so waht ya doin today?

Snakeoil

Well-Known Member
This weekend is my 50th high school reunion. Was supposed to be in 2020, but COVID pushed it back. Tonight, is a cocktail party with 3 different graduating classes since they got caught in the COVID crunch as well. Tomorrow is the banquet for just our class. Tomorrow, will be doing daytime activities like golf, a hike and a tour of the old high school. I'm too young to golf, hiking without a destination is like taking a shower in your underwear. And I'd rather remember the school as it was when I graduated then walk the halls tomorrow and see all the woke crapola on bulletin boards. Instead, I'll be shooting in a BPCRA 22 silhouette match tomorrow morning. First time doing this. Shooting my original Low Wall with iron sights. Everyone tells me it is a scoped rifle game. I have a Lyman 438 field with a dot reticle, that I've de-clicked the external mounts to be legal. But have not drilled the rifle for it yet. I want to see if I really like this game before I get carried away.

Just remembered that I have to dig out my old shooting sticks.
 

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
Man! The old John Deere 1010 crawler/loader runs great now! I left the backhoe off to try and lessen the ripping and tearing of the lawn, since that things weighs a ton, well closer to 3/4 ton, but you get the picture. Seems to work pretty good. I haven't put the new/used tracks on yet, so I'm very careful about the turning I try to do. Why? If you've ever thrown track of any crawler, you know why. If you haven't, it's like trying to juggle engine blocks tied together with chain! Not fun at all, so I'm trying not to stress things too much. I also only have one working brake at the moment, so steering is either a forward and left thing or backwards and right deal. The hydraulics are working great, that's a huge relief. OTOH, the ancient (circa 1938) dump trailer I have here was designed to carry about 3 full buckets from the crawler, so naturally I have to put 4 or 5 bucket loads on it! It will dump it alright, but I'm hauling a little over 1/2 mile on a wagon road to a washed out culvert near my farms sand pit. There's quite a lot of, shall we say, less than dry, solid ground I have to cover. With just one person loading and hauling, it's slow work. It's even slower if I get things bogged down in a mud hole! So, I learned that about 3 7/8 full buckets is all the old DB990 tractor can pull through the swampy ground.

Topped a successful day off by barbecuing up some boneless ribs and sweet sausage! I'm set for 2 or 3 days of eating now!
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
Flexeril for lunch.
watched some dudes work on the driveway finally.
went to grab a shovel to help and as soon as i twisted to the side i remembered why i took the muscle relaxer.
i'll just sit here on the steps thanks.
 

462

California's Central Coast Amid The Insanity
Finished the painting-the-cabinets project except for the drawer slide that I'm waiting for Jeff to ship. Next up will be new shelf liner on the cupboard shelves and possibly a wee bit of paint touch-up. Looks like painting the outside of the house has officially been postponed till Spring, because SWMBO says at least two of the three bedrooms are next, if not all three, and the 1 1/2 bathrooms.

It's been over a week since I sat at the reloading bench and I need a paint break. A couple boxes of .357 Mag. and .45 ACP, some .38 Special and .30-'06 test rounds, and a box of .45-70 ought to keep me out of the kitchen for a relaxing while.
 

L Ross

Well-Known Member
Thank God my spousal unit likes to fish! And her fingers are sensitive enough to find the two little pieces of pin bone I nicked off in two of 24 fillets. Baits her own hooks, unhooks her own fish, opens the live well for me to toss fish into it, and is the perfect partner launching and loading the boat. I am so blessed.

IMG_4888.jpg
 

richhodg66

Well-Known Member
Air rifle match in Topeka this morning. Only have one team ready, kinda sucks after having two good years in a row, but this one is way earlier than it usually is. Wish us luck. I really hope to place and bring back a trophy, trying to get this program energized and trophies help.
 

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
Big honey-do list today. Have to drop the grandkids Golden pup off to her at 9:45 so she can do the Walk for Cancer thing (her other grandmother is a survivor) then 45 miles to pick up daughters new couch and drop it off to her place, then 30 miles to Lowes to get the new dishwasher that finally got here. Mixed in there will no doubt be numerous side trips for things I don't know about and sudden crises that demand immediate action, like someone running out of chocolate! Hope to get some more dirt work done too.

Got in a bit of a panic yesterday when I couldn't find the new shell plate for my Lock and Load. I knew exactly where I put it, and those things aren't cheap! Looked and looked. Yup, it was right in front of me on my desk. No where near where I was certain I'd put it! Jeeze....
 

CWLONGSHOT

Well-Known Member
Got to the loading room yesterday morning. Arranged some things and noticed two boxes labled 35 Remington. Pulled first labled "FULL MIXED". It lied... Was empty. Pulled label off. Grabbed second and it had 38 pcs of FED brass! That started a search that ended in futility... I know I had cases but nope. Checked loaded stuff and found four boxes. One factory RP and two full and one partial box. What I did I just dont know...

I musta sent them down the road helping someone. So guess Ill start a hunt for brass. It seems pretty scarce no one has it!!

CW
 

Glaciers

Alaska Land of the Midnight Sun
Heating season has arrived.
Reminds me of boating expenses when I was in the fishing charter business in thr Gulf of Alaska, smaller homeowner boats, say up to 25 feet “break out another thousand”. But for larger high horsepower diesels and complexe systems vessels it’s “break out another ten thousand”.
So to heat my house and shop this winter (will need to top off about February) it’s going to cost an additional $6,045, but for a full winter season I’ll be paying about $8,000 more then two years ago. Feels kinda like boat repairs to me.

Not going to the politics which go from local to national to international, that’s not where I’m going here. The reality is what it is, so I’m just trying to stretch this batch of heating fuel to make it for two winters instead of one.

My house which is a log two story 2600 square feet is heated with a oil fired boiler and base board units. I’ve been using a Blaze King Princess wood stove which has been the best wood stove I have personally used. I know there’s other good ones out there but the big supplier here is Blaze King. I've been buy from Kent for 40 years and he’s expensive but reliable, so I’m happy. You have a problem or a need, they take care of it.
But my house is divided up to a point where it’s hard to get the wood stove heat to the far side of the house for reasonable comfort, especially when temperatures drop down into the negative-20 to -50 plus below. We will usually burn 6 cords of wood in a winter. Stoves we’ve used in the past have burn as much as 9 cords in a winter. I’m happy with the Blaze King. But that half of the house has to be kept on the warmer/hot side to get comfort on the far side. Not very efficient. So we still burn a fair amount of oil to keep a couple of base board zones going to help with the comfort level so Karyn isn’t always sweatered up to look like the Pillsbury Dough Boy all the while saying when “can we go to Arizona”.
So with the costs of everything going up much faster then our fixed income we decided to install a small pellet stove on the opposite side of the house from the Blaze King. I installed it about 10 days ago now and wasn’t real sure I’d be happy with it. But it’s a small model about half the btu’s of the Blaze King. Well I’m going to report that it’s looking like a winner! I can’t fire up the wood stove till temperatures get down below freezing during the day and preferably into the teens. So with that in mind the boiler would be used, burning $$$. Now pellets are not free so I’m not trying to fool myself, but heating the fringe seasons, spring and fall, without using oil except for heating domestic hot water is a certain savings.
At current heating oil prices it’s about $24 a day with just the boiler. When we get into heavy winter with day time below zero or colder, for the high temperatures, the price can go to $35 - $40 per day.
So the hopes are to use this little pellet stove and be able to reduce the amount of heat from the wood stove for more even heating and further reduce oil consumption. Pellets will cost about $6.50 per day and the firewood is free at the expense of my back and body. So I’m hoping to get the heating cost with some oil consumption down to about $11 to $14 a day.
My shop which is a separate building has been divide into 1/3 - 2/3’s with the big side heated with another Blaze King when heat is needed. The smaller side, which is a 2 car garage size, 24x24, is heated with a Toyo oil heater. It heats pretty easily. I’m furring down the ceiling with 2x2’s and installing ridged foam insulation for a tighter ceiling/roof. The old roof insulation has been bugged up by squirrels. But with the new insulation and only heating to about 46 degrees it heats fairly easy.

And for your information electricity is currently $.315 per kilowatt. It’s also expected to go up again. So anything electric is out.
 
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Winelover

North Central Arkansas
Finally, seen a couple of deer this AM, while out bow hunting, after four straight morning hunts.

10-1-22 Edited.jpeg

10-1-22 E2.jpegPair of four points, traveling together. Gave them a pass. Still adhering to the three point rule. Plus, I know there are at least four large 8 points in the area.
 

