Good morning!!!!

[Thomas]

33F now 50 for high w/showers.
One can see more and more of the lawn starting to green on southern sides,frogs were peeping about week ago than the cool down came,sure hope they sing there spring songs soon.

Enjoy the day all.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Coaching tball is like herding cats. Lol, been there done that.

 

[txdon]

Good morning! Light on/off rain, 70˚.
Last week was the first hay cutting in the county. Since rain had been expected today, over the weekend many round bales appeared in the fields.

 

[farmer2009]

61 this morning and headed to 67 today. Rain moving in after lunch.

Well feed is down and heaters are on. Birds arrive tomorrow morning. All 4 barns. Need to service the big generator before the rain gets here. Then install new water meters in 3 barns. Going to a digital water meter changed one last flock and loved it. Now my water readings will be kept in the computer and I'll have water alarms also. I can set the computer to call me if the birds don't drink so many gallons per hour. Usually set it at 1 minimum and max of 75 to start going to 350 by the time they leave. And it checks for water leaks (by using the max setting) every 5 minutes. The 1 gph tells me if the water system goes down for some reason.

Don. We had one farmer post to Facebook about 3 weeks ago a picture of him planting corn. Said he was planting 100 acres. He has to be the first person to plant every year though. I was in one of the local farm stores last week and the owner was talking about how he may have been first but now he gets to also be the first to replant this year. . Laughing. How is the hay crop in Texas this year?

 

[txdon]

How is the hay crop in Texas this year?

The Hay crop is starting out a bit above average. We have had just enough rain and since there has been no frost for the last 6 weeks maybe 2 months in some areas and lots of warm days the first cutting is early.

 

[daugen]

51 degrees, much warmer, going to low seventies today.
Headed to RV place, my special order toilet is in, home size, ceramic bowl, not plastic. Plus a two inch riser underneath. Adult size...what came with the trailer was sized for kids.
Then off to get a pair of reading glasses, my first. Eye doctor said with my astigmatism I really ought to be wearing glasses all the time. Reading glasses were remarkably cheap so I decided to try a pair out.

Maybe with new reading glasses I will be able to see what I'm writing and will make more sense!:dance1:

 

[daugen]

weather forecast updated, now 1.3 inches of rain expected Tuesday into Wednesday, a good soaker. We actually need it and dry weather predicted for at least a week thereafter. Good rain for the garden and planted trees. I have house guests coming in Wed afternoon so their timing is good. My childhood friend and I are going to spend part of one day reassembling my 1968 Cub Cadet and another day likely planting my order from Burpee which should come in Wednesday. My friends are avid gardeners so with my nice gift certificate from my sister I have nicer plants going in than I would usually buy. Burpee is home based in Warrington PA, about 40 minutes from where I grew up so I like to buy their products. Grew up studying their catalog and Rodale's Organic Gardening magazine.

 

[ronjhall]

Poured first cup of coffee. 36° with clear skies this morning. Heading to 69° with mix of sun and clouds. Yesterdays trip was uneventful except for a little rain. Doing some sightseeing in the Page, AZ area. Lake Powell and couple of canyons. Here is a picture of the Colorado river where it does a Horseshoe Bend just outside of Page. Wind was blowing 30+ mph. Did not get a closeup at the edge.
View attachment 464292
Good Morning All.

 

[RedNeckGeek]

I was a bit puzzled by the Vanagon , not something I had ever heard of, so I searched online for a clue. Now I think I know what you mean, that's a VW Caravelle to us in Europe ! They are much loved by many, especially the older models.

Yes, Eric, you'd know them as the Caravelle. Just this morning I was looking into factory paint colors, and found that the Euro, er Caravelle, versions came in two tone, which were not imported here. The old air cooled bus range of vibrant colors were also available over there, and not here. But I'm still leaning toward a dark metallic gray over white upper and lower bands. But the campaign shades are classy... Decisions, decisions.:confused2:

 

[mkr7734]

Good morning,
Cloudy and cool. 46 heading to 51. Heading to Jim's next door to see what he wants to do today. Nothing much else. Will see what the day brings.

 

[rswyan]

49F with some light drizzle @ 09:00 ... forecast after today looks great, sunny with warm temps (60's, 70's) and no rain until Wednesday of next week.

The el cheapo Wally World box fan I used with the DBS up in the shop was DOA when I went up yesterday ... apparently that fine yak grease in the bearings finally dried out and the magic smoke escaped from the motor.

Hooked up the old squirrel cage blower from the bad furnace ... works great ... even on the low speed it pushes plenty of air, more than the old box fan ever did ... and it's quieter.

Plan for today is to mount the diverter valve and front hydraulic outlets and get measurements for all the hoses and get them ordered.

Grapple thread updated.

 

[RedNeckGeek]

Good Morning! 54F @ 6:15AM. Cloudy skies early, then partly cloudy this afternoon. High 72F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph.

The half inch of rain that was forecast for the weekend turned out to be less than a tenth, and the showers predicted for today and tomorrow have evaporated as well. As a result the dirt on the driveway is still pretty loose, and the 0.18" predicted for Wednesday night probably won't help much. Might end up running the tractor up and down the thing a few times to "wheel roll" as the neighbor calls it the dirt a bit and up the compaction. Motorcycles with smooth road tires get a little squirrely in the loose stuff, especially on the steeper sections.

Years ago, Ron, I spent a pleasant afternoon in a bar in Page, sipping beers with friends and the Indians. We were on another motorcycle trip, it was hotter'n blazes, and the bar was right down the street from a park-in-front-of-the-door type motel that we favor. We'd been at it for a week by then, and just needed an early break from pounding down the miles and camping in the dirt, and Page filled the bill quite nicely. I think we camped at Coral Pink Sand Dunes the next night, very pretty but chock full of off roaders treating the campground like a race track.

