Good morning!!!!

[Kyle_in_Tex]

Looks like our PA folks will be wanting some crampons! Y'all be careful.

Good Morning from Central Texas.
5:15am and 70.2 degrees and 67.1 dew point. A little muggy feeling, but will try and build a compost pile area today with some wire mesh fence for the 1 million leaves yet to clean up. Average high temp around here is low 60's so a little warm and definitely TOO DRY.
Hope all have a great day !

Only a million? HA! I have acres and acres of them....
Around the yard, I will mow them into long rows and keep going over them to mulch to fines. Then I'll put on my leaf bagger and pick up some fines. But many will be left to decompose.

Isabel wore a beautiful Christmas outfit and big smile.View attachment 4642800

What a cutie! Love the dress and the smile. Blessings my friend.

Well, our Speed Queen washer is starting to make a squeak when it is agitating, not while spinning. I will try the cheap way to fix it first which involves taking off the front cover, tilting it back and pulling out a bolt on the bottom of everything to lower the belt pulley. Then applying some grease to the stand off washer. If that doesn't work, I'll consider a rebuild kit with new bearings/seals. My friend just drove round trip 600 miles to buy a like new SQ washer for $800 used on FB marketplace.

Just ordered 2 new wood duck houses and conical pole protectors from these folks. Designed to mount on 2" EMT galvanized poles. This is for a wildlife exemption on our property.
DuckHut - Plastic Wood Duck House

 

[Kyle_in_Tex]

Our house A/C just turned on...

 

[WinterDeere]

Our house A/C just turned on...

I'd bet mine is frozen solid, caked in 1/2 inch or more of ice.

 

[sodamo]

64°F and .34 inches rain

Sophie had a really good ophthalmologist visit yesterday. Could actually see his face light up as he reviewed her pics and measurements. Decided to take her off the steroids and return next month.

Otherwise another day of on and off rain, so pretty much energy conservation. I got a nice afternoon nap.

Wx today looks like a repeat

Prayers for all
Be safe
Have a great tractor day

 

[two_bit_score]

Cloudy here and 74F. Might fair off after noon.

Hope everyone has a great day!

Prayers for our Nation!

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Not too much ice here. heard there was lots of accidents last night. 33 deg all morning, now a little warmer.

Breakfast with the gang. Funny story, One of our gang collected money for the waitress's at our saturday breakfast place (we did same for our sunday spot) and last saturday our waitress was given the card, and told to split it with the other 2.... Only he forgot to include the money we collected. After he got home, he found the money in his coat pocket, so he ran back to give it to them... We all got a good laugh over it when he told us. Today I asked the waitress what they thought when he said to split it, did they cut the card into thirds? lol.

Oldest son went to visit a friend,

 

[PJSprog]

46°F and foggy again this morning, going up to 64° today. Some rain expected tomorrow, the the bottom falls out overnight, and we're back in the teens and 20s for lows next week.

I guess being away from the forum for awhile, I must have missed the rollout of the new "AI" moderating. Can't say I'm a fan of it, but I understand. I know in the past Muhammad has had trouble getting volunteers to help as moderators. I was just surprised when my post in Todays' Gun Time was "awaiting moderator approval." Weird that that's even a thing in a gun thread. So it goes, I guess. (of course, now this post will be held up as well)

You guys out east stay safe.

Good afternoon, gents.

 

[m7040]

good afternoon, 40 the high for the day, feels much colder

Breakfast with 2 grandkids was fun and lots of laughing. 14 year old had a laugh attack when we looked at some old pictures from when they were small

GD is doing well at college and likes her courses and ready for next semester. Her room mate is from Tanzania and is going all out at college having been kept very strict at home. She told her take it easy we have 4 years here. Her father works for the International Monetary Fund

remember Christmas in Houston burning logs in the fireplace and having to run the AC to stay comfortable

Need to move some firewood and refill kindling bucket. The mini split can maintain the 70 degree set point but the wood stove just feels much more comfortable. Only used the oil burner a few times this year. Power bill was paid, 134 dollars

 

[rswyan]

33F with fog @ 14:15, calling for a high of 35F for the day.

A High Wind Watch has been issued for late Sunday into early Monday with winds of 25 - 35 mph out of the west and possible gusts up to 60 mph.

Forecast is for rain tomorrow (around 0.25") with a high temp of 60F.

Got braces taken down on foam board on north wall yesterday.

Then cut and added more unfaced fiberglass insulation on the top of the stud cavities where the braces had been.

Started piecing in second layer of foam board on the top of the east wall. Have maybe another foot or two to do there.

Finally got the chimney pipe from the wood burner caulked/cemented into the thimble going into the flue as the final item before I knocked off last night.

Have to wait 24 hours before firing the wood burner ... so Sunday.

Woman is excited ... as it means we can start disposing of old paperwork which we have a snot load of.

