An Old Goat Ranch in Texas
- Thread starter terry.dinerman
- Start date
Happy New Year!
You may want to chat with your local ag extension (or state forestry) office and see what they have to say about spraying the trees to kill the pine beetles before they fly off for the spring (kill the eggs and larva).
You may want to chat with your local ag extension (or state forestry) office and see what they have to say about spraying the trees to kill the pine beetles before they fly off for the spring (kill the eggs and larva).
OP
terry.dinerman
Gold Member
- Joined
- Oct 11, 2009
- Messages
- 431
- Tractor
- 1990 - JD 870
SWEET tap-dancing JAY-ZUS?!!!!
It has been Interesting Times around my neighborhood lately...
I got home from Africa without any serious aggravation...some kid a few rows up from me there in "Cattle Class" decided to howl like raccoon with a bad case of piles for about 8 of the 10 hours it took to fly from Paris to Houston...but that's what they make in-the-ear ear-buds for your music player and cheap scotch for...
...for me, not the kid...he can get his own....
Some cool jazz, a few luke-warm whiskies and soon I wouldn't have heard, nor cared about INCOMING no less that little howler....
Coming home is always wonderful...and after all of the traditional homecoming festivities, I picked away at a few jobs from the Honeydoo list there around the house, and then packed up and headed up solo to the Ranch.
Since I was passing close to the beautiful and cosmopolitan village of Katy, Texas, I made a bit of a sidetrip to visit my old pal Chip....we have been knocking our heads together for years thru our mutual interests in the Fire and Emergency Medical Services and anything that chokes, burns or breaks.....been to countless Fire Schools, taught at the local College, and he wound up being my boss while I was in Iraq....
An all-round Good Guy...
Well, I can always count on a cup of good coffee and a sweet roll at Chip and his lovely bride Trina's house but this trip had a little extra...."Lagniappe" as the Coon-***'s say....
It seems Chip and one of his neighbors have found a new and useful hobby....moonshine...
...and they are getting pretty danged good at it....
Chip presented me with a quart mason jar of the smoothest homebrew I have EVER tasted....cut in half from its nearly 180 proof full strength with apple cider, to make a fantastic old-fashioned apple-jack....
Now mind you, I only had a SIP....cuz I AM DRIVING you understand, but it was more than enough to appreciate the joy to come when I could give this nectar a proper try....
After thanking Chip and blessing all under his roof (may his tribe increase!) I tucked the precious jar inside one of my fire-boots behind the front seat of my truck for protection and pressed on....
Like I said....Chip is one of the Good Guys....sort of....I just hope the Home-Owners-Association-Nazi's have no sense of smell....or at least appreciate a wee dram....
The drive north was uneventful....just the way I like it...and I got set up at MIL and FIL's in short order.
Spent a nice long weekend working on the bathroom for the Office container...put in a concrete shower pan and drain, and ran the main drain to a sump I have out behind the barn.
A few after supper sips of Chips 'shine was just the thing for that sudden attack of rheumatism brought on by a couple of days working on my knees.....yeah boy!
MIL and FIL eschew alcohol, this jug ought to last a while...
With things looking pretty good....I had to take a few days off and headed back to the coast for a Well Baby checkup to get medically re-certified for work, and headed back up for more work....
What a difference a few days makes....
In the interim a line of storms roared thru Central Texas and ripped things up pretty bad......the downside of some pond-filling rains...breaking this drought but at a very high cost....
I had to chain saw my way back into The Old Goat Ranch...limbs and dead trees were blown down all over the place...the standing pines that had been killed by pine beetles and the hardwoods stressed out by the several years of drought had limbs and tops shorn off like they'd had a crew-cut....and the debris was piled up in the most bizarre patterns like someone had intentionally set them in the middle of the driveway ....tangled up so bad they had to be chain-sawed apart so the tractor could push the mess aside....
....this had to be the work of a cluster of tornadoes....
All the trees around the barn that we had tried so hard to save during the clearing and trenching were torn to pieces.....but not a scratch to the barn itself......
I remembered something I said about putting in serious wind bracing, if you put it in at all....
Boy HOWDY.....
I walked the fence and took stock of the trees that had been knocked down and the branches that would have to be cleared from the wire....one tall pine had fallen over the wire and put a pretty good kink in it...but the fence was still holding it up...a small gift.....
A ride down the highway to check the neighbors revealed more damage....
Several carports had been torn up, the tin that had been yanked off my neighbors hay barn was still all over the highway and worst of all, one of a pair of old tin silos had been toppled....
There was, however, no damage to be seen on any houses....remarkable.....
Since the storms had come thru at night, no-one I spoke to had actually seen any funnel-clouds, but some folks described some tremendous winds....
