Good morning!!!!

[PJSprog]

45°F and rather windy this morning. Seems we'll stay around that temp all day, at least until the sun goes down.

Spent much of yesterday running errands with The Wife. Got home in the afternoon and hooked up the water for the new fridge ... surprise surprise, the Lowe's delivery guys didn't connect our existing water line. I had to get a couple of new parts for the compression fitting while we were out, and it took all of 2 minutes to do. I'm starting to to think people are just generally lazy these days. We had a minor drip from the water dispenser after I ran about a gallon through it, and The Wife called their service number. The lady she talked to was equally disappointed that they did not connect the line when they delivered it. The leak seems to have stopped today. Probably just debris in the new system that needed to flush out. I'm enjoying a big cup of ice water from it even as I type this. :thumbsup:

Wife is working on some quilt projects today, and I've been puttering around in my studio.

Nice to see that Andrew has checked in here again from Slovenia. Hope all is well there.

That is a great-looking tractor, Drew. I remember reading a light-hearted thread some time ago about people waxing their tractors. It's something I've always intended to do to the LS, but just never have.

That serial killer made news around here a few days ago, Kyle, as he apparently admitted to a couple of murders in the St. Louis area. One was supposedly in my hometown of Granite City IL, back in the late '70s.

RNG, best news of the day. Hope everything remains just as you left it.

 

[Thomas]

"..... You guys in the snow areas...how are drivers these days in your neck of the woods."- Ted"
.............................
Takes couple food storms to smarten people up around theses parts...and some don't seem to learn.

 

[Looking4new]

Lots of power outages over the past few days up at the cottage near Dorset, Bill. Not too sure what is going on there. They had a major upgrade to the power infrastructure not that long ago, but the power outages seem to have in fact gotten more frequent since then!

Anyway, raining again this morning, and not a heckuva Lotta snow left. The lake might not be skateable this Christmas!

Check if my reading of the weather is correct there will be no ice skating at Christmas too warm

Lake Barnard is still ALL open water.

"..... You guys in the snow areas...how are drivers these days in your neck of the woods."- Ted"
.............................
Takes couple food storms to smarten people up around theses parts...and some don't seem to learn.

The locals are no problem. The citidiots on the other hand couldn't drive a sharp stick up a dead dogs' butt in the snow.

 

[newbury]

"..... You guys in the snow areas...how are drivers these days in your neck of the woods."- Ted"
.............................
Takes couple food storms to smarten people up around theses parts...and some don't seem to learn.

Is a food storm when everyone goes out to stock up on bread and milk?

 

[freedomlives]

Drew - I'm going to have to try waxing my tractor. Already washed it twice this year, which is more than the cars get.

David - to save some of the work with the concrete slab, have you considered fiber reinforcement? I used plastic fibers last year and this year-- can't remember the brand, and surely it will be something else in the US, but concrete companies can add them to the mixing truck as well, and then you don't need to set up rebar-- you get reinforcement all the way through.

Gloria is not yet at the "helping out" stage, she's getting near to crawling I suppose. I know she'd like to be able to move around on her own anyway.

Didn't get to church today. Went up to check on the goats after adding a 4th polywire line to the electric fence, grounding one to make it shock harder if they went through, and I couldn't find the goats at first. Wandered all around, and eventually they turned up-- maybe they were at one of the barrels where the hunters feed the deer wheat. I brought them to the field behind the house and locked the billy goat up in a shed. Pretty sure he is the real problem-- the rest of the goats can't jump over the fence, only him, but when the leader goat is out of the fence, the others gain courage to squeeze between the wires. Our old billy goat who died this summer was too heavy to do such acrobatics.

Our van ran out of diesel fuel a mile outside the village. The low fuel light came on driving home last week, but its supposed to mean enough fuel to drive about 100km, and town is just 20km away. Its not a good idea to let a diesel engine run out of fuel, and seems like the more modern, the worse it is. The neighbor pulled it back to our house after my attempts on the road to get it started weren't succesful. Seems I didn't run the fuel pump (from the diagnostic software on the computer) long enough on the road, and when I got it home and gave it the full 3 minutes the battery was too weak to start. Hoping tomorrow that it starts up fine. Going forward I won't be letting it get below 1/4 tank.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

How do they drive here? Really great until they leave their driveway.

 

[sodamo]

That’s great RNG

 

[sodamo]

Andrew, used some sort of reinforcement fiber in a driveway project back when we lived in Atlanta, never here. I do remember discussing with George years ago but forget why we decided to go rebar/mesh. This is last sizable concrete project I envision, but as they say, never say never.

 

[Kyle_in_Tex]

45°F and rather windy this morning. Seems we'll stay around that temp all day, at least until the sun goes down.

Spent much of yesterday running errands with The Wife. Got home in the afternoon and hooked up the water for the new fridge ... surprise surprise, the Lowe's delivery guys didn't connect our existing water line. I had to get a couple of new parts for the compression fitting while we were out, and it took all of 2 minutes to do. I'm starting to to think people are just generally lazy these days. We had a minor drip from the water dispenser after I ran about a gallon through it, and The Wife called their service number. The lady she talked to was equally disappointed that they did not connect the line when they delivered it. The leak seems to have stopped today. Probably just debris in the new system that needed to flush out. I'm enjoying a big cup of ice water from it even as I type this. :thumbsup:

Wife is working on some quilt projects today, and I've been puttering around in my studio.

Nice to see that Andrew has checked in here again from Slovenia. Hope all is well there.

That is a great-looking tractor, Drew. I remember reading a light-hearted thread some time ago about people waxing their tractors. It's something I've always intended to do to the LS, but just never have.

That serial killer made news around here a few days ago, Kyle, as he apparently admitted to a couple of murders in the St. Louis area. One was supposedly in my hometown of Granite City IL, back in the late '70s.

