Good morning!!!!

[KilroyJC]

Phil, congrats on the competition! Beautiful turnings.

MMMMM..... maybe Paul can fly out a latke AND a waffle cone......

All drip irrigation done for now. Even got a quick nap in between zones.

First package from Temu arrived, quality is good, items as described and as expected. This was from my second order.... the first order is still in transit..... ???
The first order was placed 4 days earlier, but still on the move. 2 other packages didn't leave the PO distribution center until late this morning after sitting there for 2 days. I guess that's the new USPS.....

Hit a record high here today -- 58°. High for Sat. is going to be 30°.... Now just have to deal with the wind tomorrow....

Tomorrow's agenda is already set. Will go to Costo first, then to a restaurant supplier for a few bulk items. That will probably eat up most of the day.

Time to put up the feets .... going to watch a series about Pearl Harbor on the 'Story Channel', a free channel provided by the History Channel.

Everyone have a pleasant evening!

hmmm, maybe a latke waffle cone. . .

 

[KilroyJC]

very cool blue city

went to local apple orchard, saw owner, said I was there for wages.
she looked at me funny and asked wages?
yup, having some guys over to help me tomorrow and I said I'd pay in apples.
So I'm here for the wages.
She got a kick out of that.

a fine currency!

they said this was a record apple production year for them, everything they had planted all came in strongly this year.
usually about a dozen different apples to choose from.
Some like Honey Crisp are so juicy you have to be careful you don't spray juice when eating.
Your mouth just explodes in an apple cider taste.
They are only this fresh for so long. They are all picked so every day even chilled they lose a little something.

it's a great time to be an apple.

Commodity-backed currencies are going to be all the rage!

 

[KilroyJC]

got the oil changed in the rv, more difficult than I thought since it was further back under rv but I got it done.
plug came out hard all the way, surprising. Went to put it back in and it got to the end and just spun.
pulled it out and problem was obvious. Someone before me put way too much pressure on this and stripped the bolt.
Thankfully I had a spare...and it went on perfectly and the job got done.

what bothers me...is whether my young friend who did the last oil change stripped the bolt, didn't tell me, and put it back on with a ton
of loctite. ??
I will order another spare.

How are the threads in the pan?

 

[KilroyJC]

6000 miles on this oil change. I only use the prescribed Motorcraft semi synthetic and a Motorcraft oil filter.
I've read if you just religiously change the oil on this engine it will last a long time.
With 40k on it, should be like new.

after I ran the engine I went underneath and the oil drain plug was bone dry.
if it comes loose, very expensive day. I think next time I'll use Loctite too.

can only wonder how much damage is done before the oil pressure warning light goes on
guess it pays to look under engine pretty regularly for drips
but on long interstate trips, you could drain out and never know it.

6000 miles at 10mpg.
burned 600 gallons having fun, got to UP Michigan, OBX NC and South Florida.
thank goodness it's regular
this is still a fraction of what it costs to fuel a larger boat.

I think I would rather safety-wire the bolt as opposed to loctite.

 

[KilroyJC]

Good evening! 67˚F, clear skies southerly breeze. Just got back from my first mile walk after surgery, and yes I feel it. I made a mistake Wednesday during PT and asked "brother of Igor" how many sessions were left. he asked why, I replied because I will need to order more pain pills if we go more than a week. Dummy me. Now I'm banned from prescription pain pills per orders of "brother of Igor." Today's first PT "unmasked" as they called it went pretty well but will probably pay for it tonight.

There’s always tequila. . .

 

[KilroyJC]

53F and cloudy @ 20:30, heading down to around 48F for low overnight. High here today reached 57F.

Woman inadvertently left car open which almost drained the battery ... so first order of business was hooking up the charger ...

Seeking to take advantage of the nice weather I swapped out the cultivator head for the SuperCut™ string trimmer head on the Stihl FS 66 then loaded it into the dump cart along with various implements of destruction and the 2 bags of straw and headed around back.

Once I got back there I dropped the straw off and loaded the 3 pots of Asclepias incarnata (swamp milkweed) and the 3 pots of Asclepias tuberosa (butterfly weed) and headed to the immediate area of Nest Box No. 3 to plant the former.

Woman had headed up just prior with some driveway markers to occupy Her until I got there.

Once I arrived we got weeds trimmed and gathered into the cart with some leaves and the swamp milkweed plants stuck in the ground, root development looked very good:

View attachment 837120​

She did some weeding on the largest Rose of Sharon while I took the leaves and weed debris over and dumped it in the compost pile, dropping the 3 pots of butterfly weed over by the shop where the other 4 were planted previously.

Grabbed some screened compost while I was over by the compost pile to fill in around all the plants.

When I got back I repositioned the cage around the Rose of Sharon and we headed over to plant the butterfly weed at the shop.

Headed back down to the house after that and got tools unloaded. She was pretty much done at that point but I still needed to haul up 5 buckets of cat litter to the compost pile and dump that which I did.

Once that was finished I came back down to the house, decided to head around back and snatch up the 6 AWG THHN cable before it starts raining that I'll use to wire the sub panel in the garage.

Still in the process of untangling that mess.

Decided on a pie for dinner from the local pizza joint, which She ordered and then ran down and got ... after I unhooked the charger and got the neg cable put back on the battery for Her ...

Yesterday was reasonably productive as well:

Got hopper feeder and 2 suet feeders refilled. Supplementing the bird food with dried split peas, got 6 pounds of those for free and neither The Woman or I care for them.

Hole drilled going into basement and conduit glued up for the sub panel in the garage.

Flue transition/appliance adapter reinstalled on heater.

Uni-strut put up on ceiling. Still need to tweak the alignment on that for proper spacing before torquing it down.

Clamp for gas line installed on the uni-strut and gas line clamped down.

View attachment 837122​

Probably head back to the garage and get the wire untangled here in a bit.

That will probably be it for the night.

Hope everyone had a decent Friday ...

Looks like a good spot for a Reznor!

 

[KilroyJC]

good morning all
34 going up to 49 today in clouds and some mist apparently.
I'm up and moving, landlady coming for coffee early.
I got her some Swedish Kubb (almond sugar cookies).
she will likely bring me an xmas plant.

then....the main event. At 11am, a few guys including my brother are coming over to put the cover on rv.
Ken is well prepared, I have lots of rope, should only take ten minutes per the instruction video.
I'm figuring a bit longer than that.
that assumes someone wants to walk up there which we are trying to avoid with ropes and long poles.
good timing, quite the storm coming in tomorrow, two inches of rain and 50mph winds forecast.

I already told neighbor across the street that I expect them to wake up with my blow up Santa on the side of their house, blown
by the wind. of course once they unplug they quickly flop down.
i'm utterly amazed those blow up decorations are still going strong, 24/7 on their second season. Fan just runs and runs

slowly waking up. Coffee not very good. Time to try something else.
I need to treat myself to some really good (expensive) coffee for Christmas.
trying to find coffee for under ten bucks a pound that doesn't taste like ground up wood chips is hard...

Treat yourself to some Kona Joe

 

[Popgadget]

I think I would rather safety-wire the bolt as opposed to loctite.

Probably have to drill the head of the new plug, but yes, a much better plan than loctite.

 

[KilroyJC]

the real challenge here is I don't like heights and I don't think my brother does either.
when I was in fire school training 40 years ago and had to climb to top of three story ladder and then swing out on
to roof ladder, with Scott pack on, none of that bothered me but the height.
We joked later that you could hear my knees knock in the next county.
I was honestly afraid of bladder control and there was a guy coming up the ladder behind/beneath me.
I don't think I would have ever heard the end of that.

today I have a four step step stool. More than that? Find a friend....
probably why I don't fly any more, haven't in 20 years.

Ever watch this guy? Good stuff:

 

[KilroyJC]

Good Morning
39 headed to 48 Indy mostly cloudy skies.

Yesterday was mostly puttering in the shop. Couple of projects for the little plane, I recovered the glare shield on top of the instrument panel with dull vinyl material and replaced the defroster outlet with a much improved version. There was a vacuum formed piece that contained the speaker and dome light that literally crumbled and fell apart. That part was no longer available, so I taped and glued all the pieces together and filled them with foam to make a form, and had a new one vacuum formed over the form. It came out pretty decent.

View attachment 837143

View attachment 837144
View attachment 837145

Glass beaded a piece of polycarbonate to frost it for the lens, hot glued it in place, replaced the old 1816 build with an LED and swapped the old rocker switch for a mini toggle. Should be a new lightweight speaker with a shielded rare earth magnet delivered by UPS today. These are about the last pieces to finish the project.

House cleaners are coming this morning, so as silly as it sounds, I’ve got to help the wife clean the house before they get here. Once they arrive we take Zoe over to the shop as they don’t enjoy her help. It seems not everyone is as enamored with a 110 lb puppy as me.

I’ll see what I can rig up to make a boat hook attachment for a telescoping painters pole, and then head over to Drew’s to see if we can cover the RV.

Just a thought…

would two long pieces of bamboo, one on each side of the RV, bottom ends secured to the ground (tent stakes and paracord?) and top ends to the corners of the cover, along with pull lines, then get the cover over the RV in the same way that big dump trucks get the tarp over the bed?