Coffee 11-21-15

Good morning! Come in, find a seat & enjoy some of the best coffee on the planet. There's always hot water for any tea people. How about a Jimmy Dean breakfast sandwich? It's been a busy week & I think a quick easy meal is called for today.

My buddy Charlie lit up his coal boiler this week. It's the latest he's ever fired it up. I'm still holding off. My new heat pumps are keeping me warm for now....at least in the house. Because the Axeman isn't running the garage is cold unless I burn some oil. The addition to the garage is almost done...just siding on two sides left to do. I got the front completed, so from the road it looks like it's all done. I used "used" siding for the road side....the new stuff is a tad darker & being the north side would never fade. Today I hope to get part of the back sided & pipe out the oil fill pipes. I'd like to top off while oil is cheap.

Enjoy the weekend!

Mornin all. Good-fast choice Freddy. garage is lookin real good. Not much goin on here. Got my 3 ton of BLASCHAK nut/stove mix last week. Hell, I'm set. 27* this AM. Gotta put a new serpentine belt on the plow truck today. First day of gun season. Enjoy the week-end people.

Mornin everyone. I agree with FF on the breakfast choice. Garage is lookin good, Freddy. Hopefully you can get it completed before the snow flies. Good luck if you are going hunting, FF. 30 degrees here this AM.

Take care and be safe all

Good morning people, like always everything is good here at the coffee house .
How do you like your heat pump Freddy? I have a old one (around 9 seer) and I can't stand it, I don't like the cold air and the cycling of the blower. Its just ok as long as the outdoor temps don't go below 50° but I'm just wondering If the new ones are any better? you just can't beat steady non-stop heat!!!
Your garage looks nice your doing a good job and from the pic you can't tell It's a new add-on .
Well my back was doing good until Thursdays morning, I bent down to put on my boots and wham on the floor I went I stood in the locker room holding myself up on the wash sink, It took me 10 minutes before I could walk again.
I was lucky this time I was able to work with only minor pain the rest of the day, everyone have a good weekend, stay safe, stay warm, and enjoy

Keepaeyeonit wrote:Good morning people, like always everything is good here at the coffee house .
How do you like your heat pump Freddy? I have a old one (around 9 seer) and I can't stand it, I don't like the cold air and the cycling of the blower. Its just ok as long as the outdoor temps don't go below 50° but I'm just wondering If the new ones are any better? you just can't beat steady non-stop heat!!!
Your garage looks nice your doing a good job and from the pic you can't tell It's a new add-on .
Well my back was doing good until Thursdays morning, I bent down to put on my boots and wham on the floor I went I stood in the locker room holding myself up on the wash sink, It took me 10 minutes before I could walk again.
I was lucky this time I was able to work with only minor pain the rest of the day, everyone have a good weekend, stay safe, stay warm, and enjoy

I hope your back gets better. I've been down with mine since 12/29/2014. I get numbness and tingling in both legs. I fall down at least once a day. Almost continuous muscle spasms, burning sensations in my back, feelings like ice picks stabbing me, other times knives, other times like a wire brush being shoved in and out of my back and pain up and down the front and back of my legs. Not fun to say the least.

Morning all.

Coffee hits the spot this AM.
Never missed NY gun season for over 3 decades till as of recent years. First couple years wasn't old enough to hunt/buy licsense. The gang all still yearn to go but the deer numbers where we go have been unrecovering as far as we know.
Ohio and PA deer gun starts after Thanksgiving...so many states, so little time.

Running on the H/P here too still. (geo/ground-source) Axeman will soon come on line me thinks.
Added another zone with a couple bb's with some o2b-pex...should be great inprovement for a lower placed room.

Enjoy your week end all, and Hug yer Loved Ones

Keepaeyeonit wrote:How do you like your heat pump

Well, it ain't no coal stove! But, it is doing the job of keeping the numbers where they should be. I can't complain about noise, it's very quiet. Once in a while it goes into "defrost mode" and for 60 seconds it's pops, snaps, & wheezes. That's the only noise it makes. It might do that once a day, sometimes twice. My solar panels have made a bunch of credits & living alone now I don't use much electricity, so, I want to use the heat pump until my credits are used up. It's looking like it might be Feb or March before they are used up! It's hard to say, as it get's colder they should get used up faster.

Sorry to hear that your back is hurting....not good. A Dr once told me: pain is OK, tingling is OK, numbness is bad..... get help fast.

Morning all....started the stoker yesterday as the temps are now cool enough that I don't want to hear the furnace kick on through the day. No surprises other than an empty bag of cowboy charcoal, fired up and has been throwing the heat.

Garage looks good Freddy. I still need to finish the door on the front of the pole barn. You have inspired me to tackle that today since the leaves are still too wet to deal with!

Have a great day everyone.

Morning all, not much action here but it is a bit chilly with rain changing to snow tonight & tomorrow. My son & grandson are coming up to fill my garage up even more, he got a contract with a large outdoor shopping area for the irrigation so he's back in that business & I'll be the winter storage area. I'll eat a half of a subway sandwich for breakfast (no where near a Jimmy Deans)but my wife couldn't handle hers with the chemo so I get to gain weight. Hope all stay safe & warm, I'm still on propain as it's still fairly warm, still haven't shut the water to the garage yet, the latest ever. Hopefully a mild winter, I still have damage from the last two, hopefully just 3 more trees to yank & that will be done.

