Good morning!!!!

[wngsprd]

73 and rain....rained all night. Only expect it to get to 79.

LS, Happy Anniversary!

Don, Whipper is an interesting mix of breeds...a real versatile dog. I met a couple on the trail yesterday that had two dogs...a Rottweiler pup, and the biggest black Lab with the longest hair I've ever seen...must have been 120 lbs...I asked him the breed to be sure, but didn't ask if it was crossed with something bigger so as not to offend.

Been doing some mowing and work around the house. Mostly, the weeds I sprayed that got rained on less than an hour later are beginning to show tinges of yellow, so hopefully it worked.

No bees seen in the tree hole for the last 3 days.

We watched a 5 foot blacksnake climb straight up one of our front yard trees yesterday...at about 20 ft up it stretched out on a limb for a while...I went back to work and my wife called me over a little while later...it had gone into a hole in a small horizontal dead branch and water was steadily running out of the hole. I guess it was displacing some trapped rain water. We often get fascinated by the little things.

 

[Eric Salop]

Good morning, not so many bear sightings around here.

Our heat pump has been having to do an unusual amount of work this week to keep us supplied with hot water. It will be the same again today, the solar panels are on the west side of the roof and will have missed out on the delightful sunshine that we were able to enjoy before being covered by another bank of cloud.

Picked up the repaired tyre yesterday, good to have the Iseki back rolling along on 4 wheels - even if no Cherokees are likely to be chasing.

In farmed fish heavy metals are not the problem but PCBs are

Don, thanks for all the info. Am I the only one who thought PCB was an abbreviation for Printed Circuit Board ? Oh, it seems something fishy going on there too

 

[daugen]

PCBs have made the Delaware River unhealthy for a long time. Upriver manufacturing, particularly anything dealing with solvents used to clean metal, well those solvents apparently had
a lot of nasty PCB's in them and it was all dumped into the River up stream over many decades. And I'm sure the good city of Trenton NJ has added its own share of
nasties over the years. Now the nastiness is settled down deep in the silt on the river bottom.
The real problem comes with bottom feeder fish, like catfish. The mostly poor folks in Northern Philly fish in that river and if they are catching cat fish, talk about unhealthy.
Fish and Game says maximum allowable number of portions of fish eaten in one month: one portion. One a month and not sure even then it's worth the risk.

my understanding of electrical transformers is that for many years, maybe most of the years in the beginning, the coolant oil in transformers was full of PCBs. Pretty sure they have found
an alternative safer chemical now.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

my understanding of electrical transformers is that for many years, maybe most of the years in the beginning, the coolant oil in transformers was full of PCBs. Pretty sure they have found
an alternative safer chemical now.

I had a project in the 80s to replace a bunch of PCB transformers with air cooled ones.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Friend of mine got a new old toy. He was always a JD guy, then surprised me about 20 yrs ago with an orange one. Now he’s switched colors again on me.

 

[LouNY]

A 200 row crop with front weights isn't real common and then the long axles haven't been bobbed off either.
Also looks like it's got the fast hitch on it. Good looking little old tractor from the mid 50's.

 

[RedNeckGeek]

RNG, so when grid power is off and your batteries are full you can use it or loose it?

Bingo!

A big item on the "Punch List" I've been pursuing with the contractor is finding some way to determine the State of Charge (SoC) of the battery bank. If I can look at the battery voltage and know the battery is full, I can feel comfortable running the A/C and other large loads when the sun is shining. And if I can look at the battery voltage and know the battery is 80% full, I can back down the loads to protect enough capacity to run the well pumps for at least two hours in the event of a wildfire. But I can't get the contractor to tell me what those numbers are, and the battery manufacture isn't talking, either. And the contractor has purposly disabled measuring devices in both the solar power system and the battery bank that would provide that information. This would be a good place to insert the old pulling-my-hair-out emoticon...

 

[Popgadget]

Good Morning.
72 and not going to hit 80 today.
Cloudy with no more than 25% chance of rain throughout the day.

