Good morning!!!!

[KilroyJC]

Good Morning!

God has given us another chance to get it right (or at least not screw up too badly).
12.8T going to low 40s, sunny start, rain tonight.

Work had another day of server issues, including a hard shutdown of the system and all workstations for almost an hour. Yay.

chicagoans are using the term “Dead Robots” for all the unusable abandoned EVs around town.

Harry is enjoying the new day-play, primarily because it is a boarding facility so midweek is slow time and the staff let him out and play with him, so he gets plenty of individual attention! I am sure it would be far different in the summer. . .

Defrosted some of the pinto beans that I made with the last of the Christmas ham and some country slab bacon and it was just the thing on a frigid January evening to warm the innards. Warm under the blankets layer too

Administrative running around day, then a trip up the woodlot to run the dogs and harvest more sap for syrup. The latest batch finished up with a yield of only 13Oz but the color was much darker and the flavor much more pronounced that the last bottle. I may have to buy some more 5 gallon pails to store sap in if the yields increase — the batch we harvested the other day is only down to where previous batches started in the big pot, I added the remaining three jugs last night….

I hope everyone has a happy healthy safe blessed day!

 

[wngsprd]

19F going to 44. Never made it out of the 20s yesterday, but was sunny.

Needed to fill up the wood rack on the porch, so decided to get some extra exercise and bring it all up using the wheelbarrow rather than the tractor. The creek is still flowing over my bridge, but shallow enough to drive through, but with snow still sticking to the trees, will not cut firewood today...it should all fall off with today's temps. I'll give the chain a good sharpening.

Played with the video editing software that comes on Windows. It has an AI feature to create a suggested video out of the content you provide. Worked pretty well, but all I did was something simple to upload to Youtube as a test. While I was on YT, stumbled on some AI created songs...Frank Sinatra singing recent rock and roll hits, for example...and Elvis singing Man of Constant Sorrow. I guess it creates a library of Sinatra's phrases and inserts them into the lyrics, and then applies Sinatra's style. Some were very realistic sounding and fun to hear Sinatra sing. Then I listened to an AI Bob Marley sing Frank Sinatra doing Fly Me To The Moon. What a way to waste an hour or two.

 

[KilroyJC]

Good Morning.
12° with a high of 20 today under a clear sky.

Yesterday’s snow removal went well, just did my place and son’s, as he was out of town, but DIL and grandson were home.

When I built this place almost 40 years ago, I was obsessed with making it as energy efficient as possible. That meant no fire place or chimneys, a complete envelope of sprayed in urethane insulation foam from under the basement slab to the attic. Its heated and cooled by an open loop geothermal heat pump with no back up, as none is required for an open loop system, the ground water is 55° regardless of the outside temp, and is of virtually unlimited capacity (the geo loop, not the system)
The result has been exactly as planned, the house is extremely comfortable with consistent temperature throughout. I have averaged about 15 years out of each heat pump. Each one has benefited from advances in process control and become more efficient, and using less water.

However, I’m planning on putting a fireplace in my new “in law suite” that will become my new home. I like tending the fire and the radiated heat, even though I realize I’m sending conditioned air up the chimney.
This will be on a slab, which I plan to heat with propane warmed water to break the ground chill, but use mini splits for overall heat and AC. The advances in efficiency of the mini splits take away a lot of the advantage of going geothermal.

I now have the township approvals and exemptions that I needed to move forward with the project, so now I’m doing the design work. I’m will be hands on, but I’ve decided to actually hire a general contractor to run the project. I’m confident that we can work well together, allowing my level of involvement to vary without impeding progress.

I have found that having the outside air feed option on our woodstove really helped reduce drafts and loss of inside air, but when the temps drop that pipe gets COLD — I really need to wrap it with some fiberglass…

 

[KilroyJC]

It's a shame there is so much interference from local government.

Government is your friend and has your best interest at heart…

 

[KilroyJC]

Our zoning and regulations here are suspect too.

I cannot have a trailer on the property for live in purposes, even if I construct something.

