Good morning!!!!

   / Good morning!!!! #132,272  
Stepbrother picking me up in his Tesla 3 and taking me to doc appt. I'm very curious what it will ride like. He loves it, had a slow
Prius before and Tesla is like a rocket sled in comparison.

Drew riding by.
IMG_9444.JPG
 
   / Good morning!!!! #132,273  
Good Morning!!!! 64F @ 4:15AM. Partly cloudy. High around 90F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph.
The temp made it to 85F yesterday afternoon, and the 10-day says it'll bounce between there and the mid 90s for the foreseeable future. So long Spring. The grass is already brown in several areas, mostly where there is no shade.

Glad you're OK, Ted. We're not made of rubber anymore, are we?

Doesn't look like the surgery is slowing down your typing any, Drew. Glad you're feeling better.

That outfit looks like they're pretty proud of their tarps, David. I've been seeing ads from an outfit that sells recycled billboard tarps, and another one that calls themselves TarpsNow, and they're no better. Makes the hundred dollar Kotap 30'x30' tarps I've been getting off Amazon for a hundred bux look like bargains. They last a year or two on the firewood stacks before the wind shreds them.

SpaceX put up another batch of StarLink satellites yesterday. Hope some of 'em are coming my way. The HughesNet satellite modem is disconnecting 4 - 6 times a day now, getting worse all the time. The new burglar alarm automatically switches over to cellular when the satellite goes down, but the bandwidth is too low to pass along video. StarLink can't happen too soon here.

Spent most of yesterday morning fooling around with the pole saw trying to get it started. First I flooded it with the priming bulb, but only because just choking it wouldn't even get a pop out of it. Tried blowing out the cylinder with compressed air through the sparkplug hole, to no avail. After an hour of fooling with it I walked away and had some lunch. While I was eating I gave the Makita pole saws a hard look, and will probably order one. They'll reach another couple of feet, but weigh a couple pounds more. It's the weight that's killin' me. Makita sells a backpack battery, and it's huge. That would take five pounds off the saw, but then I'd have to unplug every time I put the saw down.

After lunch the gas saw started up weakly and ran poorly, then quit again. Got out the owners manual and reset the carb to the factory settings, which seemed a long way from where it was, and finally got it running well enough to limb up another tree. By then it was the heat of the day and I was done with outside work. Got out the chainsaw grinder and sharpened eight chains, probably enough to get me through what's left of the wood.

The solar contractor started another game of phone tag Monday. My last email to him listed the problems remaining with the system, and indicated I wanted written answers, not more phone calls with excuses.

FedEx says they'll deliver the front differential for the VW tomorrow, so maybe I can get that installed over the weekend. Should be nice under the van, in the shade.

Gonna finish up with the pole saw this morning, then head into town for some groceries after it warms up this afternoon.

Hang in there, gang, Friday's comin'!
 
   / Good morning!!!! #132,275  
Mornin, Rain starts and will stick around for a bit
Put out hummingbird feeders after I saw one trying to get nectar out of the red pulley on our dog run cable.

Bird - happy anniversary!
Steppenwolfe - so sorry to hear about your son, our thoughts are with you
LS- sounds painful and scary- hope they get the meds worked out and you know next time to just sit down and not try to keep moving. Good to see your sense of humor isn't damaged.
Stay safe and be well
 
   / Good morning!!!! #132,277  
Good morning! 71˚F cloudy, had .3"rain this morning.
Happy Anniversary Birds!

Yea, the CDC will be releasing the ships by mid July. Their requirement is 95% of the passengers and 98% of the crew have to be vaccinated.

Cedarciding at the park went well yesterday. We are now clearing an area by the front for 3 picnic tables under the large oak trees. It will probably be another work session, we were short on haulers yesterday and the three chain saws had to stop and haul their own cedar at times. The park supplied a large dump trailer for us to put the cut trees/limbs/brush in. We filled it 5 times.
Still no grand open date.
 
   / Good morning!!!! #132,278  
64°F and cloudy this morning, going up to 72° today. The rain ended just before 5am. Voice on the radio suggested we might get more rain later this morning. Radar suggested otherwise earlier, but now I see some has popped up just to the northwest of STL. All of the heavy stuff went by well south of us last night, and continues to do so today.