A Jimmy Dean Sausage Sandwich,ehh? Hah! I'm old enough to remember him showing up on the old "Daniel Boone" show with Fess Parker. I guess I'll be takin' off my 'Ol Coonskin Cap and sitting down fer breakfast with all of You ! Like Sam sez,not much poppin' here weather-wise. We've got a little snow on the cars,and that's about it. We'll see what tonight brings,as it could be our first heavier Lake-Effect snow event. We've only had 2" for the Season so far,and that's simply amazing ! Here's hoping All of You are in a calm,home stretch prep frame of mind for Our upcoming Thanksgiving ! Take Care,Gang !

I had more than a sandwich for my breakfast,good thing too. Our farmer friend drove his 35,000 GVW Mack dump grain truck to Gale Mining Co. at Ginther,Pa.this morning. They can load at 1 ton per minute ! Nice folks to deal with there ,price is good too,at $160/ton,nice looking coal,uniform size,wet but not lots of water running off the truck as we unloaded. 10.12 tons of additional rice coal in the bin for the EFM520 to burn,should be around 15 ton total in the bin which should last into April,maybe early May.I had to shovel a bit of coal into the corners to get it all in,but what a relief to see our heating fuel for the season is here ....in the bin I will post pics in my thread From OWB to EFM520 Installed in Truck Box Can't wait to burn this & see how the EFM likes it.Freddy,good job on the shop addition & just in time b4 snow arrives.It was 27* here this a/m. Seems like quite a few of us have back issues,seems like we got smart too late,at least I did with lifting. I better quit this dancing & save a bit of energy for projects this afternoon.

Hi everyone,

Sorry I'm late for breakfast, I was up and out the door early. I went by the Home Depot and picked up the pipe screws for the stove install that's on the schedule for today. We've finally reached the point where our daily temps will not get above 55* so I'll be able to keep the draft without fighting it. For sure the Mark II will get installed; I'm not so sure about the Mark I. That will take a little more effort.

I spent a part of this morning concocting a sugar free BBQ for DK's Thanksgiving Baby Back Ribs. He was diagnosed as pre-diabetes a couple of months ago so he is watching his sugar intake pretty closely. I figured I'd better come up with something before trying it out on the BBack ribs. I used Splenda sugar substitute and Splenda brown sugar mix in the tomato sauce instead of the regular sugars and grilled something I found in the bottom of the freezer. It's technically not sugar free due to the brown sugar but it comes pretty darn close. It tastes good, too.

I was out at the bees hive the other day and noticed something's been chewing on one of them. It's not my dogs 'cause they stay away from the hives. Would raccoon do that kind of damage? How about coyotes? It's inside the fence and we've never had anything else chewed up.

I hope everyone gets something done on their to do list. Happy Thanksgiving

Either or Lisa, what kind of critters ya got around there?

Hi Everyone, I'M GETTING MY BUTT KICKED !!!
Here in SE Michigan, the first snow of the season is going to be more than 8".. In fact it's about 8" deep right now. I just trudged in from the shop, the snow is up to my shins in most spots. Forecast is for another 3"-5".

The worst thing is that the ground is not only not frozen, but it's wet and muddy, we had rain last week. So, when I plow the snow, I will only plow the driveway. It is concrete. The rest of the areas, I think I'll fire up the big loader, the 4-wheelsed monster with 20" wide tires. I'll just drive over all the snow, packing it down. It's gonna melt anyway, over the next week or so. But if not, a good packed snow/ice base is better than pushing a lot of gravel and mud into the snow piles.
A few pics:
This week I bored a hole under my 32 foot wide concrete slab in front of the attached garage. This was for the natural gas supply pipe I needed to run out to the shop.
I gave up waiting for the professional ground boring guys. I've been waiting over 3 weeks, with one or two no-shows each week. I quit calling them, and decided to bore it myself. So I used 1-1/2" schedule 40 PVC, cut two aggressive 'saw teeth' on the front end of the tube, hooked up my garden hose with an old straight [not a pistol grip] hose nozzle, and dug the access hole next to the slab.. And started washing and twisting and pushing.. It was a LOT of work, especially for me with my bad shoulders and being out of shape. But with a few minor snags, it took a day. Once I knew I was through to the opposite side of the slab, I dug an access trench, found the PVC, then trenched the 18 feet to the gas meter. The next day, I rented a trencher and I expected to use it for the whole day, but amazingly, it took only a bit less than 2 hours. So I got back about half my original payment for the machine..
I burried the pipe, a bright yellow 1" tube sort of like PEX. I have it inside the shop now. and will finish the plumbing in the shop next week. I have to go up one wall, about 16 feet, across the attic, that's 40 feet, then down about 10 feet to where I'll change from 1" iron pipe over to copper to get the gas to the water heater. It will be my 'boiler' for keeping the hot-water heated shop floor warm..

I might fire up the Axeman to do the initial heating of the slab,, that's a huge BTU suck, I don't want to have a stroke when I see my first NG bill.

So, not only is the ground around the shop not frozen, but it has a recently backfilled trench, that hasn't settled yet, and lots of loose dirt mounded over the trench. So no snow plowing except on the concrete.

Winter is here !!

Greg L

well, mornings have been hitting in the low 30ish range, so lit off boiler this afternoon. gonna keep coal bed just to top of bricks, and AQ stat set at about 165-170* for now, house thermos at 70. crack a few top windows half inch or so to move cold in, make it all work.Plow truck is almost done(fixin for season), but it's done for using much longer!! Hope it last 2 years. ill be satisfied. Drives to long to shovel, and family members next door don't give a *censored*. spoiled by free bee's from me.(12 years worth) Not no more. Before ya put your hand out offer something back or FORGET about it!!!! Several K($) in to GF and I because they think toys mean more. then them smart idiots, not happy with old new car (3 yrs) hard on brakes(go lease new PU truck)... while we scratch ass for something back. They already been told, no more water in the well. Suck it up, and deal with your issues. Other than life is great for us .