Good morning!!!!

[Looking4new]

Good morning, the low is 12 and going up to 27°F. Wind ESE 8 mph. Flurries. About an inch.

I got power for the tractors' block heater fixed yesterday. There was nothing wrong with it, just the connection to the Christmas lights I use for an indicator that the juice is on came apart.

Drew, Delco batteries have an indicator light on them that tells you if there is charge or not. Green light= you got juice, no green light=you don't got juice. Where the battery is in my Dodge you can't see it anyway.

Drew, how much money are you willing to shell out trying to avoid a 10 buck fine? You cannot fight city hall and win.
Just avoid the turnpike, that solves your problem and screws them out of all the money they would've collected.

Ever since the 407 (east/west toll road around Toronto) opened, I have had a transponder. It made it way better than the 401 & 403 to get to Hamilton. Well since both people (Dads' first cousins) are both dead, there is no call for me to go to Hamilton anymore. So I turned in the transponder. I caught them trying to charge me for a 407 trip when I was in Thunder Bay and could prove it. They wanted to argue and I just told them, "see you in court". That was the end of it.

Time to get on with it.

Have a safe day all

 

[daugen]

Evidently it read the plate well enough to get your address to send you a letter.

Or if your address was obtained from an EZ Pass device in your vehicle, then they should have no need to photograph your tag to bill you for your toll.

but they say they MUST see at least one plate according to the provisions of my contract,blah,blah,blah

yes, they see the EZ Pass number, they see it's a motorhome in the picture, they see I have a motorhome legally listed on
my account
and then they are clearly confused...

 

[Kyle_in_Tex]

Good Morning from Central Texas.

5am, 60 degrees, 54 Dew point. Forecast is upper 70's up to 81 on Friday.

Tractor Repair day today. Hydraulic steering hose went out + new brake cylinder. The hose was a major PIA to remove and I am sure to replace. Noticed brake cylinder was leaking while pulling the hose. Of course, the gasket/o-ring has been discontinued, but JD will sell you a whole new master cylinder - OWCH. All the hydro fluid dumped so, another $100+ for fluids (think about 12 gallons needed) and broke down and bought a 5 gal bucket pump from B&B Auto. Guess happy it's not raining or 20 degrees today and the hose broke in the field and not while on the road.

Hope all have a great day !

Hope the repair goes smoothly, can you make your own gasket, and get your own o-ring?
Here's one probably made in China.
Amazon.com

Church was great yesterday, the children put on a great pageant. Then we had a soup bar fellowship lunch. Maybe 8 kinds of soup. Chicken and dumplings my wifey made were a big hit. It got wiped out. I had, pot roast soup, chicken and dumpling, chicken tortilla, and a splash of baked potato soup.

Trying to decide what to do today. Was going to make a trip to Houston to buy my wife a convection wall oven, but she said no.

Still have the decaying piles of smartgrass weeds in multiple piles around my pond. They have lifted the burn ban officially, but it is still to dry to take a chance IMO. Will wait and see. If it drizzles rain, I might try to burn one to see what happens. There is a lot of pond muck dirt in them. Not so sure they will burn yet.

Might take son to play some tennis. Tennis for me is..... if I can get to it in 3 steps, I'll try to return it. Ha!

Billy, that mountain trip sounds cold to me. Bet Della was ready for a warm fireplace when y'all got home.

Short days are upon us.

Prayers for our team, our nation, and for peace in the world.

 

[Kyle_in_Tex]

Evidently it read the plate well enough to get your address to send you a letter.

Or if your address was obtained from an EZ Pass device in your vehicle, then they should have no need to photograph your tag to bill you for your toll.

Yes Drew, get the EZ tags.

 

[Popgadget]

Good Morning.
A balmy 22° this morning, sun is shining, but still won’t get above freezing today.
Yesterday was a lazy day, it got quite breezy, so I skipped taking the little plane out to lunch. Getting bounced around in 35kt winds just to get a Cubano sandwich in Reading didn’t seem to appealing.

I puttered in the shop instead, still figuring out Fusion 360. I am to the point where I am functional, but there is a lot of mystery and power to be discovered.

Drew is picking me up in an hour to help him wrestle the batteries out of his motor home, after that, I’m going to pick up a friend from the auto shop where he is dropping his car off, by then it will likely be lunchtime, next is to go out shopping for presents at Harbor Freight for the kids.

Then maybe unload the firewood from the carryall that I loaded up yesterday.

 

[m7040]

good morning, colder 23 should get to 40 with some sun this morning

Did not do much yesterday and the steps were suffering but feel more rested today so maybe today?

Keep forgetting to treat the diesel fuel to prevent gelling so hopefully today

 

[WinterDeere]

Winterdeere, you likely said before but why all the high amperage wiring on your trailer?
that's clearly more than lighting wiring.
do you have an inverter onboard?

I heat my home largely with wood, and until now have done all of my own felling and harveting. That's my log-hauling trailer, with a 7500# winch mounted high on the front rail, used for dragging logs onto the trailer.