Wife told me one of the chickens got out of the coop yesterday. When I got home it was out again. Caught her and put her back. A few minutes later, another one was out. What the ...?! Started checking, and found one of the wire panels was pushed away from the frame under one of the laying boxes, and they were walking right out through the opening. A quick head count revealed one was missing, which leads us to believe something pushed that panel out from the outside and nabbed one of our hens. I crawled in there and re-stapled it, as well as shoring up a couple other questionable areas. Guess I need to put up another game camera out there. We've never had any trouble with predators until now.

Maybe I won't trade off my .22WMR rifle just yet.

Happy Anniversary, Mr. & Mrs. Bird!

Glad you weren't hurt worse, Ted. Have fun with the story.

Was thinking about all the great pictures here on this thread, and remembered another great contributor. Lynn (cat fever) used to post some epic photos of the landscape around his place in Wyoming, as well as some fantastic pics of his snowmobile adventures. Seems he doesn't post much anymore at all since he moved to Idaho a couple years ago.
 
   / Good morning!!!! #132,279  
Warning: Mild rant ahead

We've been talking with a fencing contractor about erecting a horse fence around our pasture. Wife wants to use part of it as a training space for her dog training, and the other side is to become our new shooting range. The Wife noted yesterday that the guy we got a quote from last year still isn't responding to her inquiries. After dinner, I went back through her messages with him and was disappointed to see that he has obviously been blowing her off. So, I summarized all of the contact dates and replies (as well as non-replies), then sent that to him via text message, asking what's the deal, and is he still interested in doing this work. He did really nice work for our neighbor a couple years ago, so that's why we contacted him. He's kind of a big name in fencing around here.

He called me about a half hour later, apologizing for the delays. He said that he knew we still wanted the fence, but kept "forgetting" to reply back. He told me he would finish his current job early next week, and should be able to start on ours next Wednesday. This is pretty much what he told her back in December, the third time he gave her a start date that never happened. We'll see if he follows through this time.

I think two things happened here. One, this guy just strikes me as unorganized. Not sure how he's developed the reputation he has if he runs his business like this all the time. Two, I think the "because I'm a woman" thing played into it as well, sadly. We've encountered this with several contractors over the past few years, and it's maddening. Some guys just don't take female customers as seriously as they do other men. Once I insert myself into the conversation, stuff magically starts to get done.

I'll never understand how people like that stay in business.
 
   / Good morning!!!! #132,280  
Good morning to all! Low of 35, going for a high of 65 today. We got one sprinkle last night, but not enough to get the bottom of the rain gauge wet. Precipitation chances are now gone.... the big drought continues......

Sleeping last night was not the easiest thing to accomplish.... too many things hurt in too many areas. Bruising / swelling around the eye is much worse this morning. No problem with vision, so a good thing. I came really close though... upon further inspection this morning, one laceration within about an 1/8" of the eyeball.... I got lucky..... maybe I should get a lottery ticket. When I win, both L4N and I could both retire....:)

I tried the "Mom hit me" with my son when he came home....he didn't buy it for a second.... disappointing.... I thought I was going to have some fun....

Drew, glad you are feeling a little better.

Paul, nice job cutting the property. Looked like quite the 'circus' for sure shearing the Alpacas!

PJ, sounds like your contractor issues are nation wide. We had a similar issue with the recent septic contractor. Hard to get ahold of, sometimes get a call back, get unrealistic dates. After a few weeks, he finally showed up. He had a great reputation, best price, and did a fantastic job.... I guess all good things come to those who wait....

Today will be a "take it easy" day for sure. Maybe get to some planting....

Everyone have a great day!
 

Tractor & Equipment Auctions

1274 (A50490)
1274 (A50490)
JOHN DEERE XUV835M (A53084)
JOHN DEERE XUV835M...
1265 (A50490)
1265 (A50490)
Informational Lot - Shipping (A52748)
Informational Lot...
LOT LOCATIONS (A52577)
LOT LOCATIONS (A52577)
GORBEL EASY ARM LIFTING ARM (A52472)
GORBEL EASY ARM...
 
Top