Good morning!!!!

[Helogabals]

Right now warm (+8 C) but foggy. Weather man have told that in some areas visibility is less than 100 meters
All week should be a little cold and grey

Weekend was about to be perfect. Weather great, wife with oldest daughters left to see her mom. Vine cellar full with interesting bottles etc I had no obstacles to relax.

But then wake up some well hidden genes, ancestor voices, or how can you call them. And I went to buy greenhouse ...

All Saturday together with my boys we were F.. around that thing
Really glad to see that those 9 y olds already can do something with wrench and screwdriwer


Have made it all also dirt.
But man - back hurt, leg muscles are in pain.

And vine cellar is intact

 

[RoyJackson]

2022-04-25, 0402

40° right now...high in the mid-60's today

 

[Alien]

Thanks David. The chain brake had been activated but not exactly sure when that happened.

 

[KilroyJC]

Good Morning!

currently 49.5 here in Appalachia, going up close to 80. It was a good weekend —- MrsKilroyJC found someone giving away a bunch of orange lillies ( you dig ‘em, of course). Filled the pickup with them and some purple irises, put most of them in Saturday afternoon, finished the last yesterday morning. Then our senior dog was in desperate need of a shearing, so now she is basically embarrassed to be seen in public - my dog grooming skills favor “effective” more than “artistic”

and we assembled MrsKilroyJC’s chicken coop and run from TS - I need to finish the run part today, some more clamps need to be installed and things need to be squared up, but it is almost time to see If we can get some pullets in.

And the coop is daily well hidden from prying eyes, too

 

[Buppies]

65 high of 89 today. Went to Mt Rogers Saturday afternoon and saw this guy

 

[toppop52]

most popular power washer pump suppliers, including Annovi Reverberi (AR), Hawk, General Pump, Cat Pumps, Comet

AR is old line Italian pump maker, they also make low cost powerwashers, General is usually pro grade as is Cat. My 4000 psi unit had a Cat pump.
I don't know much about Comet. Are ceramic seals a plus?
Learned long ago putting antifreeze in them over winter was really important after I wrecked a nice Cat pump. Never again. Always put the unit away with some name brand, I think Briggs,
antifreeze and pump lube in the system to let it overwinter with.

I always dreamed of a heated water/steam pressure washer to get all that grease off instead of just smearing it around.
I also learned that if you aren't careful using it on machinery you can drive the water into the bearings which clearly is not good.

I had a commercial grade power washer wand extension for doing the second floor of my home in NC. Fully charged under higher pressure, it was too heavy for me to handle.
My much larger fireman friend was even tired by it. Just know you need strong arms for these things. And the more you crank up the pressure, as any fireman knows, the more that line
will fight you.

That’s why I use my 20lb pressure sprayer with bleach, mounted on my Cub Cadet. I can wash 90% of my house and buildings from the seat of the tractor. That wand is a lot lighter than dragging a pressure washer and water hose.

 

[wngsprd]

56 and thick fog. Climbing to 84, after hitting 91F yesterday.

Worked in garden and around the house. More to do.

Great joke, Helo.

Buppies, I'm planning a Mt Rogers/Wilburn Ridge/Grayson Highlands trip, probably in autumn. Hope yours was a good time.

Hoping to hear from Eric soon.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Wow, alien glad no serious injuries.

Nice greenhouse.

Buppies, long trip to see rabbit. Never been to Mt Rogers.

Barely able to get truck started after a long battery charge, guess I better get new battery.

 

[Looking4new]

Good morning, low temp 55 and staying there. Wind SSE 9 mph. 40% chance of showers.
T-storms last evening didn't amount to much, but the rain sure did come down. Sounded like a freight train on the roof.

We got a lot of the rotten wood from putting up unlined wooden boxes around the house loaded into the trailer, they will go to the dump most likely by Wednesday.
Today is backhoe mounting and greasing day. I think I will do something I haven't been able to do for the past 18 years. Go sit on the deck in my 'altogether' and enjoy the morning.
Edit: 55 isn't as warm as I remember it from last summer. Chilly and damp. that only took 5 minutes.

Have a safe day all

 

[Bill Guenthner]

That’s why I use my 20lb pressure sprayer with bleach, mounted on my Cub Cadet. I can wash 90% of my house and buildings from the seat of the tractor. That wand is a lot lighter than dragging a pressure washer and water hose.

Which pressure sprayer are you using? Can it reach the second floor? I don’t have enough input water pressure or flow to keep a conventional pressure washer operating.

 

[NHBX]

65 high of 89 today. Went to Mt Rogers Saturday afternoon and saw this guy View attachment 743255

Buppies, that little fella sure gets around. I saw him in NH yesterday.

