Good morning!!!!

[mpham]

Looks like a gloomy week ahead for me.
Nice tractor Thomas, I'm sure you and the wife will love it.
Stay safe everyone.

 

[rswyan]

Last week, when I went to work, I walked in with my N95 mask on. I take it off, once I'm by myself in my shop. My shop has it's own HVAC system, not totally infallible but a step in the right direction.

One young smartypants engineer promptly told me "I don't know why you're wearing that, it won't do you any good"...I replied, "You just told me how little you know about it."

For my family, even though I'm the oldest, I'm the only one going anywhere. I put on an N95 mask, I carry and use clorox wipes to touch or pickup things, wipe my cart, wipe my hands continuously with them. Do I care about people staring at me? Oh heck No. I tell them it's the new fashion and I'm the leader of it in our area.

Drew, I'm glad you live at the end of a lane, but if you want to assure your exclusivity, you need to not let anyone in, nor be near anyone. I feel the people that live rurally have a better chance if precautions are taken.

I'm not telling anyone what to do. But look at the news from Italy today. 793 deaths just yesterday. Largest 1 day death toll. They are hauling coffins to cemeteries in Army trucks for mass burial. Loved ones are not getting to say last goodbyes in either direction. No access from loved ones in the sick areas. They are dying so fast, the hospitals have warehouse rooms to put the bodies in coffins waiting for the Army to pick up.

Well said Kyle ... :thumbsup:

 

[Buppies]

46 high of 51 today very cloudy weatherman missed forecast yesterday sunny high of 68

The birds are making lots of noise and the squirrels are fighting over left overs at bird feeder

Prayers for all

 

[Rich B1]

Nice tractor Thomas,

 

[wngsprd]

43 going to 55 and a little blue between the clouds.

Thomas, I love that huge sparkle off the headlight in the 3rd pic...like the sparkle in the Mrs.' eyes as she starts it up. Enjoy, and get those chains off soon.

Rick, I don't drink or smoke, but that is a beautiful pic of staples.

 

[Looking4new]

An update on the Croatia quarantine, the cops will encourage the people to stay at home. Only one person every 4 days can go out and get groceries, from each family. Non-essential travel is out of the question. But no martial law, yet.

 

[Eric Salop]

Good morning all. With no rain and plenty of wind some of the fields have been drying out nicely. The old Subaru has finally been able to come out of hibernation these last couple of days to transport my chainsaws and fencing tools. I misread one patch of ground and broke through the dry surface yesterday afternoon, leaving the tires with nothing to grip. Fortunately my wife didn't mind coming over with the Iseki and pulling me out.



Thomas, what a way to make a wife happy ! Hope the tractor brings her many many hours of pleasure.

Kyle, I wish I had a lathe, although it is now many years since I last used one. Wonder if it's one of those things that could be soon picked up again, or would I crash out the first time I tried to cut a thread Used Colchesters are always coming up for sale, but are just a little too big to go in the heated part of my workshop. Some smaller used lathes like Myfords seem to have a cult following with model engineers, I was surprised to see they fetch higher prices than good industrial ones.

 

[wngsprd]

I had big plans yesterday to start the annual end of winter bush hogging of the fields...decided to take the pto shaft off the bush hog gear box and do a good cleaning and lube. 3 hours later I finally get it back on. This pto is a very good one, but has a different kind of spring slip collar on the clutch end and just wouldn't release. After much cleaning and many tries later, with wife's loving help, got it back on. Then time for dinner.

Now, sore, scraped and bruised up some, am wondering why I took it off to start with. The clutch shield has hatch openings to get to what I needed to lube.

 

[ronjhall]

Drinking 2nd cup of coffee. 18ｰ with clear skies this morning. Heading to 40ｰ with partly cloudy skies. It's my fault. Took snow blade off tractor last week. Sunday night forecast is 3" of snow. GD is not coming to clean house until things clear up. So yesterday and today are laundry and house cleaning. Tomorrow I will be out of milk. Can I survive without it? Today is one week of being hunkered down. Talked to oldest GD yesterday using Facetime. What a great feature to keep in contact when we have this type of shut down.
Sparrows like to use my chipper pile to rest between trips to feeders.


Corvid-19 cases Michigan 787/8, Oakland County 229/2. City of Detroit has 248/3. 60% of case are between 40 and 69 years old. 16% are 70 and older.

Thomas, nice tractor. A lot like my 20 year old B2910 with some updated features. Not sure I like FEL control arm sticking out into right exit path. I mostly use left exit.

RNG, only class I failed in school was typing. Could not get to 30 words per minutes in order to pass class. Only boy in the class also. Not sure that was a problem. I can type at about 20 words today. When I try to go faster spell check is my friend. My mind goes faster than my typing. Missed words. :confused3:

LS, great pictures.

