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One of my hobbies is refurbishing electric motors. I have a half a dozen 2.5 to 5 hp. single phase motors that I bought for $25 each. I take them apart, clean them up, install roller bearings (some are so old they have brass bearings and oil cups), paint them up, and sell them for $400. Pin...

You go to restaurants? I brown bagged every lunch for my entire working career, and carried a thermos of coffee. I don't drink, not because I am teetotal, but I don't want to spend the money. I go to one movie every five years or so. I cut and split my own firewood for winter heat, and am...

Not all treated wood is really treated. I installed "ground contact rated" guardrail posts on a tree bridge 8 years ago, lag bolted to custom ordered 4x10 stringers. The posts rotted, the stringers did not. Some treated wood is junk. I have no idea how to tell the difference.

That's the one I installed on my shop. Good lockset. The house is also Schlage, so I keyed everything alike. So far, no arthritis in my hands, but if it comes I will be ready.

I suspect bird flu has taken a toll. Another species that is rare this year is the great horned owl. We typically have three nesting pairs within earshot, sometimes four. This year I heard one female calling for a mate, but she did not stick around. There are no nests within earshot. There are...

The number of birds has picked up, and we have a whole squadron of rufous hens, so it's likely we will have more. We finally have enough to clear out the gnats and mosquitoes on the deck, so sitting outside in the evening is very pleasant.

The rufous were really late showing up this year, but things picked up with warmer weather.

Stucco is fine. It's the wood under it that is the problem. I have replaced a lot of rotten walls under stucco, particularly on the north side of the house where condensation is most common.

I have heard that cement board siding has the same problem with condensation as stucco. If it's a problem, and how to deal with it, will depend on your local climate and humidity. Talk to local experts.

When you pull down the existing ceiling you will have access to that tough-to-access space. The rule with insulation is "seal the warm side and vent the cold side." Make sure there is adequate attic ventilation, and ditto on venting the fan to the outdoors. While you have the ceiling down is the...

It depends on range. I have shots withing 30 yards, so a load of steel #6 does fine. At 40 yards, it's iffy. Steel doesn't carry like lead, but is good for close range. I have some #2 Hevishot that will punch through 10 gauge steel at 40 yards, but it's expensive to replace. I have about 50...

I use Remington Sportsman loads with steel shot to keep from contaminating my property with lead.

Boiling the solution is essential to kill the yeast that otherwise starts brewing alcohol almost immediately. If it gets cloudy in the feeder, that's yeast. Clean and change it. I use a disinfecting bleach solution soak on the feeder. The factory red around the holes bleached out, so I replaced...

Nothing here either. We have a couple of Annas that wintered over, but the migrants never showed up. Last night I was attacked by mosquitoes! The last time I saw a mosquito was years ago, thanks to the murderous little hummers clearing them out. We would normally have a big population of rufous...

We always have a couple of annas that winter over, then get a big in-migration in the spring. So far this year there is no sign of the migration. Bird flu may have hit the little hummers hard.

I used to use a CBD lotion, but now Voltaran (diclofenac sodium) is over the counter and works better than anything.

I think you can still get the 800 watt continuous camping generator. If all you are running is lights and a furnace fan, that's plenty.

I have a propane powered portable and a transfer switch. I keep a battery tender on the battery, so turning the switch and flipping the mains on the transfer switch is all there is to it. I use a permanent custom cord between the generator and the transfer switch, so everything stays plugged in...

Garlon is good for woody broadleaf. Spring apply.

That's what we did with my elderly mother. She had an oil burning furnace with a 500 gallon tank. #2 fuel oil is the same as #2 diesel. We plumbed the generator into the furnace line.

To avoid overspray, I use a paint brush for a basal application. https://www.butler.k-state.edu/docs/shoppers/2015/9-8-15%20Basal%20bark%20and%20cut-stump%20tree%20treatment.pdf

Clean your ductwork every 20 years or so.

If the bladder in the tank is leaking, the tank may be waterlogged. Shut down the system and check the pressure in the tank. It should be a couple PSI lower than the kick-on pressure of the pressure switch. If it is too high, withdrawing water rapidly will drop the tank pressure abruptly and...

I was about 5 years old when I learned to keep my mouth closed while hosing out the gutters.