Going on six years since I retired and bagged up all my working clothes to store out in the trailer. Haven't opened one of those bags since, so yesterday I put 'em all in the back of the truck to drop off at St. Vincent De Paul tomorrow while I'm in town. Sure freed up a lotta room in the trailer, which was promptly re-filled by more junk from the garage. It's and endless cycle it seems.

Then an old friend called who happens to be a buss nut and we spent three hours talking about all manner of things. He was working on speaker grills in his garage, so I started pulling weeds in the back yard. Seemed like a great way to spend an afternoon, catching up with each other and still getting some work done.

After that I lit the fire ring, and once it got going fed the last moving box full of old paperwork to it. Saw the mortgage documents for the first house go in, followed shortly by one of the first job offer letters I got right out of college. The starting sallary? $1750/month, though I was warned I'd have to pass a physical when I reported on the first day. That was the aircraft engine plant in Cincinnati, which I passed on. My future boss's favorite saying was "This to you, this to your posse, and this to the horse you rode in on", each emphasized with a rude hand gesture, and the comments before and after laced with a healthy dose of profanity. I honestly thought the man was crazy:confused2:, and couldn't see starting my engineering career under his tutelage. Ended up in San Jose, California at another GE plant, that one engineering nuclear power plants. And we all know how well that worked out. :laughing:

Hope everyone's week gets off to a great start!

 

[rswyan]

Where are the promised fish pics?

Still workin' on 'em ...

RS, get off the Eiffel tower before you fall and break your neck.

LOL ...

Though that grapple will be a work of art when it's done. When I watch you go through all the steps in fabricating it, that check I wrote for my Long grapple seems awfully reasonable.

There's definitely something to it, isn't there?

But you will have it exactly the way you want it. And I bet with better quality hydraulic hoses too.

Hopefully.

Or I suppose you could do all your lines in solid copper and spend your afternoons polishing them... Just the kind of helpful suggestion you need. Yup.

The desirability of shiny things aside, I don't think solid lines are going to work very well ...

Anyways, if I were going to some of it in solid, I'd go stainless ...

 

[bakerg]

Good morning, wife's birthday today, will take her out to dinner if she wants to go tonight.

 

[toppop52]

RNG, being an old car guy, I can't help but think a 60° NorthStar aluminum V8 would fit where the Subaru would.

Much warmer today, going near 70°, but very breezy and cloudy. At least it's not snowing!

 

[ronjhall]

Good morning, wife's birthday today, will take her out to dinner if she wants to go tonight.

Happy Birthday to your wife.

 

[daugen]

RNG, being an old car guy, I can't help but think a 60° NorthStar aluminum V8 would fit where the Subaru would.

Having owned one once, no way that thing has the guts of a small block Chevy. Sounded nice though.
Cadillac STS had the greatest quad pipe setup, all show but it sounded nice. I believe that engine was a little light on torque...
but it was light...and seriously high tech, but who is going to volunteer to machine that mounting plate?...
Actually, I bet RNG could pick up some nice VW diesels, for cheap...diesel will give it the torque it needs.
Question is how much horsepower? 150? 200? 300?
200hp, 300 torque ought to do that VW nicely. Not too much to wreck the current drivetrain either...If that's VW's Synchro setup,
isn't that first gen of the current FourMotion?

 

[RedNeckGeek]

RNG, being an old car guy, I can't help but think a 60° NorthStar aluminum V8 would fit where the Subaru would.

Much warmer today, going near 70°, but very breezy and cloudy. At least it's not snowing!

Where there's a will there's a way, Randy, but I think the California Air Resources Board would not only deny a license for the thing, but would fine the heck out of anyone that tried to run it on the road.

 

[RedNeckGeek]

Cadillac STS had the greatest quad pipe setup, all show but it sounded nice. I believe that engine was a little light on torque...but it was light...and seriously high tech, but who is going to volunteer to machine that mounting plate?...

Yep, cleaned an STS's clock, twice, on the way home from work one night back when I had a little BMW V8, and that thing wasn't exactly a dragster, either.:laughing:

Actually, I bet RNG could pick up some nice VW diesels, for cheap...diesel will give it the torque it needs.
Question is how much horsepower? 150? 200? 300?
200hp, 300 torque ought to do that VW nicely. Not too much to wreck the current drivetrain either...If that's VW's Synchro setup,
isn't that first gen of the current FourMotion?

From what I can gather, the Diesel that was available in the Synchro (and what I have is a Synchro) was dog slow, to the point that one user group for them specializes in ways to adjust people's expectations rather than trying to improve the engine. :laughing: Never heard of FourMotion; I'll have to look that up on the Innernet!

Regardless, the aforementioned CARB highly frowns on engine swaps, and at this point I think the only choices are the 2.2L and 2.5L Subaru. Even then, the 2.5L requires a wrestling match with some kind of approval board that adds about a K buck to the cost just for the time and paperwork involved. Were that not the case, I'd be shoving the biggest Subie engine that would fit into the thing, as I'm a firm believer that there's no substitute for horsepower!

 

[mkr7734]

No Jim so that was out.
Tried to level out some of the high spots in the grave on the lane but that stuff is like glue. Still wet and the fines just clump up and stick to everything so canceled that idea. Maybe Wed or Thursday it will be ready to work.

Going to have a crappy Pot pie for lunch, then maybe a nap. Still only in the low 50s and tomorrow won't hit 50. :-(

RNG, been 8 years since I got the Caterpillar "take this and get out or will will get this and get out" Set my watch on the headboard when I got home and have never picked it up since.