Those batteries are used to power the winch, and I used to have them mounted on the front of the trailer right under the winch for short wiring runs, but it created a nose-heavy trailer with an awful high tongue weight for my 1/2 ton truck. I took the opportunity while I had the trailer apart for re-decking to weld in a frame to hold the batteries aft of the axles, to balance the thing out much better, but now I have long wire runs up to the winch.

When I go out harvesting, I cut down a few trees, buck their trunks into 15 foot lengths, and then drag the logs straight onto the trailer with that winch. It makes very quick work of bringing home 1 - 2 cords at a time, depending on species and weight, the speed of which is necessary, given the volume of wood I'm burning each year.

Funny enough, since my prior cutting partner is dead and I'm no longer managing a large wooded property for our church, I'm leaning toward buying truckloads of logs in the future. However, since I can't easily get a logging truck to the back of the property where I process my firewood, I'll likely still use this trailer to move the logs from the road out front of my house back to the processing area.

 

[riptides]

but they say they MUST see at least one plate according to the provisions of my contract,blah,blah,blah

yes, they see the EZ Pass number, they see it's a motorhome in the picture, they see I have a motorhome legally listed on
my account
and then they are clearly confused...

Our EZ pass sensors on a local pay toll road refuse to sense three people in our truck when we are all present. Three people allow us to not pay a toll. We get nasty letters and toll fines when this happens. I even take pics of us in the truck and send those in because it happens so often. They respond telling us our transponder is bad.

 

[kenmbz]

Morning all, 19 going up to 41 and sunny.
Not sure what is on the plan for today. Yesterday was just cleanup work.

When I did contract work for the air force we spent a lot of time on hotels.
Most had volleyball courts and we would play a few times per week.
One time we got challenged by a group of young guys, ended up the marines shooting team.
We older guys (mid 20's to early forties) actually beat them and then wondered if they had their rifles with them somewhere. I am sure they went back to their base and wondered why they had trouble with their teamwork, all of them tried to get the ball all the time

Drew - can you add a plate holder to the bike rack?

Found out my parking space in NJ train station going up 50%, hate NJT.
When we first starting parking there, they had one older guy minding the lot and one woman working the office. Now they have automated plate readers, a whole office full of people , a web site and a few trucks and people driving around checking plates. So with all the automation, they had to hire 5 more people, can you say scam.....

Off to the bank and maybe home depot, no real plans this week off work. Will be over at friends Christmas Eve and Bil and wife will probably be over Christmas day or the weekend.

Be well,

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Always fun to see the snow still on the ski slopes when it has melted everywhere else. View attachment 4618760

Oaks overlook?

 

[buckeyefarmer]

up in the night again, so slept in. 34deg now, 16 was the low. sunshine.
It never got as windy yesterday as they called for.

had another 1/2 rack of ribs from the BBQ place last night. Now only 2 sandwiches left for lunches.

must be muzzle loader season, hear a lot of banging this morning. Or maybe MD has a 2 week longarm season.

I avoid the PA turnpike. Used to take the I70 portion to go to ohio years ago, but now it's so expensive, and I can go as fast via I68 with no cost. Turnpike is always advertizing on Fakebook, I respond "make interstates free again".
More and more tolls on roads that used to not have tolls, like the "express lanes" on the DC beltway. Read once where someone took their RV on one of the express lanes once, cost them hundreds of dollars because price changes with traffic density.

 

[wngsprd]

Oaks overlook?

Probably. I stopped at a couple of them on way home from hike.

 

[Engineer42]

Drew - can you add a plate holder to the bike rack?

I was thinking just remove the front wheel from the bike if it has the quick release on it like 10 speeds of old. Store the wheel inside.

Should allow access for the nosey camera. Help reduce chance of theft as well.

 

[wngsprd]

Billy, that mountain trip sounds cold to me. Bet Della was ready for a warm fireplace when y'all got home.

Short days are upon us.

Yes, it sure was cold. She's lying by the woodstove now...just went to rub her and her hair was so hot, I decided to check the temp with my laser thermometer...176F.

Good news...days are getting longer starting today!

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Probably. I stopped at a couple of them on way home from hike.

it lined up with your picture angle. My wife learned to ski on those slopes.

 

[LouNY]

Good Tractor Morning,
Ct, 18 to start going to 34. Local iOS like bad weather coming in tomorrow, so I guess I better work today, oh and Wednesday too

The kiddos had a ball Saturday night, Nana makes it fun for them in many ways.

Buppies, so sorry to hear this, hopefully better days ahead my friend

Dennis, the wind was really rough here yesterday afternoon also. The temps just dropped quickly and the wind really was strong, so after doing all the popcorn balls and candy canes I never made it outside after that.

The day started off on the wrong foot when I went to go to the FD yesterday. My truck wouldn’t start, dead battery. I had to use Kathleen’s car to get over there to make breakfast. Also the truck was in the garage and I couldn’t even get to the battery, so when we went by the house in the fire truck the guys helped me push it out onto the drive way. The real hurt came in the afternoon when I had to pay $225 for a replacement
Wow, they gave me a whopping $5 for bringing in the old core

Hope all have a blessed day

I put a walmart AGM in my sander the other day right at $200 after all the taxes and fees.