Houses have sure gotten fancier over the decades, haven't they? I remember that brick patterned tar and asbestos siding. You couldn't get rid of the scrap by burning it.

My primary fuel storage is the wood shed. I have enough 15% moisture hardwood to last the winter. With gravity feed water, we rarely use the generator, but I have it hooked to a 100 lb. tank, and half a dozen 20 lb. tanks available. Electricity is a luxury, not a necessity. The generator is only...

Corrosion can be oxidation, sulfation, calcification (ice melters), chlorination (road salt), or fluoridation. The green patina on copper is hydrated CuCl2.

An EV would meet my retirement needs easily. My biggest commute is for medical care, which is a 175 mile round trip, and I have plenty of 240 v. receptacles at home. I'm holding out for a self-driver. I figure anotehr decade of development of AI will provide some nifty options. My mother became...

I have the largest standard mailbox on a post by my driveway. The carrier appreciates that a large shoebox (boot size) will fit. I haven't had much problem with mail theft. I did lose a couple parcels about 3 years ago, but good luck to the thieves. The parcels were electronic components useless...

It depends on what oil you use. The diesel will evaporate in 6 weeks or so. You might go with deodorized kereosene to keep the odor down. Ifyou use motor oil, it will never dry. Vegetable oils will turn rancid and stink. Boiled linseed will dry fairly fast. Have you thought about spar varnish?

My vent stack is smelly after pumping until the grease scum builds up on top of the septage. You might pour a gallon of cooking oil down the drain to see if it helps.

It was a mild day today, so I fired up the chainsaw and cut up a big tree I dropped last week. My 28 year old Husky 51 started as usual and ran fine. Good chainsaw. Never a problem. I take credit for good fuel handling.

The county assessor would be interested, and departments normally talk to each other.

Log on to your county GIS system. They have high rez aerial photos of the whole county and would see any changes with a year to year overlay.

You will need a permit from the US Army Corps of Engineers and possibly also your county. Your overflow will depend on maximum storm flow rate, but from the looks you will need at least a 4' diameter pipe or reinforce the top of the dam with concrete.

Successful nesting.

When they go down, it's time to let them go. We have a vet who will come to the house to do it. Before we found him, I used a bullet to the head. It was the hardest thing I have ever done.

The section pins were set by surveyors using 19th century equipment, with no references. Errors add up. Bad weather or bad booze could have been a factor. Terrain can be a real problem. It's rare that the original survey was accurate, so surveyors have to locate multiple hubs and do their best...

My dogs keep the coyotes at a distance, but don't bother the deer. The deer have learned this is a safe place to have fawns, so I currently have a big crop. I saw 5 fawns in my yard yesterday, and at least two more across the creek, probably more. A neighbor runs a cow-calf operation on 600...

If you're a shotgunner, the Hevishot Dead Coyote load is a winner out to 70 yards or so. Beyond that, a .223 or .243 will handle them as far as you can hit them.

Do hummers go dormant in very hot weather? We had 5 days above 100, with a high of 107. The feeders were untouched, until the temp dropped back into the 90s, then they drained two feeders in one day. Has anybody else seen this?

On bridge projects, we kept concrete wet for 28 days. At that point, the concrete had reached 90% of its design strength. When we shut off the water, we sprayed it with a concrete curing membrane to keep the surface from drying out.

Typically 8-10 lbs. Maybe it's not a cubic yard (27 cubic feet)? https://www.omnicalculator.com/construction/concrete-weight

At least the drought is over.

Pray for a bobcat raising kittens.

FYI, concrete weighs 3600 lbs per cubic yard. Your counterweight is heavier than you think.

Rent a dumpster and park it so you have to carry stuff past it to the truck. Anybody who helps you move gets dumpster diving privileges.

I think the bird flu has killed a lot of hummers.

Only portable tanks have to be DOT certified. I don't think 100 lb. tanks are considered portable.

That's what I did too. I only need a sediment filter for late summer when well water gets cloudy. I use the 1 micron cartridge to filter water going into a 2500 gallon cistern. If there is any color left after filtering, I can clear it up with a little chlorine bleach.

You can say a lot of things about teflon, but biodegradable ain't one.