I do not have to file for permits if I build an agricultural type building.

I chuckled to myself as I was reading various rules and regulations as I concluded that I could build something like a house and claim it was for feed storage by sticking a few grain bags here and there.

Currently 29 outside, thankfully no wind.

Build an ag building that you can store the trailer in, and nobody will see you living in it…

 

[daugen]

Government is your friend and has your best interest at heart…

locally that can be true. many generations of my family have volunteered on local boards, as supervisors, school board,
library and when you have lived in the area all your life, you take a longer term view. Once the position goes beyond local and folks start
getting paid, and start worrying more about which team they are on, then it all falls apart.

not sure broad brush sarcasm helps here but also don't disagree in most cases

 

[KilroyJC]

A pretty glass front wood burning stove that has an outside vent to draw fresh air from the outside will keep the system closed and not pull in cold outside air into the room being heated. I had one and it was the best.

This is the onesie installed two years ago:

Progress Hybrid Wood Stove

Unique Hybrid Design The Progress is a HYBRID because it uses both a catalytic combustor and a secondary combustion system. Until the Progress was introduced in 2011, EPA certified wood stoves used one or the other. The Progress gives you the best of both systems - combined. A catalytic combustor b

www.woodstove.com

 

[KilroyJC]

Good morning, the low is -2 and the high to 12°F. Wind W 2 mph. 30% chance of flurries.

Up at 4 and block heater already turned on.
When I go out to plow I will turn the block heater on for the Dodge. Both heaters are on the same circuit, so only use one at a time. The Dodge doesn't need 5 hours of heat to start, the tractor does.
Also when I go out to plow I have a set of winter overalls I will be wearing.

I just found out why my bedroom is colder than usual...A heat hog (cat) was on the register. I guess he hasn't figured out that the warmest place in the house is in front of the wood furnace. There is even a stool to lay on, the same stool we sit on to load/clean out the furnace.

Dump and town run after plowing today.

Have a warm safe day today people

Maybe place a small wire dish rack or in/out basket upside-down over that register?

 

[KilroyJC]

beautiful plates Phil
potato chips for a beaver...

what do you seal them with?

NHBX: same here, I got a neighbor's Sunday paper in an older Ariens. Took me over an hour to get it out, from then on
I learned to ask if they had picked up their paper. All big lumps were considered suspicious...sometimes I walked it first.

if we get three inches on Friday, I might fire it up just to run it. Otherwise I have driven it forward ten feet, back ten feet and run the auger.
Then back off it goes.

pretty sure weather is cyclical and we have plenty more snow to come
this last snow came when very cold out so it was super flight and fluffy, perfect for shoveling, back didn't bother
me a bit, though I pushed more than I picked up. So now I have two tracks of clear going out with packed down snow in between.
It has stayed below freezing here so next snow will fill in those ruts. Thankfully weather warms up after that and one way or the other it's going to all melt. My Volvo is awd and driveway is absolutely flat, no problems.

good idea on off season buying Kilroy. You aren't going to run out for a while.

apparently the idea of pet safe is to not have magnesium in the mix. Am guessing that's what takes the melting action to a lower temp.
Stuff I put down was plain old calcium chloride. I'm not a fan of rock salt, gets too lumpy.
I don't have pets but some next door, not that I want them on my driveway anyway

I'm actually more concerned about what eventually washes down to the Delaware River, not that far away.

I also picked up some 20# sacks at the suoermarket in May for $7, but they only had three left when I was there…

 

[Popgadget]

Drew, the worst thing as far as getting it unclogged was a nice soggy Sunday paper that was buried in the plows windrow at the bottom of the driveway lol.

I would agree that a frozen newspaper was the worst that I encountered. It was a hydraulically driven snowblower without reverse, no shear pin, it used relief pressure for protection. I tried everything from a sawazall to weed torch. Took hours to clear it. Ended up soaking it in diesel fuel and burning it out.