Will likely have to close off the register ducts in the utility room, as it will probably get too warm in there with them open.

Now at the point of getting back on to finishing the west wall.

That will be a little more involved than what I've been doing so far due to a few issues:

1. North end of the west wall has the drain pipe coming from the laundry room which is attached to the west (concrete) wall with anchors and steel straps and dumps into a clean out coming up out of the floor near the stationary tubs.

2. The main 200A breaker panel and a 100A sub panel (original main panel for the house) are also on that wall above the drain line. I'd really like to insulate behind both those panels ... just not sure it's really worth the T & E and hassle.

The 100A sub panel might not be too bad (other than having the power off while I'm doing it) ... as it would be easy enough kill the juice going to it from the 200A panel.

The 200A panel is a different story however ... as there's no way to kill the power to that, other than pulling the meter. Which gets into having the power company involved and dealing with the logistics of that.

However, if I don't insulate behind them, they may end up be slightly recessed into the wall (2" insulation + 1" of dead space + 3.5"+ studs and drywall. And pretty sure that code says the panels can not be covered so they can't be hidden behind a door.

3. Further to the south on that wall are the stationary tubs. Those will have to moved further out from the wall to accommodate the insulation and stud wall. The hot and cold supply lines to the tubs do not currently have their own shutoff valves ... so shutting off the supply to those would also kill the feeds to the kitchen and the laundry. Probably should stick a couple of shutoff valves in on those lines to the stationary tubs.

The Woman isn't going to like having the water shut off to the kitchen and being unable to use the washer (no drain line) for any extended length of time. So that will have to be factored into the plan ...

Could start putting up drywall ... but I'd prefer to wait until the ground is frozen before trying to move what's in van across the lawn around back with the Kubota so it can be moved into the basement. Looks like maybe by Wednesday things should be frozen enough.

First item on the agenda though is to move the steel shelves out away from the west wall so I have access.

Hope everyone is having a decent Saturday ...

 

[Wagtail]

Good (Sunday) morning. Overnight Low of 10.6C and it's presently 15.8C [heading to 20C], mostly cloudy & calm with no rain predicted.

I'm off to Church (leading the service today) in about a half hour and then the rest of the day is His.

That's about it, take care all.

 

[wngsprd]

Nepali coffee! How fun. Do you know which estate(s)?

It comes from the Nuwakot region, and is processed anaerobically, which is a fairly unusual method. I'm looking forward to trying it.

Thanks for the link to the NCC.

 

[Looking4new]

I'm in from plowing. Took 4 hours today but I also pushed the banks back as far as I could get them.
Neighbour dropped off some pulled pork and rice with onion yesterday. That is reheating now.

Rumor has it that we are getting freezing rain tomorrow. Hope not, but if it happens I do have lots of ashes. I have pet safe salt for the concrete steps and real salt for everything else if I run out of ashes. The ashes go first, they are the byproduct from the wood stove, so in my eyes they are free.

 

[WinterDeere]

Just got in from shoveling and plowing, myself. No snow here, but about 3/4 inch of solid ice on everything.

I wasn't going to even try to get it cleared, but then I noticed around 2:30pm that much of it was separating from the back walk in the sun. 3 hours of chipping and scraping, I got the balk walk and driveway clean. Driveway was done by swapping back and forth between plow with PTFE scraper edge and bucket with hardened steel edge, and walk was done by steel shovel.

Front walk re-froze hard, before I got to that, as it got dark while I was finishing the driveway. A project for our next sunny morning, since it's shaded from the more effective afternoon sun.

 

[Thomas]

14F clear sky low single number before daybreak.

Been good day...snow removal went well,test run generator just in case needed Monday freezing rain mix with rain at times .
Both kittens sleep with bellies up on thick rug with full bellies,that's what I call enjoying life.
Plans for the evening O nothing.

Enjoy your evening all.

 

[scott_vt]

Good Tractor Evening Billy,

Isabel wore a beautiful Christmas outfit and big smile.

What a cutie Billy

 

[scott_vt]

Good Tractor Evening Steve,

No tuner?

Yes I have my Cat 300 up here, but it was snowing last night and about 8F so I just couldn’t get into all the finagling around to get the SWR down to a reasonable level. Later today I brought the station out to the barn played around until I got all the settings for 80, 40 and 20. I got the SWR down to 1.1 or lower. My buddy out in Illinois did hear me but I was at about the noise level. That was with a 2 to 1 SWR. I will try again tomorrow

 

[ponytug]

It comes from the Nuwakot region, and is processed anaerobically, which is a fairly unusual method. I'm looking forward to trying it.

Thanks for the link to the NCC.

Yes, anaerobically processed does sound interesting; I will be interested to hear what you think of it. I'm not sure that I have ever had it. Nuwakot is a pretty area.

All the best,

Peter