Humming bird food. I have flickers and woodpeckers working the snags along the creek, so have hundreds of humming bird condos. When the little ones start flying, the gnats vanish. They are hungry little bug snipers.

Tractor work starts at $100/hour.

If you plan on selling your house, your arithmetic might be relevant. Otherwise, you trade money for lifestyle. I installed a new service panel, replaced the resistive electric furnace with a heat pump (twice), new roof (twice), skylight in the guest bathroom, new energy efficient windows and...

I get buzzed all the time. Never been hit. There's an interesting article in last month's Scientific American about hummer air navigation. They're thinking about you 12 times before you even know they are there...

I'm pushing 80 too, but occasionally read recent publications.

My parents bought a farm in 1961 that had one of those houses. It was built in 1920. During the depression, it was used for hay storage. They left the front door open so the horses could get to the hay. At the time, the county had it appraised at $500. Dad put a kitchen/bedroom addition on it...

Bingo. The solar panel and battery could sit at the base of the pole. An LED car headlight should light the flag just fine. Running wires to remote locations for electricity is so last century.

The political process now is to find some way to ease the housing shortage. They just changed the law statewide to allow a second residence on any residential lot. The homeless are certainly a social problem, but I don't know if that's going to bring rental prices down. Rentals are insane, if...

I think the bird flu cut the hummer population a lot. Last year was grim, this year a few more showed up.

I just saw an article that Echostar is on the verge of Chapter 11.

Ditto. I pressure wash the tractor when it needs it, and will remove shrouds to get to the radiator. Caution is necessary to keep from wrecking the radiator, but hoses are not a problem. For those problem cleanups in the shop, I suck up degreaser and spray it with hot water from a tankless...

At 19-30 feet that guy is pumping surface water. I bet that dairy has a nitrate contamination problem, but if he is only washing down and pumping out the poo pond, it won't make much difference.

I repurpose the rectangular juice jugs as water containers because they don't roll around behind the seat of my pickup. Never drive into the desert without a water reserve. When humidity drops into the single digits, be prepared to drink a quart an hour. Stay hydrated.

My soft drink of choice is well water with a little shot of lemon juice, in my vacuum insulated Aladdin water cup. 3-4 ice cubes will keep it cold for hours. My wife prefers 2/3 well water and 1/3 lime gatorade, because she needs the electrolytes.

I'm a southpaw. My preferred shotguns are over/under or pump. My .22 is a Remington 572 pump, which has the advantage that it will shoot shorts just fine and is noticeably quieter than a 10/22 shooting LR. Lever ejection is not a problem. I have a Henry Big Boy and a Marlin 1895 and both eject...

The one I use is very similar to this, except it's an Aladdin and yellow. A few ice cubes will keep water cold for hours. Mine didn't come with a straw, but I recycled a heavy duty hospital flexible straw that has lasted 3 years now. The bottom fits the tractor and pickup cup holders, and 30 oz...

Most of those devices would do fine with dialup speed. That said, wifi is way better than it used to be, and works fine for streaming video. Where ethernet shines is moving lots of data

Ethernet is full duplex. 1 gigabit FIOS and 1 gigabit ethernet at 1-2 ms latency is great for internet, and I ran ethernet to the shop office to make it a potential business location. Yay tomorrow!

We call those snot rockets.

I had a friend who bought a bunch of 30 kw wind turbines used. He had to refurbish the blades, which took a lot of labor and a little fiberglass, which is why they were so cheap. I think he paid $2000 each for the turbines, and towers. The inverters were not suitable for residential use and...

My 15 year old nephew stayed with me for gun safety training. I checked him out on muzzle control, cleaning, how to clear the action, keeping finger off the trigger, etc. We started with a ramset blank in a .22 revolver blowing holes in cardboard, and ended up with a 9mm and a .357, plus an...

I saw an article recently that says Chinese solar panels are a glut on the market. Now is the time to buy. Once the Ferengi wipe out all the competition they will jack prices up again...

My rufous are holding mating flights. I have been flashed by a hummer, right in front of my nose. The annas that wintered over are making themselves scarce. The rufous just showed up last week, drained two feeders, and are checking out the nests. I have flickers and woodpeckers working, so there...