Rick, yup, need to have all those staples on hand. :dance1:

Buckeye, hope your son has a safe trip to pick up his things. Like Forsythia pic.

Drew, hope you get over pollen allergies.

Phil, similar weather forecast for here. But at least day time temperatures will be in 50's after tomorrow.

Eric, most industrial lathes here are 3 phase motors. Which require additional equipment to run. Plus they are heavy and require heavy duty equipment to move. Lots of industrial grade machines go unsold here. My old Craftsman lathe will bring a good amount because it can be taken apart and moved.

Kyle, good plan.

Jim, thanks for ebike info.

Everyone stay stay safe and healthy.

Prayers and best wishes for everyone.

Good Morning All.

 

[RedNeckGeek]

Good Morning!!!! 46F @ 4:00AM. Sunny. High 71F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph.

Happy wife, happy life, eh Thomas?:thumbsup:

Glad you'll get to that burn pile soon, Rick, and now I know why they call 'em nachos!:laughing:

Like most things these days, Kyle, people will abuse statistics to prove whatever point of view they hold. We'll only know how this epidemic will pan out after we get through it, but there's certainly no harm in taking whatever precautions we can. Just yesterday the first case of CoVid-19 was diagnosed in this county, but in my mind that's just proof that it's been here a lot longer than that because very little testing is being done. I also started sensing what I think are the first signs of a common cold, and started on the Zicam just in case. But it makes me wonder what good the hand sanitizer and bleach wipes and N95 masks will make, as I used the sanitizer and wipes during my last two trips to town. CoVid-19 is supposed to be much more contagious than the common cold, so maybe I should have been wearing a mask, too. No fever, yet, so I hope I dodged the flu bullet.

Bodyshop neighbor texted yesterday wanting to use the welder here; replied that I was under the weather and that it probably wasn't a good idea. Now that i think of it, even if it turns out this is just an allergy thing, I'm going to keep telling people that to promote self isolation and social distancing. Pretty sure I can hold out here at least another couple weeks, and probably longer, without having to go into town for supplies. And in two weeks, we'll all have a much better idea of what kind of impact the virus is going to have on our futures.

I did manage to get the propane pipe repaired yesterday, but I had to pull a tool out of the shed I've never used, one given to me by my old friend that I helped move a few years ago. Even after i got the pipe trimmed to the right length, the angle was off, and the threads on the union wouldn't engage. That's when I remembered the pipe bender that Louis had gifted me, and I was relieved to find out that it fit the 3/4" pipe I was working with perfectly. It wasn't an EMT bender, either. This thing had a stout cast steel hook and a short chute to support the pipe, and a handle made from six feet of heavy wall inch and a half pipe. A couple of tweaks and I had a perfect fit, and the line was holding pressure the rest of the afternoon when I last checked. If it's still holding this morning, I'll get the trench closed up and start preparing the foundation for the generator pad. I was poking around the scrap bin yesterday and found some quarter inch steel plate, and I think it will become a "U" shaped shield to protect the union and poorly supported parts of the piping. I'm pretty sure that the damage done to that failed joint happened when I pulled the pipe out of the trench during installation, as I remember it not fitting as well after it went back in. I should have pressure tested it one last time before I buried it, but you know how easy it is to take shortcuts when you get in too much of a hurry.Never enough time to do something right the first time; always enough time to do it over again!:duh:

Also got the last pallet of concrete unloaded from the truck, which involved taking the 4-in-1 bucket off and installing the pallet forks. The last two times I've done that I've had the Devil's own time getting the hydraulic couplers to let go as they've been under pressure. That meant beating on the couplers with a piece of firewood until they released, not something that is good for either of us. So I'm wondering if there is some trick or good practice I can use to release the pressure on those lines a little more benignly?

The tarp on the firetruck had also come loose again, enough so that I could get the doors to the cab open. It hasn't been started since I drove it home last fall, so it was long past time to wake it up again. Got it to crank easy enough, after flipping the battery cutoff and giving the carb primer switch a long push, but I missed the manual choke knob on the dash at first. But once that was pulled all the way out it started right up and settled into a nice lumpy idle that I let run for five or so minutes. Sure felt good sitting in the sun in that nice warm cab! Especially since I was in for crawling over the gravel under the truck to get the tarp secured again...

Finished the day by removing the forms off the two pads I poured for the propane tank, and the boards are in good enough shape to use again. The pads came out OK, but next time I'll use a shovel to make sure the bottom corners of the forms are fully filled. And I think I saw Ted banging on the forms with a hammer to work the air bubbles out, too, right?

Hope everyone enjoys the rest of their weekend!