink it down at least 18 inches or whatever the rental trencher will go. If I'm not running electric, is there any benefit to running water line through a conduit? Not like I'm going to run cable tv back to the barn...my portable phone reaches, barely, can't imagine why I would want to run anything down there in the future.

Is there a preferred water pipe for underground use? If you go to Radioshack they have special underground burial coax.
Is there a better or stronger water pipe that is sensible? Not like it's going to get UV...
but there sure are all kinds of plastic and i wouldn't put it past the local Lowes to try to pawn off the worst Chinese junk they could buy
What I have is very durable but in 50 foot sections so I would have joints, never a good idea. Might want to buy new.

I've put in a couple of frost proof hydrants here, I used the 1 in or 1.25 black poly, made for water use. It's tough. I didn't install one hydrant correctly, and it froze. It broke at the cast iron elbow, not in the poly pipe. I've got one that is under my driveway, been there 30 years, never a problem.


Sseelhoff, Great tune.

 

[300UGUY]

Got on a whole binge, been playing utube's of different songs. Eagles right now.

 

[rswyan]

rs, that zebra pleco is awesome, but not $400 awesome.

Yup - not $400 awesome for me either ...

But there might be folks that would pay it.

The page I pulled that image off of was a wholesaler's ... I believe they mentioned that there is a ban in Brazil on exports of at least that particular species, perhaps others as well. So that means that the market is limited to whatever has been already exported and is being bred elsewhere, unless one wants to go black market. Assuming that they are actually being bred in captivity of course.

Arbitrarily constrain the supply below demand, and the prices will rise ... assuming there is sufficient demand.

OTOH, you can't blame the Brazilians for wanting to preserve the natural resources that fall under their jurisdiction.

Our standard pleco outlived/survived every other fish and is the only reason we kept the aquarium. I bought him at about 1.5" for a few dollars and 7 years later, he's maybe 8". I have to admit, I never fed him for the first 6 years. Somehow he managed just eating the available algae. Now we give him those tetra food discs and he loves them.

He was hardy ... and patient ...

Mine seems to be scarfing up the broccoli and shrimp ... in addition to working over the gravel, rocks, and glass sides of the aquarium. He's pretty small (2" ?) ... so a single medium shrimp chopped up will probably last a week, to feed him and his tankmates. Especially if I'm supplementing it with broccoli and flakes. From what I can tell, he actually seems to prefer the broccoli ... but eats the shrimp as well.

The guy with the Royal and Zebra plecos also had a 15" one which he offered up ... think it was a Tiger or a Butterfly pleco tho' ...

Just a little too large for my present set up ...

He craps so much now, I already need to clean the tank again....

:laughing:

Yeah ... I remember when my Green Terrors got up around 5" to 6" tank maintenance was a pretty frequent occurrence.

You use a gravel vac siphon to clean it ?

He doesn't bother the angel fish, nor they him.

Yeah ... plecos seem to get along pretty well with most everything - at least in terms of other similar-sized adult fish (eggs and fry are a different matter) - except others of their own kind.

I have the angels trained to chase me from one end of the tank to the other, using food for motivation of course. It seems they know when I walk past, that "He's" the guy to chase, since I feed them.

Heheheh .... undoubtedly they know who the "bringer of the flakes" is ...

You could probably get them to eat from your hand without much effort. Maybe little bits of boiled shrimp or chopped up earthworms ... or even a freshly swatted fly.

And it sounds to me like you have "The Woman" on board and will have to start calling her cupcake again.

LOL ... yeah ... she's good with it ... as long as I keep it under control.

She managed to call me after she had finished for the day while I was still in Petsmart ... (... caught again ... :laughing

I had headed up there to pick up some silicone airline after I noticed I was having some leakage issues with the old vinyl stuff, and they had a pretty good price on it. Of course she could tell that I'm ... somewhere ... (background noise, etc) ... and I got the "Oh ..." when I told her where I was ...

Managed to avoid any drama by asking if she wanted me to pick up some Cat Lax (for hairballs) which we had just run out of.

"Yes ... and pick up some wet food too ... make sure it's the pate ... not the chucks or anything with gravy ..."

They were out of the silicone tubing ... but I did manage to pick up a 20 long Aqueon glass tank for under the second 55g tank ...

At 37.5% off - basically a buck a gallon - it was too hard to pass up.

They also had some 1" or so African Spotted Leaf Fish come in, in their Friday order, which were on sale @ 50% off ($5 a pop), which I did not buy (wanted to check and see if they were "live fish only" for food) ... but I might head back up there tomorrow and snag them if they still have them ...

 

[rswyan]

I have never heard of a culvert called a tile before. Not a northern or eastern thing.
Boy I'm glad you wrote this because I was feeling especially ignorant never having heard the term used that way.
I've heard of tiles on the floor, tiles on the roof, and even tiles on the side of a lunar rocket, but not in a ditch.

Never heard of a farmer "tiling" their fields ?

I think the term comes from times past, when plastic wasn't widely available and steel (or iron) pipe was cost-prohibitive, and clay or terra cotta (drain) "tiles" were used for drainage (aka french drains)

Our property, which used to be a corn field and is around 2600' long, has at least one run of such tile probably about 4" or 5" O.D. ... it terminates in the lower front yard ... right where the big wet spot is ... :laughing:

I know this because I found it with the backhoe when I was trenching ... to put in a french drain and plastic culvert to drain the upper field ... :laughing:

 

[buckeyefarmer]

I have heard the small clay terra cotta ones called tiles, just not long metel or plastic culverts.

 

[RedNeckGeek]

Wifey had to make 2 different cups of coffee this AM. I have problems with caffeine. Lord knows I've had my share of it in my lifetime, but it now makes me have weird symptoms. Anxiety, tingly feelings, feelings like I might pass out. Strange...

Some of us are just wired awake and alive, and don't need outside stimulus. Caffeine does the same thing to me, and I really don't enjoy it. Neither do those around me, so if I want a warm drink it's some kind or herbal tea. Round about way of saying I know how you feel...