Write your state legislator about tort reform. Insurance rates jumped 20% last year, due to court judgments. Tort reform used to be a big deal, but everybody dropped the ball.

I wonder: What is the largest city abandoned city in America? California City is geographically the largest, but I don't think many ever lived there. A few houses remain occupied. Most ghost towns peaked around 10,000 residents before they were abandoned. Historically, big cities take a long...

Rattlesnakes solve the gopher problem too.

I don't know enough about your climate to know if you get enough cold days for some of those varieties. https://harvesttotable.com/fruit-tree-chill-hours/

Don't stand under it and spray up, and pressure washing will work just fine. All you need is a ladder that will reach the eves. All you need is water. I did my parents' house every year for 35 years with no problem.

Yep, for heat a fireplace is next to worthless. We have an insert that does a creditable job of heating the house. If I want to look at flames, I just leave the insert doors open. You need power to the fireplace to get the circulation fan running, which really improves the efficiency of the insert.

1. What do you tow? 2. Does it have to go in snow? 3. Do you drive in mud? 4. How many miles do you put on it? 5. Do you need remote power?

Jif is the best tasting peanut butter on the market, and no stirring.

I dropped a 400 amp service in the yard and split 200 to the house and 200 to the shop. The single meter let me dodge the charge for a separate service.

Plan for 36" gable fans. Heat and cool with a heat pump so you have summer AC and humidity control.

I'm an old guy, and like to keep nomenclature straight. Very little standing seam is done any more, because it requires a tinner to solder all the joints. What people call standing seam is actually concealed fastener lock seam. It's good roofing. I used it on my shop. I'm also a lazy guy. I...

I have heard that brushless generators have really dirty power. At least one oscilloscope trace seemed to verify that. The sine wave looked halfway to a squiggly sawtooth. That makes no sense to me, but maybe I don't understand how rotating field generators work.

I find that magnesium citrate supplements greatly reduce the leg cramps. As for the uhm, 76 years old and still waking up with a hard on. Take care of your arteries.

Chemtrails have b Point out to them that chemtrails have become so pervasive that they stretch from horizon to horizon and sometimes completely obscure the sun.

Shop for a used mill. You could save some bucks.

Honey is high fructose bee spit. It has the reputation for being healthy because it is "natural," but you might as well sweeten with high fructose corn syrup. It's death for diabetics because the fructose causes a blood sugar spike. As for beans, I love them. If you need cheering up, here is a...

My favorite potato topping is sloppy joe sauce. I make it with lean hamburger, at least as much onion as burger, and tomato sauce with seasoning packets or commercial sloppy joe sauce. It's about 1/3 meat and the rest vegetable. It makes a nice meal.

I have bird dogs, and you never keep a tight collar on a retriever because they can get hung up on brush or snags. Their collars easily slip off over their heads. We have lost the occasional collar, but it has been about 3 years since I have had to replace one.

That story might fly with someone who knows nothing about shotguns.

Good point. I have seen a flock of honkers turn 100 acres of winter crops into a mudhole in less than a week.

A neighbor clears out coyotes with an electronic rabbit call. 18 turkeys in the front yard this morning, I wish something would thin them out. They crap everywhere.

The water usage of 39 million people is not negligible. Converting Orange County from agriculture to residential didn't save much water. Also, there are still towns and cities in California that don't even meter water. Agriculture does use 4x the amount that cities use, but far from "nearly...

Yes, the data rides on light all the way to the router. It amazed me when they strung my neighborhood, because houses here are far apart. My nearest neighbors are half a mile away.

Potato starch will keep bread from going stale for an extra day or two. Add 1/2 cup of potato flakes to the dough.

We have fiber and went to VOIP. The old copper phone lines went out frequently, and if there was a power outage the copper would go completely dead after 48 hours. The fiber stays up nicely, and I can power the router and VOIP box with a 200w inverter and a car battery. For house phones we have...

Thanks to having extensive acreage, my dogs are allowed to explore from puppyhood. They get enough bumps and scrapes that they learn to make good decisions about safety. They stay away from equipment while it is running, but stick around close enough that I usually know where they are. Farm dogs.