Oh well....
MIL and FIL's house escaped without a scratch....just a few small limbs down from their trees....
So....with the reconnaissance over.....it was time to get to work...and I gathered up the chainsaws, shovels, rakes and implements of destruction, then got busy....
After clearing the main driveway, it took 10 trailer loads to clear the brush and limbs from around the barn...two days of steady picking at the mess around the barn and then two more days to clear all the junk off the fences and clear the driveways around the property...It became very clear that between the drought and the storms, that ALL of those trees around the barn were dead or dying, and had to come down......a total of 6 formerly beautiful hardwoods....a sad thing....
I will be dropping trees all over the ranch for some time to come....I bet over 50 have to come down...but right now, all I had time left to do is drop what is threatening structures or fencing....
The rest can fall as they like without damaging anything.....
Precious Bride showed up and I put her to work as Equipment Operator....she had been hoping to get some seat time doing some driveway maintenance, so it was a Good Thing....and I sure needed the help....
I cabled all the trees to keep them from crushing the barn....two of them were only an arms length away from the structure....a couple of long sections of wire rope and a snatch block made it reasonably easy....and with my record of dropping trees on stuff....a necessity....
"What could POSSIBLY go wrong cutting down a little tree? I watch them log-fellers on TV all the time, right?"
Precious Bride got some outstanding seat time on the Little Green Giant....I would cable up a tree, she would tighten up on the cable, then as soon as finished the backcut and the tree started moving, she would yank it in the chosen direction...it worked like a charm...all the trees fell in the desired direction save one, which had a huge branch about halfway up that put a spin on the trunk when it started to fall, and the dang thing went 90 degrees from where I wanted it.....but it still fell well away from the barn.....
....and l will settle for that....
The ground is still as hard as iron and the big oaks made it shake when they fell....Precious Bride says she could feel it in her feet, 100 feet away, on the tractor....
....I am not a tree-hugger by any means, but the death of a big tree like that is a sad thing and I will miss those old trees.....
When the dust settled, all the trees threatening the barn were down and out of the way of additional work. I had dropped them in piles where it will be reasonably convenient to cut them up and toss the bits into some of my 3-pallet-bins for a lifetime supply of firewood
Cutting firewood will be a new hobby, unfortunately....or I may have to consider hiring a college kid for that stuff.....
When we left, there was a pretty impressive (and growing) burn pile behind us.....
The rest of our time at TOGR was spent cleaning up Good Neighbor Joe's front yard....two of his trees also had to be cut down and another mess of branches collected up for burning.....Precious Bride did just fine skidding those trees over to the burn pile, but was having a bit of trouble using the rake to shove the debris around...she still has to get used to the dance steps required to coordinate throttle, clutch, brake, gear shift, three point lift and steering all at once....and backwards....
The way she is going, those skills too will come in time...but frustration (and an aching neckbone!) began to set in, so I cleaned up what was left and gave GNJ's drought-scorched front yard a good scratching with the rake so he could spread some seed and try to re-establish some grass, now that we are finally getting some rain.....
By the time that was all done, I had ENOUGH.....I was hurting in places that I forgot I had, and had once again brutally reminded myself that not only was I not 18 anymore, but it has been a REALLY LONG TIME since I was....
I had taken the precaution of packing some of Uncle Chip's Rhumatiz' Medicine in a flatfish (hip flask), so washing down a bucket of pain pills went SOOOOO much easier....
In all, it took about a week at hard labor to get even partially cleaned up from the storm and I feel really lucky at how things turned out....
When I went shopping in the Sports Medicine section at the local Big Box Sporting Goods Emporium, it is most emphatically NOT because I am preparing for a marathon....
I was walking around as stiff-legged as one of those fainting goats, and have added several new additions to my ever growing collection of elastic bandages and neoprene orthopedic supportive appliances....
Having to eat a bowl of pills for breakfast and wrap up like all the achy bits in elastic bandages is a small price to pay for this storm....farther east, some folks lost their lives....
Makes you think....
So -
Precious Bride and I took the slow road back south the coast, where steady rain has all but eliminated any chance of me doing any serious outside work....
Thank goodness.....chilling felt pretty friggin good and I made myself feel useful by cutting the grass....on a riding mower of course....
Deployment was marred by the French....whodathotit...when the ground staff for Air France decided to strike to protest a proposed law that would require third party arbitration before they could....strike....
I think it was non other than Charles de Gaul that said..."...how can you govern a people that have 600 kinds of cheese?"
The upshot is, I got my wires crossed and missed my flights....the first time I have missed a movement in 35 years...I wish I could blame the Frogs for that, but I have to take full credit for spacing out....only the skill of my "Handler" in Dubai got me on a Luftwaffe flight the next day....
