Thanks Chris
Going to get down to 6 degrees tonight. First time it has been this cold since March of this year. Went out to check the chickens and their water was frozen. I had to run out to Walmart this evening to get a heating pad for their water. erDecembThe water was completely frozen. Hopefully all 15 will be running around in the morning. This is the first time I raised broilers this late in the season. They just need to hold out until after the first week of December.
Eric: I feel you there. It used to take me 30-45 minutes to setup and take down my work area, which I’d have to do every day I worked. That has gotten me in trouble a lot because I have severe alergies to both fresh-cut grass and many fragances/chemicals (such as those found in most fabric softeners) which cause me to have massive asthma attacks. More than a handful of times, the neighbor hasn’t warned me that he’s going to mow his lower field down near us, or they do laundry (drier) with the breeze blowing our way.
If it happens, I have to immediately drop what I’m doing and hope I can make it inside on whatever untainted air is in my lungs. At that point, I have to either hope that it doesn’t rain before the air clears or have my roommate pick up my work space for me. I always feel guilty about that because Beau does more than his fair share of chores around the house too.
Brian:
I know how allergies and athsma go. I used to have tons of problems, food allergies (milk, wheat, most nuts), animal allergies, environmental allergies (grass, weeds). About a year ago I decided I didn’t want asthma anymore. I searched and searched and I got some really good spiritual insight on the roots of disease and I haven’t really had many problems since. I took athsma medication for 23years two of four times a day some times. I was so allergic to peanuts the smell of them from across the room would make me want to vomit. I lived a very strict wheat free dairy free existence until about 6 months ago. Today I can eat whatever I want and I do. I had some toast and yogurt for breakfast just now. If I had done that a year ago I would have been really really sick right now. I can eat peanuts! That was like the biggest no-no back in the day. My throat and tounge would swell all up, my mouth and throat would itch and I would feel super nauseous. I like to do that in front of people I know now. Just start munching on peanuts or peanutbutter candy and watch their faces! My mom still freaks a little when I do :). I used to get serious asthma and hives from animals and hay mowing too. Today I don’t take a single asthma medication. I was on Advair 500/50 for most of my life (the highest prescribe able doseage). Nasty stuff really salmeterol and flutinose propionate. corticosteroid. Albuterol stimulant over stimulating the sympathetic nervous system and raising blood pressure. So glad to be free from that stuff!
I can’t help but get carried away when I think of how far Ive come from a year ago! Praise God!
In Christ there truly is freedom. Religion has poisoned many from the truth.
-God Bless
Eric Cartier
Hey Brian, Neat folk art, those “bolt folk”. Even “sharpened” the axe. Good practice welding small items. I have a small table in the LR full of miniature lighthouses, little ships, seagulls etc. All collected not built.
Isn’t it great just to have a dedicated place to work! I’d feel lost without my shop area, I call it my other world.
Life is interesting. My dad spoke fluent french with his folks and my mother spoke Czech with her folks. So in my life I have 2 four word languages, lol. They spoke only English to us kids, a sign of their “times”. Too bad, I could have grown up tri-lingual.
You’re welcome for the screen prints.
Pepe
“Interesting” is a nice way to put it Wayne.
Thank you for the OT posting on corn. I live in dairy country. The farmer that rents my land uses the weed killer, Round-up to kill all of the plant life in my fields. He then plants “Round=up” ready corn which is not affected by the weed killer. Again he sprays the fields instead of cultivating the weeds. When he harvest the corn he “chops” the entire stalk and leaves only a small stalk/stubble in the rows. The erosion got so bad that he had to hire a large front end loader to come in and fill in where the rain/snow had eroded 3 feet ditches between some rows. I have gone to charging him rent based on what he plants-- hay acreage is cheap and other crops get more expensive. Anything that leave “trash” in the field (combined corn) is more expensive and beans and silage are pricy. The article made me realize I’m not alone on this subject. Plus I have written several letters to my Congress people explaining how with seasonal engines ( snow mobiles, boats, motor cycles, yard equipment) we are having to purchase premium gas which dose not have ethanol in it because sitting in the off season the ethanol plugs the carburetors and hardens the plastic tubing Again thank you for the OT post and I apologize for getting wound up but I’m not sure some of the city folks understand all of this. Go Woodgas.
Tom C.: I’m not even going to let myself get worked up about the environmental/political/economic (all food costs a lot more because of this practice and “food stamp” benefits have gone DOWN since then) parts of why corn Ethanol is ridiculous.
I have 1 place within 50 road miles of me that will sell ethanol-free gas to the public and they won’t guarantee the Octane rating (small engines need higher Octane gas to be effective). It’s all together ridiculous.
I was thinking about a comment MikeL made yesterday about his sandwich freezing as he was trying to eat it, and I got to thinking about weather horror stories. I looked back and found some climatological data from here in Texas during the “killer” summer of 2011, when we had all the wildfires, and found these statistics:
100 out of 103 days at or above body temperature
44 consecutive days of >= 100 degrees
66 out of 67 consecutive days of >= 100 degrees
The average daily high during the month of August was 105.2 - the highest was 110 and the lowest was 93. If we throw out the high and the low, the average was 105.4
From the morning of July 5 until the morning of September 2, the coolest outdoor temperature recorded, day or night, was 76.
The total recorded precipitation during this period was 1.43 inches, 1.26 of which came during the night on June 21.
All data taken from http://www.srh.noaa.gov/fwd/?n=f6
I remember walking across grassy areas in August, and the grass would crunch under my feet. Of course, the payback comes during this time of the year when a half a cord of firewood should last me all winter.
Any other horror stories?
In June 2011 our ground was drier than ever in history. The grass crunched underfoot just like you said. I had a log chain fall off of the tractor into a crack in the ground and just disappear. Come Christmas when I walked by that crack I could still hear that chain falling…
Garry
Garry, I think your log chain mated with my missing one and they are now living in Kansas somewhere. I had to buy a new one … