Coffee 10-9-10

Extra early coffee! I had to deliver a love seat to the coast yesterday & I think the ride took it's toll on me. My back woke me up & now I can't get back to sleep. Might's well push the button on the coffee maker & get an extra early start on the day. I'll start peeling potatoes & we'll have extra crispy home fries.
It sure is strange being able to leave the house. The dogs don't get it, but they sure are happy each time we come home. We went out to a friends house last night for supper. It was so nice to get away! On the way home we talked about having them come here & that we should get together once a month. Wow.... we can have a "normal life"!
I'll bet a few of us are lighting a match. It's down into the 30's right now. Big frost tonight! I'm aiming to light the Axeman a little bit later this year. It runs better when it's colder. I'm going to wait until the daily highs are 50ish. We get good solar gain here & being a fairly new house we coast through these chilly nights pretty well. And coal glowing at your house?

Hi Freddy and all,

I'm not sure what woke me up but here I am. Interesting week on the bus; the mechanics discovered a cracked exhaust manifold on my assigned bus so I was in a spare but the spare blew a radiator hose which sent coolant fluid and a bitter steam or smoke through the passenger cabin. We had to evacuate along one of the few "country" roads left in the county; no shoulders and wet lands paralleling the road. We were blessed to find where the bus had stopped was a tiny clearing on the right so the kids (k-6) could exit the bus without going out in knee deep water or into the line of on-coming traffic. There was not enough room from them to stay there safely so they had to walk single file along the right edge of the road to the next drive way about a hundred yards away. This section of road is very dangerous due to a quick series of up and down hills and turns. Drivers from either direction would have come upon the broken down bus and line of walking children without warning.

I know that some folks here don't believe in miracles, but I do. Sometimes there just is no other explanation. Tuesday morning found a two lane country road normally packed with a constant flow of rush hour traffic, suddenly empty of all traffic for about 5 mins. That was all it took to get the kids off the bus and safely out of harms way down the road. Then the flow of traffic started up again. The state patrol that showed up couldn't believe it and neither could the fire department. I say I saw the Lord's hand in our lives on Tuesday. I say miracles happen everyday if you only recognize them.

Anyway, this Holiday weekend is upon us with the promise of beautiful weather; no rain and temps in the mid to high seventy's. If you are a motorcycle rider this is the weekend for you! At least around here. I don't have a lot on my plate this weekend but DK and I are going to try to build some shelving for the garage. You may hear about some fireworks going off in Northern VA due to that. We tend to follow different paths to reach the same goal and that is not necessarily a good thing. He is an engineer and very precise and I just get things done by whatever works. He needs the exact tool designed for something and I find a BFH(hammer) works well a lot of the time. The different approaches make for interesting times. The kids know to find somewhere else to be for the day. Anyway, I hope everyone has a great holiday weekend. Lisa

Boy, don't you people sleep? Just kidding....morning all, coffee done.....

getting ready for a motorcycle ride to Ashabula, OH for a Covered Bridge ride, there are 14 covered bridges in the area, There will be 6 or 7 of us going. Making it an overnighter.

my wife and motherinlaw are heading up to Cape Cod for the week

Waiting on the coal man, should be here this week, then should be ready to go.

The leaves are about peak around here, lots of colors, we lost a lot this past week with all the rain.

OK..... Looking for a BFH, huh? Here's one we found at the north cabin a few weeks back. I put a new handle on it & its ready for action. It's the only hammer I know of that will hold it's own handle in the air from the weight of the head. Yes, this is a real hammer. On the head it says "18".

Morinin' all. Nice hammer Freddy! Just about to leave for camp, Time to start cutting firewood for the winter there. Still have around 500 pounds of coal there for the stove, so no worries there. Looks to be a beautiful day here, I'll take all the nice weather I can.
Have a great Saturday everyone, and be safe!

Freddy wrote:OK..... Looking for a BFH, huh? Here's one we found at the north cabin a few weeks back. I put a new handle on it & its ready for action. It's the only hammer I know of that will hold it's own handle in the air from the weight of the head. Yes, this is a real hammer. On the head it says "18".

Wow, now that could take care of business! Lisa

Good Morning Esteemed List Members,
Not sure what woke me up at 0600 today, yesterday I could barely pull myself out of bed at 0700. And yes, beautiful motorcycling these days. I took a ride to Hamburg, PA yesterday to see the model jet show. Remember the planes the guys would fly using a remote control? Now they do remote air force jets. It is so cool! And the jets do rolls, dives and drop smoke. Neat show! And fast too!

I am letting a Harman Mag go this morning to another list memebr from my area. I bought it early last season at a bargin price, wire wheeled it, painted it and used it for a few months. But after deciding it was slightly undersized for my home, I went back to the big hand fired. So, it will be sold this morning. I wish I had a use for it but I just don't.

And Lisa, I agree. It's amazing how those gentle reminders take place. Here's one for you, dropped my heavy reading/safty glasses at a crowded fire/cookout a few weeks ago after dark in weedy grass. I was sure the glasses would be stepped on before I could find. A buddy found them untouched later that night off to the side where nobody was walking. Not as impressive as your event but a still, a simple reminder.
And Freddy, thanks for all you do. Neat hammer too.

Moring all. Coffee is great this am. At work again. What a week. Rained a couple of days and the other days were windy and a bit cooler. Highs only got to the mid 50's. Suppose to be this way from now on. Will probably strike the match this week sometime.