I owe that feller an ice cream soda.....
And of course, I owe my partner on the ship a wee dram and a cheap cigar as well for covering the post for an added day, and having all of HIS flights rescheduled as well....
You have to be one lucky dude to have such good coworkers watching your back....
The flight back to work passed in blissful silence....the only static was at security in Frankfurt when some bag-Nazi with one of those danged bag-in-the-box-gage-thingies on a scale, who was incensed that my carryon bag was a few grams over the limit....and insisted that I check my one and only small bag....
...I HATE bag-Nazis....
....apparently my war-face is still works....or the fact that I didn't say ANYTHING at all confused the little satrap.... I just puffed myself up to my full silverback glory, slowly picked up my bag and proceeded on thru security....totally ignoring this oaf....
I guess brassing it thru was the key....
The connection thru Nigeria was fun....we had an hour on the ground in Abuja to watch the ground staff mistreating the luggage people were foolish enough to check in...us Oilpatch Trash started keeping score and giving extra points for inventive tosses....just another reason I am a confirmed Carry On Only traveler whenever it is remotely possible....
We pressed on to Malabo, made it thru the usual labyrinth of scowling petty bureaucrats to find our "meetandgreet guy" who was there, right on time, surprisingly enough, to meet and greet us....
Somehow, nobody has noticed YET that we have been over-night-ing at the Hilton in Malabo...but until they do, it is one last taste of The Good Life before flying out to the boat.
Getting back to the routine on the ship is almost instantaneous....the rhythms of work on a big boat demand your immediate attention.... my "Back-to-Back" Bryan and I have a half-day to handover the post and visit a bit.....then he fly's off to home and hearth, and I move into work-mode....
The first couple of days went just FINE....but then things became interesting....and we got lots of the "Adventure" part of that "High Pay, Travel and Adventure" thing that the girl in Human Resources keeps promising me...
One morning, there was a small but rather energetic explosion in what we refer quite accurately to as the "Essential Generator" that sits just outside the Clinic door.
A bearing in the turbocharger failed and the turbo rotor, which was spinning at 100,000 rpm at the time, quite understandably flew into pieces.
No-one, however heard anything over the roar of the engine, none of the detectors tripped any alarms...the engine just kept on running....and the lubricating oil spewing from the shattered turbo housing hit the hot exhaust stack and caught fire....
SOOOOOOO.....while walking along an exterior walkway to the Safety office, I noticed a cloud of black smoke...highly trained and seasoned Emergency Services Professional that I am, it took about 30 seconds for me to figure out that it was not from one of the nearby workboats, and was, in fact, boiling out of the air intake box on top of the generator enclosure...and stop staring at it like a deerintheheadlights....
...once I finally had that "AHA!!" moment, I ran, screaming like a girl, into the Safety Office to raise the alarm, then retreated to the Clinic to get ready to repel boarders or go to battle stations or some kind of nautical stuff like that....
....to everyone's great surprise and relief, tho rather smoky, the fire was put out quickly with a portable CO2 extinguisher...
But like Billy used to say..."WAIT!!! THERES MORE!!!!".....
Once the generator shut-down, the generator's failure triggered a wave of automatic shutdowns as one after another of the automated systems aboard ship attempted to protect themselves from the power surges caused by the previous system to go offline's sudden disappearance from the power grid.
The Domino Effect....not just for proto-communist satrapies anymore...
This failure cascade eventually left the ship without any power source at all except batteries for the computer systems....insufficient to start the main engines, provide running water, lights, AC, hot food...etc etc etc....and soon the batteries were done as well.
A week of no power left us sort of "camping out" at Hotel Helideck, and it got a bit sticky....odoriferous too....but we flew all hands but a skeleton crew off and back to the beach right away, got grub and water from the nearby rigs, and then limited power was back on by the 7th day after the boffins (snipes?) got the biggest generator set I have seen delivered and set up on deck, then did the equivalent of pulling the jumper cables out of the trunk of someones "Yugo" and finally got the ships boilers restarted.
At least enough to provide Life Support....
Did you know that you can get SIX good bottle showers out of a 1.5 liter waterbottle if you are careful?
You learn things in adversity....
The Good News is, after the wreck, fire and a week of repair work, no injuries or illness are attributable to the episode.
Amazing....
Anyway, it is now time to go home again....the ship is back to full normal operations with the exception of a steady stream of Investigators who are still trying to sort out all the "why's"of this little peccadillo.
In a few days I will get to use the other half of that Luftwaffe ticket and get back to the Real World, where Precious Bride and I are going to go tour a couple of breweries.....
I hope she remembers to pack that flatfish full of Uncle Chips Medicine....