 

[LouNY]

got an annoying fine letter from PA Ezpass.
apparently when I drive my rv on the PA turnpike, because PA has no front tag, and I have
an Ebike on the back of my motorhome, their elevated cameras can't read the license plate.
The plate is not blocked at street level.

so either I pay a ten dollar surcharge every time I use the turnpike (heck no) or I take my bike
rack off. When I think of all the other folks in this state driving around with a bicycle out back, they must
sure fine a lot of people.

I'm going to dispute it, see what happens.

Do they have an optional transponder that a person can use?

 

[ponytug]

21F and clear @ 00:30, heading down to around 19F for the overnight low.

Put out food for feral kitty first thing. Hi

Got 21” wide foam board glued up, placed, and braced on last section of east wall.

Pulled down the fiberglass insulation on top of the sill plate on the north wall and got that area all vacuumed.

Cut a bunch of unfaced R-11 insulation and added 3 layers of on top of the sill plate on north wall (8’ section behind new stud wall)

Also got 3 sections on top of sill plate between joists done as well.

After adding what I took down (R-19) back in it will be R-52.

Without any insulation up there could really feel the cold air intrusion.

Got 8’ section of stud wall moved into final position and plumbed up.

That required a trip up to the shop for the 12 lb. sledge …

Once that was wedged in place, got the wall nailed down to the concrete and into the floor joists.

Got holes drilled in the studs for the Romex.

Mounted 3 boxes for outlets.

Ran 1 section of 12-2 between a pair of boxes.

Foamed the northeast corner with Great Stuff on the foam board to seal it up, also 1 joint between 2 panels on the east wall.

Probably work on getting more fiberglass insulation cut before I hit the rack.

Hope everyone had a decent day …

This sounds like such an amazing job. I guess I missed what triggered the renovation.

got an annoying fine letter from PA Ezpass.
apparently when I drive my rv on the PA turnpike, because PA has no front tag, and I have
an Ebike on the back of my motorhome, their elevated cameras can't read the license plate.
The plate is not blocked at street level.

so either I pay a ten dollar surcharge every time I use the turnpike (heck no) or I take my bike
rack off. When I think of all the other folks in this state driving around with a bicycle out back, they must
sure fine a lot of people.

I'm going to dispute it, see what happens.

Can you move the rear plate?

but they say they MUST see at least one plate according to the provisions of my contract,blah,blah,blah

yes, they see the EZ Pass number, they see it's a motorhome in the picture, they see I have a motorhome legally listed on
my account
and then they are clearly confused...

As someone once said, "You can't fix stupid". How about adding a front plate?

Yesterday turned into an equipment grease day. I cleaned the old grease off the tractor, cleaned out every zerk, and greased it. I was happy to get out of the job with no grease on me. I then went to grease the front swing gates and ran out of grease part way through. The cows had fun watching me futz around, so it wasn't a total loss. The seller claimed when bought the property that he greased the gate monthly, but the bearings and grease told a different story when I went to grease them. Funny how some folks have trouble with standing up and taking ownership. I suspect that truth was closer to his dad was the last one to have greased the gates, and he had never greased them after his dad died.

Off to drop the elderly relative at the mall for a day of shopping. Her morning greeting was "you can tell how great a country is by its malls, not its (non-retail) achievements." That was an intentional poke at her hosts. She's close to ninety, a piece of work, and I remind myself that this too shall pass. After dropping her off, as I'm in town, I'm off erranding for flashing and trim pieces to fix places the siding guys didn't do a good job of, plus minor items, while trying to avoid the pre-Christmas crowds.

All the best,

Peter

 

[sodamo]

69°F and 0 rain

Nice neighborhood gathering yesterday. Being a retirement celebration was expecting more workmates. Again we ate well.

Need a po run and refill all my diesel, but will try to get a short mow session in first.

Prayers for all
Be safe
Have a great tractor day

 

[buckeyefarmer]

My computer has a finger print reader to unlock, and sometimes it says it can't read the finger, try another finger. It doesn't respond to that one either....

Good thing i went out and got the recycle bin in, they left it partly in the lane of traffic on a busy road..

picked up the downed fence rails off of the flowers, put the broken posts under and the rails on top off the ground. Maybe if it warms a little I'll try digging fence post holes for new posts. Not sure if I should with my arm. Have to dig next to the broken post in the ground, then get the old post bottom out, then dig hole more where it was. With split rail, the posts have to be in the right place.

speaking of grease, I should go out and put trickle charger on some of my batteries, but afraid of getting grease on my good jeans. think I'm down to 4 bags of pellets in the outside box, so should get tractor out and get it filled up again. have burned 27 bags so far, so just over half ton. last year burned 95 bags, about 23 bags by this time, 72 bags yr before. my records say I burned 170 bags back in 2013, I dont remember that.