Good morning!!!!

[ronjhall]

RNG, be very careful.

 

[RedNeckGeek]

Can't see the hole where the chimney was yet (too dark still), but that's the chimney laying there on the ground.

At least the chimney missed the septic tank (it's the white pea gravel area behind and to the right of the chimney).

Winds still blowing 30 - 40 MPH, but are supposed to die down into the 10-20 MPH range by this afternoon.

 

[kenmbz]

Morning all, supposed to get up to 34 today. No sun though.
Had a nice visit from BIL and wife yesterday.
Crab cakes came out really, really good. Wife liked em as well as any from Maryland.

Check - hope you don't get hit too hard. we are still recovering.

Drew - $3000 is over the top. We are one of the worst countries when it comes to supporting train and bus infrastructure.

RNG - be careful out there. Hope the insurance covers you without too much work. How windy was it that it lifted the cover and knocked over the chimney??

Today will see if I can get crape myrtles wrapped, hope they did not take a hit with the cold snap :-(

Might do some gap filling and taping in the garage, figure I can't hurt myself too bad doing that......

Rip - hope the wife gets better soon, our prayers for a quick recovery.

Wife and BIL are trying to get in touch with cousin in Buffalo and had no luck so far. He is older than us.

Be well and hope no more damage/sickness this week.

 

[daugen]

just emailed my sister in CA and asked her if it was windy there.
Geez RNG, that's a goner. Maybe guy wires?
of course if underlying roof lets go...i wonder if something acted like a can opener

worst part about the trains is the poor experience you get.
Europe knows better, and they are working actively to have intercity train routes all through Europe.
electric eco trains I'm sure.
How much money have we given Amtrak so far?....

last time this was the train they cancelled. And stuck me on the alternative milk route that crisscrosses Florida.
Siemens makes such wonderful trains, wish we could get them. Some new rail beds would be nice too...

 

[RedNeckGeek]

How windy was it that it lifted the cover and knocked over the chimney??

The Davis weather station here reported 51 MPH wind when I was watching the porch cover bounce up and down at about 3AM. At 3:45AM we had about five minutes of 53 MPH wind, and that's what sent the cover flying. Made a heck of a noise!

 

[m7040]

Took the Bullet Train from Tokyo to Nagasaki. That was a good experience. Not sure what it cost since Toshiba was hosting. Surprising how quite it was and it accelerated for a long time to get up to cruising speed.
Mount Fuji was beautiful to see. The Japanese are soooo polite the train attendants would turn around before leaving the car to go to the next one and bow for you

RNG, hope you get some repairs done to close up the roof damage

 

[kenmbz]

I have been on high speed trains in many countries. I think the bullet to Kyoto from Tokyo was about $100. In Spain and Italy even cheaper for the high speed trains.

 

[pennwalk]

Ken, I wish you could have got them wrapped sooner because as soon as you have them well protected it will be 50 degrees for the rest of the winter.

 

[Rich B1]

Good morning! 23 now, high of 30 for today. Considerable improvement over Friday/Saturday morning. Weather was decent in Bellaire MD for Christmas.

Trip went ok, roads in Ohio still had some snow/ice, same in western MD going over. Drivers side washer nozzle was frozen over, got enough spray from the passenger side to mostly keep the windshield clear, but made several stops to do additional cleaning. The ice melted on Sunday, washer was ok coming home. Drive home was ok except for the rolling parking lot on I-70 from Frederick to Hagerstown. That was the worst part of the drive.

Was nice to spend time with family for Christmas for the first time since 2019. I had C#vid in 2020, most of them had it in 2021 At Christmas time.

Going to take it easy today. Likely mostly energy conservation.

Sheesh RNG, that looks ugly. Good luck getting it fixed.

Everyone stay safe out there!

 

[txdon]

RNG, that cover for the stove pipe sure caught a lot of wind. Any chance to replace the pipe without the decorative cover?

 

[KilroyJC]

Between 13 and 24 months?

It’ll all be away before February.

just because I MOVED to Appalachia doesn’t mean I now keep everything up all year, year after year

 

[txdon]

We don’t get each other presents any more, but I did put extra candy in her stocking.

might get her that dyson cordless vac next time it goes on sale.

$150 off at Costco.

 

[sodamo]

65°F and no rain

Spent some quality time cleaning the shop yesterday. Emptied the shop vac 3 times of saw dust. Had been a while since some things had been moved.

Take a break from that today and spend time in the tractor shed. Not so much to vacuum but lots of stuff to be shuffled around, put away. If ambitious might even pw the floor.

Prayers for all
Be safe
Have a great day

 

[LS Tractor Owner]

What pierogi do you make? We do potato&cheddar (“Canadian-Style”) pierogi and sauteed sauer kraut pierogi.

We do the potato / cheese, but with real fatback and onion. The cheese is cream cheese. Sautéed sauerkraut and sautéed fatback/ onion mix on the side. Some of the family also top with sour cream.

 

[KilroyJC]

We do the potato / cheese, but with real fatback and onion. The cheese is cream cheese. Sautéed sauerkraut and sautéed fatback/ onion mix on the side. Some of the family also top with sour cream.