....and I sorta hope I run into that Bag-Nazi again....I am in the PERFECT mood for another run-in with HIM.....
Til next installment, Peace Out Brothers and Sisters.....
It has been Interesting Times around my neighborhood lately...
I got home from Africa without any serious aggravation...some kid a few rows up from me there in "Cattle Class" decided to howl like raccoon with a bad case of piles for about 8 of the 10 hours it took to fly from Paris to Houston...but that's what they make in-the-ear ear-buds for your music player and cheap scotch for...
...for me, not the kid...he can get his own....
Some cool jazz, a few luke-warm whiskies and soon I wouldn't have heard, nor cared about INCOMING no less that little howler....
Coming home is always wonderful...and after all of the traditional homecoming festivities, I picked away at a few jobs from the Honeydoo list there around the house, and then packed up and headed up solo to the Ranch.
Since I was passing close to the beautiful and cosmopolitan village of Katy, Texas, I made a bit of a sidetrip to visit my old pal Chip....we have been knocking our heads together for years thru our mutual interests in the Fire and Emergency Medical Services and anything that chokes, burns or breaks.....been to countless Fire Schools, taught at the local College, and he wound up being my boss while I was in Iraq....
An all-round Good Guy...
Well, I can always count on a cup of good coffee and a sweet roll at Chip and his lovely bride Trina's house but this trip had a little extra...."Lagniappe" as the Coon-***'s say....
It seems Chip and one of his neighbors have found a new and useful hobby....moonshine...
...and they are getting pretty danged good at it....
Chip presented me with a quart mason jar of the smoothest homebrew I have EVER tasted....cut in half from its nearly 180 proof full strength with apple cider, to make a fantastic old-fashioned apple-jack....
Now mind you, I only had a SIP....cuz I AM DRIVING you understand, but it was more than enough to appreciate the joy to come when I could give this nectar a proper try....
After thanking Chip and blessing all under his roof (may his tribe increase!) I tucked the precious jar inside one of my fire-boots behind the front seat of my truck for protection and pressed on....
Like I said....Chip is one of the Good Guys....sort of....I just hope the Home-Owners-Association-Nazi's have no sense of smell....or at least appreciate a wee dram....
The drive north was uneventful....just the way I like it...and I got set up at MIL and FIL's in short order.
Spent a nice long weekend working on the bathroom for the Office container...put in a concrete shower pan and drain, and ran the main drain to a sump I have out behind the barn.
A few after supper sips of Chips 'shine was just the thing for that sudden attack of rheumatism brought on by a couple of days working on my knees.....yeah boy!
MIL and FIL eschew alcohol, this jug ought to last a while...
With things looking pretty good....I had to take a few days off and headed back to the coast for a Well Baby checkup to get medically re-certified for work, and headed back up for more work....
What a difference a few days makes....
In the interim a line of storms roared thru Central Texas and ripped things up pretty bad......the downside of some pond-filling rains...breaking this drought but at a very high cost....
I had to chain saw my way back into The Old Goat Ranch...limbs and dead trees were blown down all over the place...the standing pines that had been killed by pine beetles and the hardwoods stressed out by the several years of drought had limbs and tops shorn off like they'd had a crew-cut....and the debris was piled up in the most bizarre patterns like someone had intentionally set them in the middle of the driveway ....tangled up so bad they had to be chain-sawed apart so the tractor could push the mess aside....
....this had to be the work of a cluster of tornadoes....
All the trees around the barn that we had tried so hard to save during the clearing and trenching were torn to pieces.....but not a scratch to the barn itself......
I remembered something I said about putting in serious wind bracing, if you put it in at all....
Boy HOWDY.....
I walked the fence and took stock of the trees that had been knocked down and the branches that would have to be cleared from the wire....one tall pine had fallen over the wire and put a pretty good kink in it...but the fence was still holding it up...a small gift.....
A ride down the highway to check the neighbors revealed more damage....
Several carports had been torn up, the tin that had been yanked off my neighbors hay barn was still all over the highway and worst of all, one of a pair of old tin silos had been toppled....
There was, however, no damage to be seen on any houses....remarkable.....
Since the storms had come thru at night, no-one I spoke to had actually seen any funnel-clouds, but some folks described some tremendous winds....
Oh well....
MIL and FIL's house escaped without a scratch....just a few small limbs down from their trees....
So....with the reconnaissance over.....it was time to get to work...and I gathered up the chainsaws, shovels, rakes and implements of destruction, then got busy....
After clearing the main driveway, it took 10 trailer loads to clear the brush and limbs from around the barn...two days of steady picking at the mess around the barn and then two more days to clear all the junk off the fences and clear the driveways around the property...It became very clear that between the drought and the storms, that ALL of those trees around the barn were dead or dying, and had to come down......a total of 6 formerly beautiful hardwoods....a sad thing....