Yesterday was spent in the shop, making good progress, but little cleaning or organizing. Wednesday night’s storms (the one that woke Drew up) had a tornado touch down not far from me. The damage was very localized, tore the roof off a house, but didn’t touch the barn next to it.

Today will be in the shop, but if it dries up outside, I’ll put the 3PT finish mower on and mow inside the small pastures. Maybe even take the sting trimmer for a walk while glue cures. Last thing on the agenda is band rehearsal.

 

[txdon]

Good morning! 79˚F heading to the mid 90s lots of sun.

Had a friend ask me about the effectiveness of the vaccine now against the "D", and frankly it's all over the board and changing weekly. Since the original study did not include any variants, we are the study now.

Mayo Clinic, for example, reported high effectiveness at preventing SARS-CoV-2 infection during the Alpha variant period by the Moderna vaccine, at 86%, and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, at 76%. In contrast, with the more recent predominance of the Delta variant, the effectiveness of the Moderna vaccine dropped to 76% and that of the Pfizer vaccine dropped to 42%.
But protection against hospitalization with the Delta variant in circulation remained high for both vaccines, ranging from 75% to 81%.

A full course of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was just 39% effective at preventing infections and 41% effective at preventing symptomatic infections caused by the Delta Covid-19 variant, according to ******’s health ministry, down from early estimates of 64% two weeks ago.

Data so far suggests efficacy rates of more than 67 percent for the J&J vaccine, 72 to 95 percent for the Moderna vaccine, and 42 to 96 percent for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

Buckeye that is a good looking Farmall, did he restore it or did he buy it restored?

Wngsprd, interesting observations on the black snake.

I had lizard in the garden and a baby Mocking bird on the porch.
(pics on next post)

 

[txdon]

 

[daugen]

nice looking Farmall, I bet that engine just purrs.

good PT session, very light rain out now and looks like it will continue for a while.

an indoors day, probably some house cleaning

nice lizard Don, look at the claws on that thing

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Don, I suspect he bought it that way, but I’ll ask. This is my best friend from HS dad, I practically lived at their house a couple summers, and helped them put in a lot of hay.

Edit, he bought it that way.

 

[RedNeckGeek]

Good Morning!!!! 66F @ 6:15 AM. Some clouds this morning will give way to generally sunny skies for the afternoon. High 92F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph.
Winds have been out of the north all night, and the air quality is back in the hazardous range. It would be really nice to open up the house to the cool air, but instead it's buttoned up tighter than a drum with the air filter running full blast.

Remember how before the last software update here on TBN, if you clicked the wrong place before you finished writing your post, you lost what you'd just written? Well I just clicked on the previous page number and everything I'd written above appeared, as if by magic, at the bottom of this new page! No more lost posts, no more selecting everything and copying it before daring an errant click. Thank you, Mohamed! Thank you, thank you!

When I was a kid, people used to spread oil on gravel parking lots to keep the dust down. Much of that oil came from old transformers, and was full of PCBs. Lots of lawsuits followed, and don't I remember one where the guy that was on trial for spreading the oil drank a glass of it in the courtroom to show that it was harmless? Somehow I think there would be an incredible stink if someone found PCBs in salmon and steelhead trout sold at Costco in Kalifornia...

I sure am glad not to be in Afghanistan right now. Yet another sign of the approaching apocalypse.

On the way into town yesterday I swung by the junkyard to look for pipe and square tubing for the grizzly. My last time there I found tons of steel pipe, but hardly any square tubing. This time it was just the opposite. Also found some sheet steel we need, too. And confirmed with the clerk that they're still selling scrap at fifty cents a pound. That's a little better price than the steel warehouse sells its drops for, so we'll probably end up going to the junkyard for the square tube and the warehouse for the pipe.

