Coffee 3-14-15

Good morning! Come in, come in, all are welcome. Spend a moment, share a quick story, or just sit & take it all in. The coffee is hot & the tea bags are fresh. How about home fries, baked beans & eggs over easy? Let's make it happen.

We had one warm day this week. It hit 53 I think & the snow was leaving fast. We easily lost 16" in the one day. We even had mud season for a few hours. The top one inch thawed & was some slippery with frozen mud under. But, the next day it only got up to 24. Everything locked back up. The snowmobile trails survived. There's still well over afoot of snow on virgin ground & the trials still have two feet or so. Tonight a storm is bringing 6 or 8 inches of new snow. We may have another week or two of snowmobiling and cross country skiing. I was out on the snowmobile yesterday & on the highest spot around was a lone folding chair in the snow. It looked like someone hiked up, planted the chair & just watched the world go by. The chair was left. I didn't have a camera with me.

My buddy John & I have had some good rides on our *new* four stroke snowmobiles. Yesterday we found a good lil' flat spot & did a few speed runs. It wasn't long enough or straight enough to hit top speed. Maybe 1,500 feet to accelerate in before it dumped you onto the pond & you had to slow down. It had a slow turn half way through. You had to slow up to 65 to make the corner, then back on the throttle. Being an old geezer I surprised myself when I glanced to the speedometer & saw 85. It was still pulling!

That one warm day has left the taste of Spring. People are starting to venture out. They are shaking off the cabin fever & even though it's back to cold, people are talking and pretending Spring is here. It can't be far off now.

Enjoy the weekend. Make sure to hug y our loved ones.

Good morning all. Yes it is mud day here in NJ. The family is all coming here today to enjoy traditional corned beef and cabbage. I will even fire up the smoker and make pastrami. The girls are making banana cream pie. yummy

Well coffees ready so enjoy the day.

Mornin all, outstanding coffee as usual Freddy:) Sounds like fun on the snow machine. I bet the one warm day here we lost a couple foot of snow. One more week till Marathon Maple Fest--anyone close enough should try a day trip. Good times to be had. Enjoy the week-end people.

Freddy ,it's good to know that someone enjoys the snow, I tolerate it as part of winter & with farming blood,i know it is a good thing for the ground,a very good cover for our strawberries especially this season with the brutal temps . We have had a number of days with the high temps in the 50's,lots of snow melt,very little run-off tho,which is good as the water is going down into the ground.34* now with rain,rain is forecast for much of the day ,maybe we will finally get rid of the snow.High temp today forecast to be 52*,Sun 47*,Mon 55*,then next week back in the 40's. This morning I will be heading out with my F250SD & trailer to pickup equipment for service & repair in our shop,of course I just had to schedule this for when it is to rain.Our snowbells are blooming,our first flowers for this yr. I can hardly wait to get in the garden & till for the new gardening season. Enjoy the weekend.

Good Morning everyone!! Been a long winter, past week temps have been rising. Snow & ice build up on roofs have been sliding off which is good! Project for this morning is to take front driveshaft out of plow truck, last weekend cleaning up thawed ice in drive I slid off side, got stuck, tried backing up shaft twisted and broke off....UGH!! Truck may have one foot in junkyard, but it still plows snow just fine!!
Got shoulder holster for new pistol, tried it on... like to have it ride a bit higher so will have to figure out another belt laynard that will allow for that. Yep will be going to Maplefest in Marathon next sunday and see that old cogger FFred!! Last tear he was in the repair shop getting plumbing tuned up. Enjoy the weekend everyone!!

Mornin everyone.
Great coffee and breakfast Freddy. Sounds like you are having loads of fun on the snowmobile. I've never ridden one. When it gets cold and snowy, I spend most of my time indoors. I'm not much of a winter person.
It's raining here right now, most of the snow is gone. But it ain't over til it's over.....they are calling for snow tonight, and some more throughout the upcoming week. Like Windyhill, I'll be happy when I can get the tiller into the ground.
Nice holster there Wilder, I just have the black belt holster for mine.

Take care and be safe all.

Lots of rain here today and chilly, the stoker is keeping things nice and warm inside though. Breakfast sounds good....had a coffee cake muffin earlier at DD so i'll only have a taste of whatever is hot.

With the rain outside it's a good day to finish entering in all the receipts and get the rest of the tax package together to send off to be done. I stopped filling out the tax forms about 15 years ago. There were too many things to figure out having a couple home based businesses. I came to realize if I kept doing them myself I'd have ended up in Montana on a 100 acre property surrounded by barbed wire and land mines and attack dogs, armed to the teeth daring the IRS to come get me! :box: My sanity (what's left of it) was/is worth the prep fee.

If I get that done I'll probably head into the attic and redo some insulation on the north side of the house. I'm trying to figure out how to minimize condensation on the underside of the roof deck back there. The front side gets lots of sun, warms up and there is no problem. The back side doesn't get the sun, holds the snow and the roof sheathing stays cold so when the air that has been warmed from the sun on the front side hits it it condenses. I am going to try 3/4" foam board insulation on the underside of the roof sheathing on about 1/2 the area and see if that works. I've had a fan up there drying it out & I plan on checking it in about a week and compare the sheathing where I put the insulation and where I leave it bare. I'm open to other ideas anyone may have as well in case this doesn't work. There are currently air baffles at the eaves to allow air flow up to the ridge vent which works fine on all other areas of the roof except the north side.