 

[daugen]

good morning all
late getting going, but now off to go downtown foodshopping for a few things and then back to mow the lawn. All those bright yellow dandelions out there, mixing in with a variety of other
invasive weed species. This whole lawn needs a weed and feed but I'd be afraid for half of it dying because that's likely the weed content. And that new small yellow flower that is going everywhere and seems to simply dominate whatever it comes up against. Like a flowering octopus growing and sliding along.

What kills weeds, not lawn, and is not harmful to wildlife if I get a heavy rain and that drainage ditch near me fills up? Will that weed killer hurt the ducks? Of course they already are landing on all kinds of chemicals already.

Have kept away from most weedkillers. Worry about it leaching down, or going someplace you don't want. And what about the roots of the very large trees, are they sucking in weed killer and getting sick from it?

Having said that put down second application of Roundup on driveway. Roundup is short acting so I'm ok with it on driveways.
Realize I need more gravel, way more weeds this year than last year.
The gravel has disappeared. Excellent justification for getting a topcoat of smaller stone that will not jam up my snowblower.
I am so spoiled by the paved driveway I had in NC. Now I'm back to stone and I miss the hard surface.
Am seriously tired of picking stone out of lawn too. Need to get 6x6's put down to terminate end of gravel parking lot or the stone just heads out into the lawn.
And then a few nice flowers of course, which will get a life of its own and turn into another small flower bed. Maybe just a few low lying ornamental evergreens.

I don't know how folks get bored in retirement. So much to do...
But I think this group is a bunch of doers any way.

have a wonderful day, heal where you need to

 

[RedNeckGeek]

RNG
see page 48 of the Radian manual
“Forcing All Slaves to be Active:
All slave inverters can be made active to defeat the Power Save function. This is strongly recommended when stacking GS4048A inverters.
To force all slaves to be active, set Master Power Save Level to twice the number of slave inverters in the system. For example, if there is one master and one slave, Master Power Save Level should be set to 2. If two slaves are present, Master Power Save Level should be set to 4.
NOTE: Make certain the Slave Power Save Level settings remain lower than this number. The default setting is 1.”

48 900-0160-01-01 Rev B

This is just a setting in the Mate 3. I’m assuming the contractor didn’t lock you out via password.

I have also heard that some batteries don’t respond well to quick surges. Hope this isn’t your case. Might want to check with the battery manufacturer if possible.

That's pretty much what the last email I got back from Outback tech support said. I haven't tried it yet, but now that I see that starting the phase converter in the shop gets the lights to flicker pretty well, I'll give it a shot. That's assuming I'm not locked out of the Mate controller like I am the OpticsRE website.

I can just hear myself at 10:00AM on June 20th, saying "Well your honor, this is the list of unfinished work and things that need to be fixed on the solar power system that Mr. Butthead's company installed back in July of 2000. It's the same list I've been trying to get addressed ever since. I've told Mr. Butthead several times that he'll be paid the final progress payment after the work is completed. Instead, all I've gotten from him is excuses, and now this lawsuit. Which, incidentally, was filed in the wrong court. So I'm asking for it to be dismissed, and should the plaintiff choose to do so, the matter can be properly addressed in Butte County, where the contract was signed, and where all the goods and services were delivered."

Unfortunately, it's looking like that short speech will cost me the better part of a day to deliver, not to mention the fuel costs to get up there and back.

 

[pennwalk]

WOW Doug, really scary story. You have to love a can do woman. It is so tempting to get up one more step on the ladder. I have seen ladders that have a handle above the top step. Maybe you can show her the pole saw.

Stay SAFE!

Chris

 

[Popgadget]

Good Morning.
It’s 49 with a forecast high of 60 under cloudy skies.

Yesterday was a nice day to be outside. Took a walk around the property with my wife, checking out the large crawfish population in the pond amongst other things. Sort of cataloged fence repairs and other areas needing attention.
Made it to the airport for a small task on on the little plane. Cooked lunch on the grill again, generally had a relaxing day.

Today was supposed to start with a flight in the little plane to go look at a potential mini split installation near lake Wallenpaupack, but the ceilings weren’t good enough to get over the ridges comfortably. So I’ll have to find some mischief to get into here.

 

[PJSprog]

55°F and light rain this morning, going up to 62° today.

Was able to get some mowing done Saturday, after putting the rear wheels with the new tires back on the rider and the zeroturn. Still pretty soft in a lot of areas. Took one risk in the front between the pond and the road and buried the ztr up to the axles. Couldn't pull it out by hand, walked back to the barn for the rider and it slipped on the grass and wouldn't pull it either, so drove it back to the barn and got out the tractor, which pulled it with ease. Of course, now I have 6" deep ruts to fix in the front yard from the tractor sinking in. That pretty much ended my risky mowing. Walked the pasture and only found one moist area, so I mowed the rest of that excluding the sketchy part.