On another note, it was my son's first day of school (pre-K) on Tuesday. It was very exciting standing outside and waiting for the bus. He started later than the other kids his age due to having a stroke at 8 months old. He's now 4 and about 1-2 years behind where he should be due to brain damage from the stroke. We have a lady from Child Development Services who rides the bus with him and is with him throughout the classes to guide him. He was excited about going to school until he got about 10 feet from the bus. He started to cry so the lady scooped him up and got on. He only cried for about 10 seconds because my wife got a text from her saying that all was well. Thank God! We were worried that this would happen. This state program has been a blessing. He has been receiving therapy (PT, OT, and Speech) on Monday's and Friday's since the age of 1. He'll only be going to school on Tuesday's and Thursday's so it doesn't interfere with his therapy. We'll see how he does. He may have to go back to pre-K next year. At least he's healthy. We thank God for that everyday. Have a great weekend everyone.

Well, breakfast is done--homefries were outstanding--damn Freddy, you had to post the pix of that fence post maul---that is what my day will consist of--making sure all my cedar fence posts are set nice & firm & replace thems that's not---yep,the cedar posts last a good ten yrs or more--I've got metal T-posts on the road side,but prefer the cedar for cosmetics & countrification--the snow plows usually trashed the road side posts--hence the T-posts---have a good week-end all----Happy Birthday John

Morning all. Freddy it must be quite a liberating feeling to have your life back after having to be so vigilant with your mother in law. Glad to hear you and your wife are enjoying yourselves. I feel your pain regarding your back....literally. I removed the stoker mechanism from my boiler earlier this week and forgot how darned heavy it was. But once the bolts were off and I gave it a yank, I had little choice but to carry it and sit it down. Not a smart move on my part. Threw my back out and in the process I reacted by stiffening up and pulled abdominal muscles. I've been a wreck all week since. Apparently 58 ain't like 28.
Nice to be back on the forum after taking the summer off.

Good morning. Coffee is great, and a great start to a perfect fall day. The lawn looks like it can wait another week, so I get an extra 4 hours of free time this weekend.

Next on the list: Finish plumbing dad's EFM. If all goes according to plan, the boiler should be full of water by the end of today...then comes the wiring.

Up at 5 AM and fortunately no back issues. I know where you are coming from, just plain not fun. Beauty of a day, 'leaf peepers' are coming by the bus load, and everyone will have great weather for the long weekend. No bugs, no snow, clean crisp air....fall foliage festivals going on.....fresh cider.....and with an overnight temp of 28, bet a few will drop that first match. Get out and enjoy the fine weather. Take a friend along.

Oh yeah .... that means I gotta stay home the next week or so .... leaf peepers ... ... stopping for no reason in the middle of a major highway with no turnsignal ... driving 20-30 mph BELOW posted limit ...

Hey Freddy, I think that BFH is just the ticket to tune up this here Jimmy! That would work great!!

It's Saturday ... that means I will be sending lead downrange at extremely high rates of speed today. My brother just got himself a new S&W 1911 that we need to heavily test. I'll have to squeeze off a few through the Marlin, just to make sure I haven't forgotten how to use it since last week.

Lost alot of leaves so far. Very close to peak in my yard. Still lots of green ones left on the oaks, so it'll be a while yet. Low temps have been in the lower 40's. Yesterday got up to 70° which was nice. A perfect motorcycling day is one where I can leave the house in a T-shirt & ride all day long. So for me that would be roughly 89°. Those days are gone. Gotta dress in layers. I get cold waaaaay too easy, & when I do I start to sound like a democrat on Bush's inauguration day!

Later folks!

Morning all, For some reason I didn't make coffee today. Just too sore from working, I guess.
Yes, chilly at night, all this week. Had to start up the F.P. twice.
Just fixed my log splitter this week (Armature went bad) so I got a chance to split a few cord. I like the nice breezy days for splitting wood, the dust and bugs get blown away quickly.

Lisa, how in the world did u get a bunch of kids to walk single file down the road??? Wow, that must have been scarey. We live on a back country road too, where there is a hil before our driveway, and another after the driveway. When the bus picks up our 5 and 9 year olds, we have to watch out for speeding cars. At least once a week, a car blows right by the stoppped bus, without even slowing down! The bus driver sure knows how to use the bus horn for those guys! We also see alot of cars that will stop, but then the car behind the first car are going too fast and end up rear-ending the first stopped car. Its crazy! I wish the police would park in our driveway, but they have to park over the hill in a nieghbor's driveway to catch the speeders that don't slow down in front of the school.

Another nice day for splitting wood.
Take care everyone.

Morning all,

I see that I get the hot distilled remnants of the pot. Nah, I think I'll just get a glass of iced tea. Slept in this morning. Worked most every night this past week. The shoulder is progressing well. Met with the ortho last Monday and he was really impressed with the movement I got back. He really complimented the PT group that I went to. He couldn't believe the progress made so far again reming me of just how bad the shoulder was when he operated on it. I'm at the point now where I have just about the full range of motion but I just lack the strength to do anything with it. So it now involves strength training. At least now I can start working again !!!

It has been a tough spring and summer businesswise due to not being able to do too much. Time to play catch up.

I lit the match on the Hyfire at the shop last week due to dampness and having to spray the whole side of a wrecked car. I let it go out yesterday. Meanwhile at home the AA has been cruising along making DHW. But the other night I did hear the circulator click on. Dropped the pipes, cleaned them and then lubed it back up for the upcoming season. We are ready now for whatever this winter brings.

Breaks over. Time to finish putting this car back together then off to buy some loose shelled corn this afternoon and then headed down below Salisbury MD tomorrow AM to dump that corn for the upcoming deer season. Can't wait. I got myself a new pole blind and will be comfortable this season. Muzzleloader opens in 2 weeks on the 21st. Time to fill the freezer back up.

See y'all later.

Rick