Have a great day everyone!

Morning everyone,

Baked beans for breakfast? Who’d have thunk it? It must be a Maine thing. I’ll give it a try though; baked beans are a favorite of mine.

We have rain here today as well but there’s no chance of it turning to snow.

Bad news on the bee front - 2 of my personal hives didn’t make it through the winter. It appears that one of the top bar hives and the conventional square hive starved although there was stored honey and supplemental food within 6 inches of the cluster.

The bees were faced with a damned if you do and damned if you don’t situation. They needed to leave the cluster to find food but when they did they perished in the extreme cold. I can tell this because of the position of the bees. The cluster bees had their heads buried in the honey cells trying to get the last drop while a smattering of single scout bees lay throughout the hive.

I don’t know if putting that extra wrap on made a difference but I’m inclined to think so. 3 out of the 5 hives we wrapped made it through the winter. The boys’ hives are thriving.

They have to worry about those hives swarming and losing half or more of their bees while I clean out the dead hives and installed packages of new bees. The new bees will arrive in mid-April and since they will go into an empty establish hive the loss shouldn’t impact the honey harvest.

Doing anything outside will have to wait due to the rain. It’s a good day to sit by the stove and watch the basketball games.
Take care, Lisa

Good morning,
Rain and mud here, lots of melting snow. I have about 400 lbs of nut left for the Harman then it's done for the year I suppose.
Getting some coal for the boiler today, the bin is a bit low:

Took a blast on my neighbor's Arctic Cat 600 triple 2-stroke the other day - MAN was that fun! Up to 65 mph in seconds with skis in the air! What a rush!! I might have to get me one of these things. Their other sled is a 900 triple - ported, high-compression pistons, pipes, carbs - this friggin thing is NUTS!!! I can barely pull the recoil to start the thing. First time I rode it I hit 80 in less than a second, and almost got spit off the side like a bucking bronco .... Funny how all these bumps suddenly appear on what looks like smooth ground, at 80 mph ...

Had to take my Polaris down to their house to retrieve the 600 on their big hill - I barely made it. Snow was melting like hell - I was spinning all 4 at 6 mph all the way up. Finally got to the top - fired it up before I was about to tow it, just to check it out - hit the throttle and it lurched forward. HMMM ... so I put the straps away, moved the Polaris out of the way, hit the throttle and off I went, skis in the air! Guess the brake had heated up to the point where it locked solid the day prior. Just rebuilt the caliper - should be good to go now. Boy are parts for these things EXPENSIVE!! New caliper over $230 before shipping! Rebuilding it was still half that ... Maybe I'd better stick with my ATV ... or find a Polaris sled!

Got the Marquis up and running. Was warm enough in the barn to attempt starting (15w-40 Rotella don't like to move below 45°). Sounded better than ever! Turns out in the 12 years we've owned this thing, I couldn;t find any indication in my records of changing the fuel filter. Turns out, I never did!! 140k miles and 12 years on the SAME fuel filter!! And that's just how long WE owned it! Probably older than that ... I just had to cut it open to inspect! I could barely blow thru it. The paper element was COATED from top to bottom with what looked like MUD! Amazed this thing ran! Next up is a complete overhaul of the A/C system. Going to just go all new everything front to back, and charge it up with 134a to keep things simple. Wanted to stick with R12, but the stuff is getting stupid expensive now. Guess running a GM white orifice tube (.072" vs. OEM Ford blue, .067") with a new parallel-flow condenser should optimize that refrigerant as best as it can be. We'll see how that works, I suppose.

Rain is better than snow - I'll take it! Have a good one folks.

I can't believe it ran with that much crap in the filter!

At least it wasn't the OEM filter.

Smitty, I'm surprised you aren't going to do another propane conversion on the A/C. I still haven't forgotten the El-Camino project.

I tried it last time, and the pressures were SKYROCKETING, and the cooling sucked. Had 330 psi and climbing on the high side .. and vent temps were in the 60's on a 80° day. From what I've found, propane only works the best in A/C systems equipped with a TXV valve (thermal expansion valve) - in orifice tube systems, the fixed orifice can't optimize the propane, I figure. Could be the crappy tube & fin condenser couldn't get rid of the heat ... not sure there. Maybe I'll give it a shot with the new stuff installed.

Wood'nCoal wrote:I can't believe it ran with that much crap in the filter!

Yeah me neither! On the original OEM fuel pump too, as far as I know - I've never touched it! Had 68k miles on her when we bought it back in '03. Total creampuff.

Wife gets 21mpg average out of the thing. Can't ask for better than that out of a V8.

And I bet it rides like a dream too!
Can't beat those full size body on frame cruisers.

It's got Bilsteins in it too - the ride is UNBELIEVABLE. I went down the dirt section of our road at 40 mph after I installed them. If I had done that before with the cheap Monroes in there, the front end right would have pogoed me right into the woods! After the Bilsteins, the front end stayed perfectly level, and the wheels took all of the unevenness and g-outs, and smoothed them right out. Friggin amazing ...

Wife is spoiled now. When she gets into any little car, the first thing she says is, "Wow, this rides like *censored*!"