Beans and cabbage go great in soup. We make a lot of minestrone and go heavy on the beans. A 2 day soak and rinse will get the farts out of the beans. They have complex sugars that the human digestive tract can't handle, but the little gas bugs love. I put a splash of vinegar, just a little, in...

A neighbor just gave us a fresh elk liver. We'll serve it with vegetables. Mmmm, onions.

Different species have different amounts of ash. No hickory around here, but oak has more ash than madrone. I don't burn d. fir-larch, but a friend who does says it is low ash too. Black cottonwood is horrible for ash and is almost worthless as firewood.

Call your insurance agent. Follow his or her advice. Meanwhile, tell your wife to keep her yap shut.

Their light goes out so soon because they burn so brightly while they are here. I have a mini dachshund that will turn 18 in January, but she is going down fast. Two years ago she was still chasing rabbits through the brush, but now she can't manage the 6" step at the front door. I'll be sad...

Craigslist around here tends to be ridiculously overpriced.

My gourmet urges made me ferment my own pickles and kraut. Then those same urges made me eat them raw instead of canned, because cooking them kills that wonderful crunch. I still have some fresh dills in the refrigerator from the last batch, and make kraut several times a year. The acidophilus...

And the more expensive. A can of soup costs $2.50 any more. Soup. It's mostly water. We do a crock pot full of soup, mostly home canned tomato sauce and vegetables, with a little meat, and get the same thing for less than 50 cents. People who buy Hamburger Helper are paying for the box. The food...

I didn't read all the details, but didn't see where they controlled for obesity. I used to be diabetic, but am not any more, thanks to a 70+ lb. long term weight loss. Another 30 lbs. and I'll be to my ideal weight (215), so you can see I used to be morbidly obese, but am not any more...

Are you sure the motor went out? Check the starting capacitor, a cheap an quick fix.

I have no idea what a ferrite ring is.

Step-down transformers are obsolete. Nowadays they just rectify the juice into a cap and use an IC to extract the power. On the up side, the electronics are indifferent to input voltage, and will work anywhere in the world where line voltage is between 50v and 240v. However, they are vulnerable...

I use Bluetooth earbuds, which work on the tractor in the field and in the shop. They are pretty good at excluding external noise, but I add muffs on the tractor to keep the volume down, or if I am cutting, grinding and such in the shop. I've thought about noise suppressing headphones, but...

I have an old darkroom line stabilizer that I use when running electronics off of a generator. It's a big auto-transformer and capacitor that automatically holds voltage stable. Thanks to about 20 lbs. of iron and copper, plus a huge capacitor, it also filters spikes and RF noise, though that...

When our dogs reach the end we sometimes give them tramadol to make them more comfortable. Our vet also does home euthanasia, so when it's time they can go to sleep in peace.

Too much salt in the bouillon. You can get chicken broth at the market, or boil up a chicken and make your own. White rice cooked in chicken broth is another possibility.

Any chance he got into a quantity of onions, garlic, or allium flowers like daffodil bulbs? Allium kills red blood cells in dogs, but it takes a meal to do the damage.

The only shells I reload are 28 gauge, which is a real money saver. I shoot sporting clays with my little BPS. My problem has been finding primers.

In the old days, finding a clear channel meant you were way out in the boonies. CB was almost worthless. Now that the yahoos are all texting on their cell phones, CB is actually useful.

You might be pleased with an external antenna. I put one in my travel trailer years ago. The aluminum skin made a great ground plane. The range was phenomenal for a CB.

Cell phones saved the Citizens Band. There's no problem finding a clear channel.

Air compressor pumps are a snap to repair if you can get parts. Mostly they just need a new diaphragm.

Buy a junk tank and a Harbor Freight 5 hp 2-stage compressor head. Put a whatever 5 hp motor on it and yo are good to go. Used 5 hp motors are cheap. I paid $25 for the one I used, and $15 for sealed bearings to replace the old oil cup bearings. I was able to use the PRV and switches from the...

Lots of nice rigs on car haulers heading north. We don't transfer the title until they get to Oregon to dodge the California sales tax.

I just spent $7000 to put a new engine in my 2003 Mazda B3000, replace ball joints, and several minor repairs.