We caramelize onions in butter, and then drain the butter thoroughly. Then, we squeexe the kraut and chop it finely, and dry sautéed it with white pepper, and once it gets nicely aromatic we add in the onions and mix over medium heat until well-combined. If there is too much fat in the mix, it makes it difficutl to get a reliable seal on the dough — and since the kapusta pierogi are far more difficult to make than potato, we only make about 4 dozen, compared to 200+ potato cheese. Our pierogi are small - we cut 2” circles of dough and stretch it almost paper thin over the filling.

 

[LS Tractor Owner]

Our family traditions are:

-Thanksgiving is for Turkey
-Christmas and Easter are for ham
-New Years Day is Prime Rib

bit we will do Turkey a couple more times during the year. Smoked or roasted on the charcoal grill during the summer, oven in house on a chilly Spring of Autumn day. Possibly a midwinter one or two just because.

Feel Better!

Yep.... same menu here.....

 

[rswyan]

27F and cloudy @ 12:30, headed up to around 29F for the high. A veritable heatwave.

After getting up early yesterday I ended up climbing back in the rack and slept most of the afternoon.

Did manage to get the hopper and both tube feeders refilled after I got back up though. Also put out a bucket of whole corn and another bucket of cracked corn as well.

After dinner we watched "War Horse" (again), good flick.

Woman is downstairs (for the second time) trying to find the smooth floor piece for the vacuum. No joy apparently.

Possible items for today's agenda:

Dole out meds for this coming week.

Couple more Christmas kitchen items due in from Amazon today that they couldn't get delivered before the holiday.

Nearly out of all critter food - safflower, sunflower hearts, peanuts, and whole and cracked corn ... so place Menards order for all that. Probably wait until tomorrow when it's warmer to run down and pick that up. Will likely grab some white wood dimensional lumber for the woodworking bench while I'm down there with what's left of the rebate checks.

Feed fishies.

Finish up staining.

Get another foam board panel put up back in the utility room.

Finish cleaning sediment/iron filter and set it out to dry.

Drain the drywall mud pan that is catching the drips from the leaking supply valves going to the MB bath.

Gather up more tools and get those put away.

Plus whatever else comes up.

 

[LS Tractor Owner]

Good morning! Low was 27°, up to the high of 52° already. Now the forecast has changed.... the storm that hit RNG will be heading this way. Chance of snow tonight, then again on Thursday, and the biggest chance on Sat / Sun. Amounts are all over the place --- from 3-6" to 2-3 ft! I guess we'll have to wait and see?

RNG, wow, that took down a bunch of stuff! Hopefully no arguments from homeowners insurance. That's gonna be pricey! We have 2 porch roofs (just the wood frame and metal panels), I'm always afraid they are going to become sails when we get the high winds here.

Check, hope you guys feel better soon!

Drew, the last time we took the train, it was from way out here to Chicago, then a flight from Chicago to Philly. It was the 'family' sleeper, spanning to both sides of the car. For 5 passengers, it only cost us $1400 RT. I guess those days of cheap fares are gone.....

We lost power again a couple of times during the day yesterday, but only for a few minutes.... until last night at 20:00. Then it went out for an hour. We were lucky.... apparently there were about 10k customers that lost power from Sunday night and still haven't been restored.
The Co-op says it was an old transformer and a new one couldn't get delivered until today due to "supply chain shortages".......

Kept waking up again last night multiple times --- why, I don't know..... the wifey got up at our normal time, 06:00. I rolled over and surprised that I fell back to sleep until 09:00. I think that short 3 hours was the best sleep over the past few days.

Yesterday was a 'phone tag' day. When we got our property tax bill, it was less than half of the previous years.... mmmm... something wrong. We paid what they specified a couple weeks ago, with the intent of calling after the holidays.

Well, after getting the buck passed from dept. to dept., finally got a call back from the GIS guy in the assessor's office this morning. I talked him through looking at the tax bill, showing where someone arbitrarily removed the land from the equation. I asked him if all of our structures are just "floating in mid air?"
He got a good chuckle out of that.... he said over his 20 years of doing the assessments, he has never seen this happen. Lots of other mistakes, but not removing the land out from under....

He said it will have to go through 3 different departments to get straightened out, so will take a few days. Very nice gentleman, not the typical responses or attitude you get from the bureaucracy. Hopefully it will get straightened out fairly easy.

I do know one thing for sure.... I will be making a trip up to Santa Fe to visit the clerks office and give them more money......

Need to go get propane tanks refilled today, so still need to finish my coffee and get moving.
Everyone have a great day!

 

[daugen]

did my food shopping, picked up some apples at orchard and got them all unloaded.
needed some fresh air so went out and filled up all the bird feeders and then took a walk out on the ice.
Frozen solid, at least a foot thick. Didn't even make cracking sound walking on it.
Didn't go far.

 

[pennwalk]

Drew, How much, do you think it costs to rent a rock'n roll tour bus?

Chris