I will be dropping trees all over the ranch for some time to come....I bet over 50 have to come down...but right now, all I had time left to do is drop what is threatening structures or fencing....
The rest can fall as they like without damaging anything.....
Precious Bride showed up and I put her to work as Equipment Operator....she had been hoping to get some seat time doing some driveway maintenance, so it was a Good Thing....and I sure needed the help....
I cabled all the trees to keep them from crushing the barn....two of them were only an arms length away from the structure....a couple of long sections of wire rope and a snatch block made it reasonably easy....and with my record of dropping trees on stuff....a necessity....
"What could POSSIBLY go wrong cutting down a little tree? I watch them log-fellers on TV all the time, right?"
Precious Bride got some outstanding seat time on the Little Green Giant....I would cable up a tree, she would tighten up on the cable, then as soon as finished the backcut and the tree started moving, she would yank it in the chosen direction...it worked like a charm...all the trees fell in the desired direction save one, which had a huge branch about halfway up that put a spin on the trunk when it started to fall, and the dang thing went 90 degrees from where I wanted it.....but it still fell well away from the barn.....
....and l will settle for that....
The ground is still as hard as iron and the big oaks made it shake when they fell....Precious Bride says she could feel it in her feet, 100 feet away, on the tractor....
....I am not a tree-hugger by any means, but the death of a big tree like that is a sad thing and I will miss those old trees.....
When the dust settled, all the trees threatening the barn were down and out of the way of additional work. I had dropped them in piles where it will be reasonably convenient to cut them up and toss the bits into some of my 3-pallet-bins for a lifetime supply of firewood
Cutting firewood will be a new hobby, unfortunately....or I may have to consider hiring a college kid for that stuff.....
When we left, there was a pretty impressive (and growing) burn pile behind us.....
The rest of our time at TOGR was spent cleaning up Good Neighbor Joe's front yard....two of his trees also had to be cut down and another mess of branches collected up for burning.....Precious Bride did just fine skidding those trees over to the burn pile, but was having a bit of trouble using the rake to shove the debris around...she still has to get used to the dance steps required to coordinate throttle, clutch, brake, gear shift, three point lift and steering all at once....and backwards....
The way she is going, those skills too will come in time...but frustration (and an aching neckbone!) began to set in, so I cleaned up what was left and gave GNJ's drought-scorched front yard a good scratching with the rake so he could spread some seed and try to re-establish some grass, now that we are finally getting some rain.....
By the time that was all done, I had ENOUGH.....I was hurting in places that I forgot I had, and had once again brutally reminded myself that not only was I not 18 anymore, but it has been a REALLY LONG TIME since I was....
I had taken the precaution of packing some of Uncle Chip's Rhumatiz' Medicine in a flatfish (hip flask), so washing down a bucket of pain pills went SOOOOO much easier....
In all, it took about a week at hard labor to get even partially cleaned up from the storm and I feel really lucky at how things turned out....
When I went shopping in the Sports Medicine section at the local Big Box Sporting Goods Emporium, it is most emphatically NOT because I am preparing for a marathon....
I was walking around as stiff-legged as one of those fainting goats, and have added several new additions to my ever growing collection of elastic bandages and neoprene orthopedic supportive appliances....
Having to eat a bowl of pills for breakfast and wrap up like all the achy bits in elastic bandages is a small price to pay for this storm....farther east, some folks lost their lives....
Makes you think....
So -
Precious Bride and I took the slow road back south the coast, where steady rain has all but eliminated any chance of me doing any serious outside work....
Thank goodness.....chilling felt pretty friggin good and I made myself feel useful by cutting the grass....on a riding mower of course....
Deployment was marred by the French....whodathotit...when the ground staff for Air France decided to strike to protest a proposed law that would require third party arbitration before they could....strike....
I think it was non other than Charles de Gaul that said..."...how can you govern a people that have 600 kinds of cheese?"
The upshot is, I got my wires crossed and missed my flights....the first time I have missed a movement in 35 years...I wish I could blame the Frogs for that, but I have to take full credit for spacing out....only the skill of my "Handler" in Dubai got me on a Luftwaffe flight the next day....
I owe that feller an ice cream soda.....
And of course, I owe my partner on the ship a wee dram and a cheap cigar as well for covering the post for an added day, and having all of HIS flights rescheduled as well....
You have to be one lucky dude to have such good coworkers watching your back....
The flight back to work passed in blissful silence....the only static was at security in Frankfurt when some bag-Nazi with one of those danged bag-in-the-box-gage-thingies on a scale, who was incensed that my carryon bag was a few grams over the limit....and insisted that I check my one and only small bag....