Here's a liittle story about the solar power system. It's a little nerdy, so feel free to skip it and save yourself a few minute or two of your life. The solar power system came with a little control panel that sits next to the other components on a wall in the garage. There's a web page you can login to that provides much, but not all, the same functionality of the little control panel. So it's a lot more convenient to make adjustments from the comfort of my office chair than it is to stand looking up at the control panel cocking my head back so I can squint at it through my bifocals. But the differences between the two aren't documented well, and you have to dig through user forum posts and the like when something doesn't work as expected. One of those things is the time when the generator is programmed for the weekly "exercise" cycle. I'd like it to start at noon every Friday, but for a while now, it's been starting at 2 PM instead. I've been poking around in the web interface looking for the problem and not finding anything amiss, and finally yesterday morning I went out to the garage and poked buttons until I found where the date and time were set on the little control panel. And sure enough, both the time and the time zone were set wrong. I corrected the settings, then started digging through the documentation for the control panel, and found some fine print that told me it doesn't automatically compensate for daylight savings time, but relies on the web interface to do that. So I have to conclude that the web interface is broken in that respect. I love finding smoking guns, like the faint print on that upside down rubber boot on the red motorcycle earlier in the week. You can bet I'll be listening at noon today to see if I hear the muffled roar of a generator in the back yard. If I hear it, the week will not have been a total loss.

TGIF gang!

 

[RedNeckGeek]

View attachment 710375

How did Stubby get to Texas, Don?

 

[daugen]

Thank you, Mohamed! Thank you, thank you!
I agree, lots of helpful changes and the post pending message is a favorite.
Better get the boss's name spelled right...
yes it's a tough one for most of us simply because we aren't used to it.
This too shall change. I have to look it up every time, am terrible with names.

RNG, it's Deja Vu all over again, we have seen this craziness before.

wow, the light rain brought in almost a dozen robins and they are having a worm party in the back yard.
active pecking birds stay about fifteen feet apart, their own little worm territory I guess
almost entire back yard covered in robins, very cool

 

[kenmbz]

Morning all, Tree guy came back and finished off last 4 trees.
His cherry picked burst a connector on the hydraulic control, him and area got covered in fluid.
Feel bad as he is already struggling to make ends meet.

Hella Mega tour concert in Philly this afternoon-Kids first big rock concert-hope the rain holds off

Stay safe and be well

 

[Bird]

Am I the first one on TBN to get the third Covid-19 injection?
This morning, Margaret & I got our third Moderna vaccinations. Don (txdon) first told me about the Horizon Medical Center in Denton,TX having the original vaccinations available, so Margaret & I got our first shots on December 30. 2020 and returned for the second shots on January 27, 2021. Originally we thought that might be the end, but in more recent times, we read that another round would be a good idea. The news media is pushing the idea. I recently asked at a Walgreen's Pharmacy and they are only giving such shots to people with specific ailments. So a couple of days ago, I sent an online message to Horizon and asked if they would be available to us, and they responded asking when we wanted to come in.

So this morning, Margaret & I went and got our third injections. Now, a lady there told us we were the first to get the third injection, BUT that they have a surplus of the Moderna vaccine that will only remain good for a specific length of time, so to tell anyone, from anywhere, that wants the Moderna to contact them.

 

[txdon]

I think you are the first one for the third jab Bird. 8 months after my 2nd jab will be Sept. 20. Randall's here has the 3rd jab available.

The non-vax friend is on day 11 of being sick with the virus and is hoping to get better after the experimental but given emergency authorization antibody infusion which she had 48 hours ago.

The stores here have changed their mask signs, before they said mask recommended for unvaccinated, now the sign says mask recommended for all. About 50% were wearing mask.

 

[sodamo]

69°F and .12 inches rain.

By the time I finished coffee yesterday Sophie had me convinced to just take the day off. That and a couple applications of Votaren and this morning is much better. I think with a bit of restraint I can have a productive day.

Guys lost at H&F again, but game went back and forth. A good time.
Made the Peanut butter chicken recipe out of the Costco magazine. It was very good.

Prayers for all
Be safe
Have a great day

 

[txdon]

Bird my brother in Denton county may be in competition with you for the first in the county. You win for TBN but in the county unless you got your jab before 9:30 A.M. this morning you are in second place. He got his at his Dr. office when he got his seasonal flu shot.