Coffee 10-15-11

Good morning! Come, join us for coffee & friendship. The Folgers is piping hot. It was a very busy week & no time to fill the grocery list, so for breakfast it's fried biscuits & beef jerky. Good stuff too! We made it back in '07 & it's some of the best ever.

I see we have a new AHS making heat.... Congrats go to Lsayre. Good going! There's also a new comer in my neighborhood. He's got a Hyfire up & running. He called me last night & said the Coaltrol isn't working so well. He's set at 68* & it's 76 in the house. Being that yesterday was warm all day I told him to read the manual, page 57, paragraph 3, where it says "The stove makes some heat just to keep running. If it gets too hot on warm days, actuate the window-stats." He got it!

Close call! I almost embarrassed myself. I emptied my ashes yesterday. I usually don't turn the AA off, but I saw the timer was coming to the pin, so I flipped the switch. Well, you can see it coming, I forgot to turn it back on! For some reason, just before bed time I remembered. It was down to 140 degrees, so no problem heating back up. But, if I had left it all night, I'll bet I'd have had to see about using a second match. Oh no!

Hope you all have a smooth weekend!

Close call Freddy. It's way to early for me to be up. Got out of work at 11pm last night and back up at 5am. First day of bow season today. Time for a quick cup and hit the woods!

Morning Freddy. You are up early starting the coffee as usual. You must have have made a 55 gallon drum last week as it seemed to last all week.

Still not burning here yet. It was 49 here last night but it was warm enough yesterday to keep the house comfortable. I did dream about making a fire in my Jotul stove last night though. Careful with that first match. New rules this year say state mods only get one match. After that you'll have to rub sticks together if you have an out fire.

Road trip today. Going to Sherman NY to pickup a VF3k boiler. Six hours each way! My wife is riding shot gun and we're going to make a weekend out of it. Not coming home until Monday. Problem is the weather forecast for SW NY today is 100% chance of rain and 40 mph winds gusting to 60! Lake effect rain from Erie I guess. Just glad its not snow. I'm leaving a forecast for sunny and 70. Oh well. Hope everyone has a nice weekend.

Off to stand in a wet, muddy soccer field for a couple hours. I'll have one cup and one to go thanks!

Outstanding jerky Freddy. No problem here gaw,I just take the old teeth out & savor the flavor. Nothing but rain off & on here the past couple days with more to come. Who's the idiot that always says--"well, the farmers need it" I DON"T THINK SO we've still got corn standing we can't get to. Haven't done a thing on the lean-4 & today doesn't look real promising.Almost lost the Hitzer last week, but she came back a real damp nasty 40* this AM. Have a good week end all. Hmmmm, log cabin style?? you were a Boy Scout maybe?

Ohhhhh, the coffee is sooo good this morning, a little chilly, 50f outside, but it will be a great working day. Busy week.
Been busy preparing for our new underground electrical service. I got half of a 150ft long trench dug, down to 5ft. I'll complete it today, and run grey conduit from my new meter box to the pole on the street. No rain forecasted for next 4-5 days, so I don't have to worry about that. I like to bury it deep so I can later bury water lines at 3ft deep and not have to worry about hitting the power lines.

Hey Gaw, I still have the original battery in my 2003 subaru. I don't know why its lasting so long, maybe cuz the car was kept in heated garage during wintertime? To be honest, I don't put many miles on it, just 65k to date. My wife's 2004 Subaru required a new battery in it2 years ago. But she is forever forgetting to close the door, or turn something off, so I have had to charge that battery a couple times when its been drained by lights being left on all night.

Freddy, Don't worry about that First Match. In this weather, I think everyone should get a Mulligan. I already let the DVC500 go out. I had it running for 3 days, then the weather down here got warm again. Looks like we'll have cooler weather later next week.

I built a new coal bin for the back porch. It holds about 1 ton, maybe a little less. Its 3' high by 2' wide by 7' long. I no longer have to carry the coal up the steps! I made the lid like a large pot top, it has one handle so I can lift it off entirely and lean it along the front. THis way, I can fill it with my tractor from the back side of it.

I finally got my new InterLock installed on my Main Distribution Panel. Now my generator can feed the entire house, and meet code too!

I also finished repairing a couple chainsaws and lawnmowers this week. I have a project saw I'm working on, a Stihl 064 that had a burntpiston/cyl. I didn't have any 064 jugs in my inventory, so I decided to retrofit a 066magnum jug onto the 064. Not quit a bolt-on project, some slight mods required. But it works! It fired right up, and idles perfectly. I'm still waiting for a new oil seal before I test it on some real wood.