...I HATE bag-Nazis....
....apparently my war-face is still works....or the fact that I didn't say ANYTHING at all confused the little satrap.... I just puffed myself up to my full silverback glory, slowly picked up my bag and proceeded on thru security....totally ignoring this oaf....
I guess brassing it thru was the key....
The connection thru Nigeria was fun....we had an hour on the ground in Abuja to watch the ground staff mistreating the luggage people were foolish enough to check in...us Oilpatch Trash started keeping score and giving extra points for inventive tosses....just another reason I am a confirmed Carry On Only traveler whenever it is remotely possible....
We pressed on to Malabo, made it thru the usual labyrinth of scowling petty bureaucrats to find our "meetandgreet guy" who was there, right on time, surprisingly enough, to meet and greet us....
Somehow, nobody has noticed YET that we have been over-night-ing at the Hilton in Malabo...but until they do, it is one last taste of The Good Life before flying out to the boat.
Getting back to the routine on the ship is almost instantaneous....the rhythms of work on a big boat demand your immediate attention.... my "Back-to-Back" Bryan and I have a half-day to handover the post and visit a bit.....then he fly's off to home and hearth, and I move into work-mode....
The first couple of days went just FINE....but then things became interesting....and we got lots of the "Adventure" part of that "High Pay, Travel and Adventure" thing that the girl in Human Resources keeps promising me...
One morning, there was a small but rather energetic explosion in what we refer quite accurately to as the "Essential Generator" that sits just outside the Clinic door.
A bearing in the turbocharger failed and the turbo rotor, which was spinning at 100,000 rpm at the time, quite understandably flew into pieces.
No-one, however heard anything over the roar of the engine, none of the detectors tripped any alarms...the engine just kept on running....and the lubricating oil spewing from the shattered turbo housing hit the hot exhaust stack and caught fire....
SOOOOOOO.....while walking along an exterior walkway to the Safety office, I noticed a cloud of black smoke...highly trained and seasoned Emergency Services Professional that I am, it took about 30 seconds for me to figure out that it was not from one of the nearby workboats, and was, in fact, boiling out of the air intake box on top of the generator enclosure...and stop staring at it like a deerintheheadlights....
...once I finally had that "AHA!!" moment, I ran, screaming like a girl, into the Safety Office to raise the alarm, then retreated to the Clinic to get ready to repel boarders or go to battle stations or some kind of nautical stuff like that....
....to everyone's great surprise and relief, tho rather smoky, the fire was put out quickly with a portable CO2 extinguisher...
But like Billy used to say..."WAIT!!! THERES MORE!!!!".....
Once the generator shut-down, the generator's failure triggered a wave of automatic shutdowns as one after another of the automated systems aboard ship attempted to protect themselves from the power surges caused by the previous system to go offline's sudden disappearance from the power grid.
The Domino Effect....not just for proto-communist satrapies anymore...
This failure cascade eventually left the ship without any power source at all except batteries for the computer systems....insufficient to start the main engines, provide running water, lights, AC, hot food...etc etc etc....and soon the batteries were done as well.
A week of no power left us sort of "camping out" at Hotel Helideck, and it got a bit sticky....odoriferous too....but we flew all hands but a skeleton crew off and back to the beach right away, got grub and water from the nearby rigs, and then limited power was back on by the 7th day after the boffins (snipes?) got the biggest generator set I have seen delivered and set up on deck, then did the equivalent of pulling the jumper cables out of the trunk of someones "Yugo" and finally got the ships boilers restarted.
At least enough to provide Life Support....
Did you know that you can get SIX good bottle showers out of a 1.5 liter waterbottle if you are careful?
You learn things in adversity....
The Good News is, after the wreck, fire and a week of repair work, no injuries or illness are attributable to the episode.
Amazing....
Anyway, it is now time to go home again....the ship is back to full normal operations with the exception of a steady stream of Investigators who are still trying to sort out all the "why's"of this little peccadillo.
In a few days I will get to use the other half of that Luftwaffe ticket and get back to the Real World, where Precious Bride and I are going to go tour a couple of breweries.....
I hope she remembers to pack that flatfish full of Uncle Chips Medicine....
....and I sorta hope I run into that Bag-Nazi again....I am in the PERFECT mood for another run-in with HIM.....
Til next installment, Peace Out Brothers and Sisters.....
Last edited:
NativeSon
Veteran Member
Welcome Home! And thanks for the lastest addition to the chronicles. Hope you have finished with the lumberjack stuff on the home-front and can enjoy those brewerys lifting a few pints.....that'll take the soreness out of those shoulders. Lift--Swallow---Repeat.
Charlie
Quitman, TX
Charlie
Quitman, TX
OP
terry.dinerman
Gold Member
- Joined
- Oct 11, 2009
- Messages
- 431
- Tractor
- 1990 - JD 870
Thanks!
I ride a desk here at work, so I HOPE I wont get anything sore till I get home...
I'll file a report on whats up with "St. Arnold's Brewery" there in Houston....I am a big fan of their "Santo" so I should enjoy seeing where its made...and if that soreness catches up with me, a few of those and some of "Uncle Chips" should take the sting out...:licking:
Be Safe!
jinman
Rest in Peace
- Joined
- Feb 23, 2001
- Messages
- 21,008
- Location
- Texas - Wise County - Sunset
- Tractor
- NHTC45D, NH LB75B, Ford Jubilee
Glad to hear from you Terry; although, it would be nice to hear about Uncle Chips Likker without all the damage at The Ranch. I'm pleased to see that you've weathered the storms both at home an on the ship. As my Uncle Gates used to say, "Keep your chin up, your nose to the grind, and your ear to the ground. . . now try to work in that position."
OP
terry.dinerman
Gold Member
- Joined
- Oct 11, 2009
- Messages
- 431
- Tractor
- 1990 - JD 870
It's been a while since I posted here....having fits trying to get a builder for the house, thus TOGR is in a holding pattern for the time being.
Not being the sort of fellow that likes to waste any life waiting for the lights to go out, I have been keeping busy....here is a repost from my Facebook page regarding a fine day at the range with some of my more dangerous friends up in West, Texas...
______________________________________________________________
The "Brazos River Pre-Election Day Shoot" is now history
"Little Friend" and I got started early, dropping "Pecious Baby Girl" off at the sitter, and heading off to do some rat-killing while his "Sweet Bride" took care of the logistics and saw to it there would be plenty of sammich's and water should the action taper off and hunger or thirst take hold.
For a Southern Girl, "Sweet Bride" can sling a mean bagel sammich and like all Southern Girls "SB" knows more than one way to a man's heart...
thru his stomach with some good ol down-home Southern Cookin', or thru his chest with a .40 hollow-point or sharp knife...
I LOVE "SB"!!!
_________________________________________________
We loaded up and drove out to meet our host at an old family ranch along the Brazos.....the ride took us thru the sort of Texas countryside that I have dreamed about while sleeping in narrow bunks in distant lands...magnificent, fragrant, verdant....
We wound our way down tractor roads and cattle paths until we reached a well-used spot on the river bottom, and got busy and set up our range, talked a little safety amongst the group and then proceeded to get dangerous.
When six marksmen get together and bring their favorite weapons to show off and share, you get the best that the sport has to offer.
Our makeshift range became a walk-thru museum of the armorer's craft....ine weapons for sport or work, new and used, long guns, side arms, shotguns, modern and antique, de-milled military weapons from all over the world, a couple of thousand rounds of ammunition, new shooters learning the ropes, old shooters passing on the skills...
I lost count of how many boxes of ammunition went downrange....but we all shot until we were tired of shooting...no easy task in this crowd.
The targets went up in tatters....
Now, you throw a couple of ham sammich's and some tepid bottle water into that mix and, as my Gaffer used to say, "NOW you got something..."
....we **mn sure HAD IT....
AND, true to form, the Girls scared the crap out of the Boys with their marksmanship....
"Diana", ancient Goddess of the hunt, visited earth that day on a bend in the Bazos, steadying the aim of these two Flowers of Texas.... GAWD help anyone who threatens those two She-Wolves cubs...
_______________________________________________
"Little Friend" was the big hit of the day...or I should say the 10 or so pounds of Tannerite he brought with him was.
Now, tho I have a lot of hands-on experience with industrial explosives and a little with the military grade stuff I had never considered that a HOBBY category might exist...and I thank the various Dieties that I have lived long enough to see such a thing...
...it is my hope that in some distant future, a coupon for 10 pounds of Tannerite should be issued to every boy-child at birth...
I leave it to you, Noble Reader, to ferret out the videos of the results of combining Tannerite and a well-placed shot...but the satisfaction of the concussive thump/bang/scattering of debris utterly satisfies that primal need in every boy, no matter how old, to do stuff his mother would have a stroke over if she ever found out...
__________________________________________________
As all good things must do, our shoot eventually had to come to a close. Dusk was rapidly approaching as sore shoulders bent one last time to police up the trash and leave nothing but memories at the range?a few more moments of fellowship and then it was over....till next time...
My sole regret was that my own Pecious Bride could not join us to share this unique experience....PB is one of those exceptional women who would rather have her man reek of honest sweat, river bottom and spent explosives than the most expensive cologne....
We're gonna have to come up with a good excuse for another shoot...