My first dog as a kid was a border collie/Aussie cross, on 45 acres. I roamed that land for hours, but the dog would spend hours exercising himself. It's where I learned to appreciate smart dogs. He taught me how to train dogs, which is easier than most people realize.

I stick with bird dogs. I run into people who get a GSP, Weim, etc. When the dog gets to be 6 months old or more, they whine, "Where is the off switch on this dog?" I tell them it's 5 miles away if they run. The dogs are bred to be athletes. They have to run like they have to breathe. We are...

Large dogs have a shorter lifespan. We're doing daycare for a Rhodesian Ridgeback. They die about 10. Great Danes have a short lifespan too. OTOH, we have a 17 year old miniature dachshund that is still doing fine. The larger they are, the shorter they live. My wife and I don't want to leave...

Grand Coulee has a design lifetime of 150 years. That seemed like forever 80 years ago. I don't know the design lifetime of Hoover, which was built a few years earlier.

Junk stores can be great. My wife and I picked up a complete 12 place setting of Noritake china, including serving dishes, for $20 at the men's shelter thrift store not long ago. That's about $900 worth of dishes online. I also have 17 lbs. of silver I picked up for $70 at Salvation Army. They...

There is still one '50s style hardware store in town that stocks all the weird nuts and bolts you can never find anywhere else. I go to stores for paint, hardware, groceries, seed and feed. I have to buy my size 15EEE shoes online because nobody stocks them. As an aside, I recommend Fitville for...

I had a terrible squirrel outbreak, but a bobcat with kittens came along and thinned them out. Nice kitty.

Temp has taken a nose dive here in the PNW. Only 81 at my place today, comfortable working weather. I finished moving 6 cords of firewood into the woodshed. They are predicting rain Thursday, maybe, but temps in the high 70s most of the week. I've got a lot of outside work to do this fall. I'm...

I have friends in Wyoming. They also say it's been a wet summer. Good for the wildlife and pasture. 60 years ago an aunt and uncle owned Jelm, plus about 160 square miles of rangeland around it. It was a ghost town at the time, and they kept the incredible log mansion as a fishing cabin. It's...

Listen to the expert. He knows what he is talking about. We're water limited, so have water saving appliances. Low flush toilets. American Standard works great, particularly the 1.6 gallon flush. Front loading washer. Energy star dishwasher. The only extravagance is that I took the flow...

You should crap in the tank to get it going.

I pastured hogs once. The neighbors had a horse that liked to run at the pigs and make them scatter, so they chose that fence line as their latrine. By the end of summer they had quite a respectable pile of poop about 100 yards long and 12" wide. 😁

Load it into a manure spreader. Pile is gone. Case is moot. Dismissed.

I saw a video of Lahaina Harbor burning. No fire boats. The historic business district had burned, and the Banyan is probably gone.

It amazes me how oblivious people are. We're within 9 days of setting the all-time record of days without rain, and temperatures over 100 are predicted for this weekend. It has been 98 days without rain, and the record is 104. This is timber country, but fortunately the fires so far have been...

Lahaina is burning.

Bugout bags packed and equipment stacked inside the garage door where I can load it quickly. Folding wire crates for the dogs, dog food, Air mattresses, sleeping bags, drinking water, trail snacks, just load and go. Documents will be fine in the fire safe, but a SD card with recent photos of the...

Hydrants should not be connected to PVC. The stress of valve operations will crack the PVC or joint. I just dug one out at my place. The last 5' minimum should run in rigid metal, like copper.

Building codes stop 5' outside the building line. OK, your septic needs to be 10' outside the building line.

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Two smaller beams are weaker than one large beam. The bending strength of a beam depends on the depth of the beam, and slicing it lengthwise only weakens it. Look at an extreme case where you slice the beam into 3/8" lath thicknesses. It would hold up very little.

I take it that it's been a while since you did any vector analysis?

It's hard to attach the TECO clips to a steel beam. All that welding would set the house on fire.

I use end wrenches as often as I use sockets, and a set of SAE and metric end wrenches with sockets and a ratchet are a good start. I bought a Bosch battery driver that has both screwdriver hex and 1/2" drive. It's rare that I have to get the impact wrench out. Battery drivers have quite a bit...

That's not checking, it's delaminating. The manufacturer has a glue failure. See what they propose, but chances are they will eat replacing the beam.