We were supposed to get rain and t-storms most of the day Sunday, but got not a single drop until sometime early this morning. Wife and I spent the bulk of the day reclaiming some garage space. Sorted through a bunch of stuff from storage, and reorganized the roll around tool box. We even actually cleared off about 90% of the work bench (!). It was another very productive day.

Had a blow up with the boy Friday night. Instead of concentrating on fixing the two non-running trucks he already has, he came home with a third vehicle, a VW Jetta. I lost it. Sat him down in the kitchen and laid into him regarding his unacceptable behaviors. I set goals for him, two of which needed to be met before the weekend was over, or things were going to get ugly. He got upset, his mom got upset ... it was not a fun conversation. Bottom line, though, by midday Saturday someone showed up with a wad of cash and took away the S-10 with the blown transmission, and by noon on Sunday he was carrying bags full of trash out to the can. Mission accomplished. He even got up early today and left the house at 5am to go to work early (he's always late). He apparently just lacked the proper motivational speech.

Still lots of reading to catch up here.

 

[RedNeckGeek]

Good Morning!!!! 59F @ 5:45AM. A mix of clouds and sun. High 82F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph.
Still no rain in the 10-day, but I saw on the news last night that the past few weeks of showers have gotten us from 10% of normal precipitation for this time of year to 75%, including a big slug of snow in the mountains that has made for a mess of happy skiers.

I haven't used the backhoe for anything but trenching so far, Ken, but the thumb has not been an issue. Don't see how it could be in the way, either, because it's folded tightly against the dipper stick when not in use.

That's a heck of a gal you've got there, Doug. But she deserves a pair or steel toe boots, some chainsaw chaps, a pair of safety glasses, and a helmet, don't cha think?

Nice work, Helo. Over here we call 'em greenhouses.

Yesterday I installed a kit in the hinges of the van's rear seat that lets it be set to face forwards or toward the back. Took maybe fifteen minutes, and fixed a problem where one of the original pieces was badly bent. Then I went on line to find out how a strut should be installed so it holds the seat bottom up when you're accessing the storage area underneath. Turns out one of the hinge screws gets a little spacer under the head so the bend in the strut can catch it and hold up the seat bottom. And the spacer was in the little baggie of seat parts I had left over.

Then got the manual out for the radio and figured out how to get Apple's CarPlay going on it. That'll make it easy to use the GPS on the phone and play music, but I don't think I'll be using the text messaging or making calls while I'm driving. Then I realized I hadn't installed a patch cable so I can hear the XM radio so I pulled the cover off the instruments again and found the cable in the box of stereo parts. And while I was in there, I hooked up a power lead for a radar detector and got that installed, too. Not that the van is fast enough to need one...

Got a quote back for reconditioning one of the Engine Management Units, so after I get back from the campout next weekend I'll get it sent off. They say it only takes 'em a day or two for the repair, and it's guaranteed for life. Then again, I think I'll just call 'em this morning and see if they've got one on the shelf they can send out today via overnight.

Started pulling together the camping gear for next weekend; it's been long enough since I used it I had to look around to find where I put it so I wouldn't lose it.

Put some gas in the little Yamaha dirt bike and jumped it with a spare battery to get it going. Now just need to get the carrier mounted on the van, and snag a fresh battery for it while I'm in town today.

Think I'll swing by a carpet store and get a remnant to cover the floor of the van. Something that hides dirt well.

Also decided to go down to the event a day early and camp so I can get in line before the gate opens Thursday morning. Last time I went, most of the shady spots were already occupied, and it was only noon!

Hope everyone's week gets off to a great start!

 

[kenmbz]

Morning all, 50 going up to 64 and cloudy.

Today if all works out will finish raking the garden. Waiting for welded wire to show up to plant the now 10 stubby trees waiting to hit the soil.
Two larger trees slated to show up this week too, hope the tractor can handle to weight, forks on and ready.

Alien - Chainsaw, ladder, flip flops and no head covering. I guess if she is going to break the rules, do it 100% - Glad the Mrs. is ok,

Stay safe and be well,

From last weeks Brit car driveby. Trying to take pictures with Dog on leash and sudden onset of cars led to most pictures coming out pretty bad.

 

[daugen]

Ken, what is the red car. Fiat 124 Spyder? Twin power bulges on hood so twin sets of carbs, just can't place the brand.

 

[toppop52]

Which pressure sprayer are you using? Can it reach the second floor? I don’t have enough input water pressure or flow to keep a conventional pressure washer operating.

It’s just a 15 gal Northstar, so called high pressure sprayer. It easily sprays over my roof, I’ve used it with cleaner to clean the roof.