Inauguration Day will be too cold....Ground Hog day is sort of dicey weather-wise....
...how about a "Texas Valentine's Day Shoot"....
BE SAFE OUT THERE....
Not being the sort of fellow that likes to waste any life waiting for the lights to go out, I have been keeping busy....here is a repost from my Facebook page regarding a fine day at the range with some of my more dangerous friends up in West, Texas...
______________________________________________________________
The "Brazos River Pre-Election Day Shoot" is now history
"Little Friend" and I got started early, dropping "Pecious Baby Girl" off at the sitter, and heading off to do some rat-killing while his "Sweet Bride" took care of the logistics and saw to it there would be plenty of sammich's and water should the action taper off and hunger or thirst take hold.
For a Southern Girl, "Sweet Bride" can sling a mean bagel sammich and like all Southern Girls "SB" knows more than one way to a man's heart...
thru his stomach with some good ol down-home Southern Cookin', or thru his chest with a .40 hollow-point or sharp knife...
I LOVE "SB"!!!
_________________________________________________
We loaded up and drove out to meet our host at an old family ranch along the Brazos.....the ride took us thru the sort of Texas countryside that I have dreamed about while sleeping in narrow bunks in distant lands...magnificent, fragrant, verdant....
We wound our way down tractor roads and cattle paths until we reached a well-used spot on the river bottom, and got busy and set up our range, talked a little safety amongst the group and then proceeded to get dangerous.
When six marksmen get together and bring their favorite weapons to show off and share, you get the best that the sport has to offer.
Our makeshift range became a walk-thru museum of the armorer's craft....ine weapons for sport or work, new and used, long guns, side arms, shotguns, modern and antique, de-milled military weapons from all over the world, a couple of thousand rounds of ammunition, new shooters learning the ropes, old shooters passing on the skills...
I lost count of how many boxes of ammunition went downrange....but we all shot until we were tired of shooting...no easy task in this crowd.
The targets went up in tatters....
Now, you throw a couple of ham sammich's and some tepid bottle water into that mix and, as my Gaffer used to say, "NOW you got something..."
....we **mn sure HAD IT....
AND, true to form, the Girls scared the crap out of the Boys with their marksmanship....
"Diana", ancient Goddess of the hunt, visited earth that day on a bend in the Bazos, steadying the aim of these two Flowers of Texas.... GAWD help anyone who threatens those two She-Wolves cubs...
_______________________________________________
"Little Friend" was the big hit of the day...or I should say the 10 or so pounds of Tannerite he brought with him was.
Now, tho I have a lot of hands-on experience with industrial explosives and a little with the military grade stuff I had never considered that a HOBBY category might exist...and I thank the various Dieties that I have lived long enough to see such a thing...
...it is my hope that in some distant future, a coupon for 10 pounds of Tannerite should be issued to every boy-child at birth...
I leave it to you, Noble Reader, to ferret out the videos of the results of combining Tannerite and a well-placed shot...but the satisfaction of the concussive thump/bang/scattering of debris utterly satisfies that primal need in every boy, no matter how old, to do stuff his mother would have a stroke over if she ever found out...
__________________________________________________
As all good things must do, our shoot eventually had to come to a close. Dusk was rapidly approaching as sore shoulders bent one last time to police up the trash and leave nothing but memories at the range?a few more moments of fellowship and then it was over....till next time...
My sole regret was that my own Pecious Bride could not join us to share this unique experience....PB is one of those exceptional women who would rather have her man reek of honest sweat, river bottom and spent explosives than the most expensive cologne....
We're gonna have to come up with a good excuse for another shoot...
Inauguration Day will be too cold....Ground Hog day is sort of dicey weather-wise....
...how about a "Texas Valentine's Day Shoot"....
BE SAFE OUT THERE....
Arkaybee
Silver Member
Been anxiously awaiting your return to the story-line of TOGR.
I've missed your writings.
WELCOME BACK, TERRY.
Arkaybee
I've missed your writings.
WELCOME BACK, TERRY.
Arkaybee
ThomasH
Gold Member
Terry -
I have organized some "shewtin" days for a group of us, and they are more fun than anyone should be allowed to have. And add some 1 pound or so tannerite and various explodable items to the mix and wow, the fun goes up another 100%.
I have missed your writings here. Welcome back, and I wish the best for you and your family.
Tom
I have organized some "shewtin" days for a group of us, and they are more fun than anyone should be allowed to have. And add some 1 pound or so tannerite and various explodable items to the mix and wow, the fun goes up another 100%.
I have missed your writings here. Welcome back, and I wish the best for you and your family.
Tom
ruralruss
Silver Member
Welcome back. I asked around about a few months back. I was afraid your worldly travels got the best of ya. I should of known better.