JonB

Halcyon member
Two days ago, I put the winter wheels/tires [Falken HS449 Eurowinter] on my Toyota Rav4.
One of them got a screw stuck in it last Spring, so I plugged it before storage, with a DIY kit. Halfway through the summer, I checked air pressure and the plugged one was down to 20 psi. So as I was installing them for this winter's use, I decided to run my spare (which is a 14 yr old YokoHoma with zero miles) instead of the plugged tire. The Falken winter tires are directional. The Yoko is not. I put the Yoko on the rear right side. As I put the others on, I wasn't paying attention to the directional arrows on them. After I was done and test drove it, the neighbor comes over and looks at 'em and says, "you got one on backwards".

The one that was backwards, was one of the Falken's that was a little bit low on pressure, from sitting all summer. So I put in on the front driver side, so I could keep an eye on it's pressure. I wasn't up to the extra work of swapping it with the Yoko, so it would be correct, rotational-wise...plus I really want it on the front driver side.

I guess I will find out if running one tire the wrong direction will effect handling in rain, and snow/ice. Mostly, I drive like an old man, so I can't imagine having a problem...plus if I get stuck in the snow, and need to 'gun it' in reverse, then I'll have one tire working better, LOL.
 
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JWFilips

Well-Known Member
CW
That was the same for me: 35 rem brass is hard to find outside of a few range pick ups 3 here 5 there all mixed head stamps but my buddy that lives in NY went to a local gun show and remembered I needed 35 rem brass and found me two boxes of Handloads that was on a table!
$5 a box But I was happy.... however I had to pull all the jacked bullets and dump the powder! after case inspection I ended up with 30 cases that were usable ( but I do not know how many times they were reloaded because about 10 of the 40 pieces of them showed small neck splits) So on the 30 good ones I annealed the necks after I popped the primers out. Will be using those to work up my deer load
 
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popper

Well-Known Member
week since I sat at the reloading bench and I need a paint break
My 'bench' is loaded with painting stuff! Only got about a hundred feet left to do. Told the landscape guy he needs to fix the broken sprinkler. Been digging for 2 days, haven't found it yet and knees are really sore. Her sis says they survived Ian OK, just lots of wind and rain. Her hubby's learning to get in and out of the car now. They got the yard fenced so she doesn't have to walk the dog down the street.
 

blackthorn

Active Member
Going to do some more loading of my truck for the annual hunting foray up to my kids places in Quesnel (oldest) and Hixon (youngest) and Prince George (Granddaughter and great grandson) so as much visit as hunting trip. My oldest got a draw for a mature Bull Moose and by the time I get there the immatures will be open to the rest of us. My son's friend has a twenty something year old daughter who is an avid hunter and sure not squeamish about getting dirty cleaning an animal. She is in university, and they do not have much money, so I have loaded 60 rounds of jacketed 308 for her. I have watched her grow from a cute 13-year-old to a drop-dead gorgeous adult. She also has a good head on her shoulders. Lucky will be the guy who wins her heart.
 

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
Well. Got a smartphone yesterday don't know if it is better but it is cheaper, maybe I will type better now. We had to have a wifi thing that we don't have now . Jeff
Things that don't make sense- When I had a flip phone that would do only voice and text it ran me about $7.00 a month. When I finally had to switch to a smart phone that did voice, text and "data", whatever that is, and all sorts of other stuff the cost dropped to about $3.00 a month! Tracfone finally must have realized they were losing $$ and I couldn't find a way NOT to buy a plan. So now it's $16 a month and I have over 5500 minutes, 4400 texts and 12 gigs of data, whatever that is. I suppose I should cancel the plan for a few years and use up the minutes!
 

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
Ha! Well, the ladies didn't tell me that when they asked me to pick up "The Couch" at the store that what they actually meant was a SECTIONAL, a DRESSER and a TABLE!!! Sheesh! Pretty sure my trailer looked like something the Clampetts might have trailed behind their truck. But we got it to the girls house anyway. Of course the sectional was wider than any of the doors, but that's a while story in itself. Never, ever fails!

Anyhoo, that and the trip to get the other stuff we needed took all day. Too bushed to do any dirt work and I'm pretty sure I'll be nursing a sore back tomorrow. But I did get a picture of pretty much what dirt moving in, say, 1966 might have looked like. 1960 Deere 1010 and a 1938 Federal Truck (so I'm told) dump box. Oh yeah, and a blurry shot of Jet!
1010.jpg
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
never got over 45* today maybe 56 or so in the green house.
i probably need to look at the furnace before someone's start complaining.
i don't want to be kneeling down on the cold floor down there and probably would have to crawl to the stairs to get back up again for at least a couple more days anyway.