I've had that problem with maple, but maple is pretty marginal firewood. I have never had a problem with madrone or oak. I only use fir and pine for a fire starter, so the drier the better.

Predicted low to mid 90s all week, with low humidity, and smoke from the fire in the Siskiyou NF. I got another cord of oak last week, and can smell it outgassing. Calculating from tables, my 5.5 cords of firewood will lose about 600 gallons of water that I won't have to boil up the chimney. 90...

That's the way to do it.

I have a 55 gallon 3-point sprayer that lives on the back of my tractor this time of year, and a drawbar cover crop disc that I can hook up quickly. It's not big, but it's here, and I can put water on a fire while the pros are still getting their boots on.

It's so dry here a rock quarry caught on fire. https://kval.com/news/local/multi-agency-response-to-8-acre-quarry-fire-in-umpqua-public-urged-to-avoid-area

The whole west coast experiences a summer drought. The last rain at my place was the first week in May. It's dry.

Your electric bill and mine are pretty similar. The AC doesn't kick on until it's about 90. Tomorrow will hit 100, so the AC will get a workout. Daytime humidity is about 15%, so it cools off fast at night. I'm about to set a box fan in the window and go to bed, then we'll close the windows at dawn.

Count your blessings. My father-in-law took a Buick Park Avenue to Jiffy Lube to change the transmission fluid. they left it so low it burned up the transmission. I checked it when he started having trouble, and it was four quarts low.

I have no idea how to flash the coils on an inverter generator. On my old conventional generators, all you have to do is plug in an offset grinder or drill motor and give it a spin while the engine is running. I doubt very much that would work with an inverter in the way.

Here's a shot of my home energy utility. It explains why I don't need much generator to be comfortable. I'm an old codger who grew up before AC and central heat, so I maintain my 19th century energy tech. Thanks for the tip about the shop doors, though. If I had an outage and couldn't get big...

In my area, a closed canopy Douglas fir forest is one of the most sterile environments on the planet. It wipes out virtually all plant species, most insects, and mammals. It shocks some people that The Nature Conservancy logs their properties as needed, to promote biodiversity. The most vital...

I bought my first generator (4400 watt) 27 years ago. It has about 30 hours on it, 25 of those building a lean-to on the barn where there is no electricity. A couple years later I bought a camping generator for the travel trailer. It's ultra muffled and is the one I use to keep the router and TV up.

Just saying that if you want a decent Syrah, you won't find it in the Willamette Valley.

I always service a generator and run it dry after using it. I also bag the exhaust to keep the daubers out.

The Valley is great for pinot, but too cool for Shiraz/Syrah. Southern Oregon has a better climate for that grape. Most Shiraz on the market seems to come out of Australia, I think for that reason.

Got the firewood ricked to air dry. It will go into the wood shed the first week in September.

I had a 2 quart a day habit. When I quit smoking, I decaffeinated myself the same day. The caffeine withdrawal was so fierce the nicotine took a back seat. I took a long weekend and slept through both withdrawal symptoms.

My point is that you don't own the water, so you can stand in line like everybody else, including the wildlife.

A .38 spl is a popgun, nice for plinking and target practice, but not very useful if you have to actually shoot something. The 9mm Luger is a little hotter, about equivalent to a .38 +P. The .357 Sig was an attempt to match .357 S&W performance in a rimless cartridge that would feed in an...

My age is showing. The FBI has long since gone to autoloaders. The 158 gr. JHP was 30 years ago. It's still a very capable supersonic load that hits hard. A shotgun is for hunting, not for field work. If I'm going to carry, I want the gun on me, not parked in the pickup because I need both hands...

All the bobcats around here have spotted coats. I don't know how variable that is.

That story was from 15 years ago.

That was 2007. Both the farms and the fish are fine. If they wipe out the fish, the farms will still run short of water, but there will never be any more fish. File a federal crop insurance Prevent Plant claim and pray for rain.

I have a lot of deer, and if there is a cougar working the area the dogs will start bringing back kill remnants. When that happens, I strap on a .357. I load FBI rounds, 158 gr. JHP. That's enough to discourage anything I might encounter, and I'm a pretty good shot. I've never had to use it.