 

[daugen]

Woodstove Database | Burnwise | US EPA

most efficient apparently is 83 percent. But you can get a "most clean" very close to that.

 

[plowhog]

33F going to a 54F, clear day here in Formerly-Great CA.

Got a rare nature show yesterday. Wife said: "look!" Just off our outdoor deck, two bald eagles were circling. One then landed while the other circled above. It was on the ground for 3-4 seconds, then they flew away together. Maybe a nesting pair getting material for a nest?

Oddly, a 3rd, smaller bird (raven or hawk) seemed to be harassing the eagle that did not land.

We were lucky to get a very close view of two eagles. Quite impressively large birds. A pix on my cell phone came out poorly so here is a different pix I found ....

 

[plowhog]

Going back to Visicalc days

Wow what a catapult back in time. Forgot all about Visicalc. It revolutionized the PC.

 

[plowhog]

Made these 3 plus 2 others.

What kind of wood is that?

Last year my neighbor gave me his huge dead sugarpine that had recently fallen. I milled lumber out of it and it looks about identical to the top one. (Sugarpine is a little rare around here.)

 

[txdon]

Good morning! 39˚F, sunny skies, heading to 69˚. Now this is Texas winter, not the anomaly we had the last few days.

Mostly With too much going on, settling and taking care of the estate, ASL, and PT. I dropped Spanish, a winter garden and working at the "Adventure Farm" (Fall and Christmas times). My wife has continued Spanish and ASL. The "Adventure Farm" was closed during the sub freezing days earlier this week. The "Farm" is starting to advertise their February "Baby animal Days". That's when people can reserve times to let their kids feed the baby animals. I miss the quality seat time, not only no maintenance and free fuel they actually pay me!

Looks like the cold has headed East.

 

[Buppies]

17 this morning high 42 maybe something tonight tomorrow not sure warms up after mid week that stays till last week of January never fear cold will return with more snow.

Maybe did to much yesterday stuffed up head this morning still no heat upstairs bedroom 63 degrees

Prayers for all our Country

Nice woodwork Phil each time more impressed with your abilities

 

[Tinhack]

Warmed up a little but still chilly for me. Supposed to hit 70 today so I'll be outside cleaning up the high wind mess around here and charging batteries. Looks like T-Shirt weather today but we're in for another drop this weekend. Stay warm and Hydrate!

 

[masseyrider]

We're up to 20F here in southern Kanukistan. Expecting some light snow.
Nice fire and cup of Joe. It looks kinda nice from inside.
Have to go for some scans at the (a little girl I used to know used to say it this way) Hot Pistol this afternoon.

 

[Popgadget]

Good Morning
21° with a high of 32 today. Looks like a decent day.

Yesterday was spent checking out how the snow removal worked out at our local airports. It’s always a challenge as the work is done by airport staff, and snow removal is not usually their forte. We tray and have the best possible equipment and train and plan for how to best use it, but sometimes the reality falls short. I was pleasantly surprised with how well everything worked out this time.
This is the first snow season for this machine, we have it equipped with a 14 foot blade in the front and 12 foot broom and blower on the rear.

Wille 865

willemachines.com

Made the second stop at a gas station with the Prius since I got it in September, it took just under 8 gallons, most of my driving is within its EV range, so I don’t use much gas, but it is completely seamless when it makes the switch from EV to Hybrid.

Today I have to make a trip to Newburgh, NY to take a crew to pick up a plane at the service center there. Be my first time flying the turboprop since November, hopefully I didn’t forget too much.

 

[RedNeckGeek]

ooohhh that makes great firewood ...

Mmmm, maybe not. In the 1800s the railroads imported eucalyptus trees for fuel because the trees grew so fast. Then they found out they didn't burn clean and literally gummed up the boilers on the locomotives. But it was too late. The trees spread like wildfire, and now they're everywhere in California. Yes, they do burn well, but are a very significant wildfire hazard. They shed bark and leaves profusely, establishing an excellent tinder pile underneath them that quickly spreads ground fire to the trees themselves.