RNG, best news of the day. Hope everything remains just as you left it.

PJ, seems always some different fitting to connect to. I had the same problem with my new dishwasher. What a hodge podge. YES, you are correct and need to run at least a gallon or 5 out of the dispenser, and you'll have dirty ice from the powdered activated carbon filter inline.

How does that guy in Australia sell those kits so cheaply? I'm certain I've seen someone play one of those guitars....but I'm having trouble remembering from decades ago. Was it someone in the Cars? Or maybe Cheap Trick? We could have a sort of contest to see who comes up correct first without googling it.

There was a young girl killed south of Houston back in the early eighties near the Clear Lake exit off of I45. They never found out AFAIK. Maybe he did it???

 

[wngsprd]

Yahoo! RNG!

 

[Kyle_in_Tex]

How do they drive here? Really great until they leave their driveway.

got a gut laugh out of me...

Andrew, used some sort of reinforcement fiber in a driveway project back when we lived in Atlanta, never here. I do remember discussing with George years ago but forget why we decided to go rebar/mesh. This is last sizable concrete project I envision, but as they say, never say never.

I put poly fiber reinforced AND rebar with beams in my home's slab. We are on really crappy clay and I only put down 12-14" of select fill.

Just got the hydraulic cylinder off and partial disassembly. Now to make some split rings at work to bring home and try. Maybe I'll take my cylinder up there to hack at it during lunch.

 

[RoyJackson]

You guys in the snow areas...how are drivers these days in your neck of the woods?

Most Vermonters slow down during inclement weather...most, but not all. However, the out of state drivers....NY, Mass and Connecticut, tend to be the worse. Me? If I'm in 4WD, 45-55 is the limit.

 

[toppop52]

Had a busy one, but productive and ended the activities having dinner with friends at The Greene Turtle.

Picked up two bikes and helmets for two little girls Christmas, one 9 and one 4, I hope a little joy makes up for a lot of disappointment in their lives. Wish I could do more for kids that miss out on so much, it isn’t fair.

I hope all of you are getting well and had a good day. God bless.

 

[Buppies]

Great news RNG

 

[toppop52]

Great news RNG

Yes RNG, I saw the good news and meant to congratulate you on finally going home.

 

[LS Tractor Owner]

"..... You guys in the snow areas...how are drivers these days in your neck of the woods."- Ted"
.............................
Takes couple food storms to smarten people up around theses parts...and some don't seem to learn.

Food storms???



Had a good chuckle with that one...first thought of 'animal house'...then, of course the 'stupid autocorrect'

 

[LS Tractor Owner]

Congrats RNG! Long time to wait, but it's great that you can actually return home.

 

[RedNeckGeek]

Made it home at about 12:15PM after waiting only a few minutes at the check point. Only a couple dozen cars in front, about the same in back. One look at my driver's license and I was good to go. The road was 2 lanes up to the check, and predictably only one lane beyond. Very fitting for the total cluster F*** this experience has been. People were cutting in and out, jockeying for position, but a nice guy in a Dodge pickup let me merge. The speed limit beyond the check was 65, and all the idiots were only doing 55. I showed 'em how it's done.

I left the gate open when I left, but stopped to look things over. Wires from the battery were burnt off, so the gate will be on manual for a bit. A fair number of good sized oaks were down along the way in along the driveway, lots to keep me warm in the coming weeks. The 10 cord pile of manzanita was gone, not even an ash pile. That stuff burns really clean; wish I'd been around to see it. My split wood pile was covered with a tarp, and it survived fine. All the shrubs at the outer edge of the 30' fire safe zone were burnt to a crisp, nothing inside the ring was harmed at all. Not even the vinyl on a pair of motorcycle seats close to the edge. The parts van got a little warm up on the rear bumper that hung over into a patch of rosemary and sage, but that's about the extent of the damage.

Inside the house there was a faint smoky smell, but I wasn't as thorough as I thought with the frig and there were a couple streams of dried water at the bottom and a musty/rotten smell in the kitchen. Air freshener will have to do tonight; tomorrow everything gets a hot water and bleach wash. The jet pump on the well was acting up; the D-Square pressure switch needed flipped a couple of times to get it going again. I'd like to find a better, more reliable brand of switch, as this is the third one that's gone bad. Someone turned off the propane tank, so I had to relight the water heater, and a couple of smart devices are too dumb to reconnect to the network. That's about the extent of the damages. Christmas came early this year; I'll be happy even if all I find in my stocking is a lump of coal.:laughing:

The Vanagon fired right up, so I headed over to Marie & Scott's to deliver the can of coffee beans she'd asked for. On the way I noticed my body shop neighbor picking through the ashes of his place and stopped to commiserate. His house is gone, along with quite a few antiques and parts for his big collection of fifties era cars, all of which are in some stage of rebuild, and most of which were untouched by the flames. His single wide trailer is still there, and is renter was very happy. So his his big barn; that would have been a big tragedy to lose. I helped him tarp a couple of his cars, then headed on over to the Hunter's When I found Marie, she was leading a new mother goat and her kid back to the barn. She said she'd lost twenty babies that were born dead, but the last ten were fine. Sounds like goat moms to be don't like being scared by fire.

It'll be a while before things settle down around here, but I'm a lot better off than most. Time to get a fire goin' in the stove to take the chill off, but 65F inside is still pretty mild, another thing to be thankful for.

 

[LS Tractor Owner]

Just to make sure the record is straight with all my "collective mothers" , I was very good today and became a couch potato, didn't step ( or hobble) outside one time today.

Jay, I did research the crampons...might just have to get some...

 

[Looking4new]

It is good you are back at home, RNG.