My dogs will let me know if there is a predator around, or I will see bear scat, tree damage, dug out yellowjacket nests, etc. I saw a black bear cub on the road half a mile away a couple years ago. I have never had a problem with them. I had a 120 lb. Large Munsterlander who tackled a cougar...

If I wanted to turn my property into a business, I would pick a business that only was open 5 days a week, 8 hours a day. I would want to own it but not run it, as in build a convenience store/restaurant and lease it to someone else to run. A self-storage would require staffing, security...

Perhaps you should rephrase your question.

It may be crop dependent. The farm I worked on added urea to irrigation water for green beans, but not for corn.

Dissolving urea is strongly endothermic. We used to dump a big sack of prilled urea into a 55 gallon drum and fill it with irrigation water. Ice would form on the outside of the barrel. I think it's what they use in chemical cold packs.

Here too. The power line easement requires the property owner to keep all hazards away from the lines, and if the property owner doesn't do it the power company will. They are reasonable I have a walnut and an apple (volunteers) growing under the power lines and as long as they stay below the...

I hear you can use your tap water for weed whacker fuel.

I think I'll stick with the 100:1 2-cycle oil mix, since I have a couple gallons still unopened. It's higher carbon than diesel, so even improves engine power a little. It will take a while to go through 200 gallons of fuel with my little L3130. That's about 200 hours at full throttle. I don't...

So what was the reason for MTBE in gasoline? Oxygenated fuel is mandated by reality. The fact that they chose ethanol was a combination of factors. The farm lobby certainly contributed, as did the legislators and press from corn producing states. Balance of payments had a lot to do with it too...

I've never heard of Optilube. I run a 100:1 2-cycle mix in my diesel. Moisture absorption is caused by a bad lid seal.

The reason for ethanol in gasoline is that it is oxygenated fuel reduces tailpipe emissions nitrous oxide (N2O) which is one of the primary ingredients of photochemical smog. They tried MTBE, which turned out to be both persistent and water soluble. They switched to ethanol, which is also water...

When I developed my first property, a 400 amp service was free, except I had to dig the trench and install a 400 amp panel.

I have a little rufous hen with a nest full of hatchlings. She is shuttling between her nest and the feeder to keep her babies fed.

A wheelbarrow is how the wood moves from the wood shed to the garage, then I feed the wood stove out of the wheelbarrow. I have two, both with foam filled tires.

We went with Corian counters. My wife is of the opinion that granite counters are the avocado appliances of the 21st century.

Applications vary. I rarely grease my front loader, since I sometimes go weeks without using it. OTOH, the PTO drive shafts get a workout, often running under load at speed for hours a day. The 3-point is fine getting greased once a week. Implements vary. I still have a rig with zerks on the...

That's very interesting. I doubt the grease from 70 years ago compares to modern grease, but high quality lubricants are worth the money. They are sure cheaper than repairs!

Did you watch the results of the metal-metal wear test? That film strength is amazing.

I have been using Sta-Lube lithium-moly grease for years. I may have changed my mind. Lucas may be worth the extra money. What do you think?

I just put up another feeder, not because of traffic. We have a little Rufous rooster who attacks any bird trying to use his feeder, except for hens of his own species. He's a cocky little guy and makes it hard on other birds. The Annas are peaceful and get along with everyone, so now they have...

I think the snows in California were hard on the West Coast population. Our feeders are way down from last year. It may have been the bird flu too.

Bullet trap. A downward angled steel plate will do it for pistol and small caliber, a berm or bales will do it for rifles. For bird shot, stick to non-toxic or trap/skeet ranges. My rod and gun club mines the trap range for lead every few years and harvests a couple tons, plus pH manages the...

Yeah, Russian thistle (tumbleweed) is hugely invasive. It has become so common in parts of the West that people don't realize it's not native. We have a similar problem with Himalaya blackberry in Western Oregon. It was introduced by Luther Burbank, a great horticulturalist with no sense of...

Basal applications are the way to go to confine herbicides. I use a 50/50 mix of Crossbow and transmission fluid. If it's small enough to cut at ground level, I use a small squirt bottle on the bare wood. Dead. For larger trees, slash and squirt is the way to go. Cut the bark with a machete or...