Well, time to get back to work, I'll get some pics posted Lator.

Just grab a cup to go & if I could a piece of that jerky for later, off to a auction. By the way for those East of here if the winds don't die off you better tie everything down, rain & wind here with gusts between 40 to 55MPH. I always hope the bad weather will keep people away from the auction only to find out that everyone & their family & friends were hoping the same. Have a good safe dry day.

Coffee & jerky! Where's that scrapple everyone was chatting about this week? Rainy and windy here, someone forgot a few windows open last night and woke up to a draft house. Good thing the thermostat was set on 70.

Freddy wrote:I see we have a new AHS making heat.... Congrats go to Lsayre.

I wonder if he has setup the standard "chair next to the new boiler" yet?

Is anybody else having any speed problems on the FORUM site this AM???? Or is it just my computer or provider????

Slow here too, everything else is running fine.

Freddy let me grab a cup in between coats of paint. Luckily I can wear the spray mask while munching on a piece of jerky. I just let it soften in between the cheek and gum. Lasts a good bit that way !!!

I'll be working through the weekend. Trying to build up the time so I can make a trip to MD this coming Thursday, Friday, and Saturday with the smoke pole to restock the venison in the freezer. In our family we need about 13 deer to get through the year. We make bologna, burger, fresh sausage, steaks, and of course jerky.

Interesting vehicle repairs this week. Customer brings in a 2004 Caddy SRX. I estimated it back in May. It needed a new left rear door. Well it seems with all the rain we had over the summer, there was a leaking seam between the door and the car body. We get the thing in the shop and the rear well is filled up with 3-4" of water. It has been in there for quite a while. There is mold all over. Even on the rear seat belts. Call the insurance company to reinspect for these additional damages. Well we are now replacing the entire rear carpet, seat belts and interior sound deadening panels. And throughly cleaning the metal inner structure with bleach. When I called the customer and asked if they hadn't smelled anything, his reply was "My wife drives this and yeah she had mentioned something about it !!" And they have small kids who get belted in the rear seats.

Sometimes we have to save people from themselves..................

Back to the spray booth.

Rick

Morning all. Breezy and unseasonably warm here on the Maine coast. Some sort of shining orb in the sky too? Been nothing but fog and rain the last few days so a nice welcome to Mr sun. Some fancy shmancy sumatra beans my sister gave me this morning. Pretty dang good though with my usual thick slice of toast from a home made loaf. Don't think I've bought bread in about a year since we found a non knead method that makes a great bread. Not paying hanniford $4 a loaf for what I can make for .60 cents.
Time for some yard work around the old homestead today. This place could generate enough biomass to feed a chipper 24/7 it seems! Got to cut back lylacs and prune apple trees (Got several bushells of apples for cider and whatever) and other bushes to keep them away from the house a bit. Need to scrape and paint some clapboards too. That could be another 24/7 around here to! Picked by butternut squash out of the garden and ended up with about 160 pounds of the stuff. I'll keep half and pass thr rest around to family and friends. It keeps pretty well like taters. Have a safe and productive week you all and see ya in the threads.

Hi you'll,

The day started earlier with a visit to Lowes for the new black pipe. The old stuff was pretty well rusted out after 5 years. Then a trip to the stove store to get new door gaskets and stove screws. Who knew that there was even such a thing as stove screws? They are short little things. This particular stove store keeps them in a shaker jar next to the black pipe. Then is it was on to the auto parts stove for some "Rust Fix" and acetone to remove the old gasket glue. I was surprised to see some surface rust on the outside around the loading and ash doors and along the front ledge. There was more surface rust on the back upper wall of the fire box. I sprayed that with the "Rust Fix," too even through it will burn off after the first burn. I figured it would do some good since striking the "one match" is still probably a month or more away. I'm a little disappointed by even the small amount of rust that's there - I had made the stove air tight and put a "damp rid" in it. I'll have to think about what I can do different next year. I'm going to go put the final coat of "Metallic Black" on now.

The weather is beautiful here - 70* with a light wind. The leaves are just beginning to turn. Next weekend should be the peak for the foliage in the Shenandoah Valley. I'm sorry I'll miss it due to a long planned trip to Richmond. Oh yeah, DK and I also found the time to winterize the Travel Trailer. We forgot a couple of years ago - not really we just kept putting it off. That could have been a real mess but we were blessed that the pipe which burst was in the outside storage compartment. Anyway, lesson learned, do it early rather then later. I hope everyone is having a safe weekend with much progress being made on the "to do" list. Lisa

double post - sorry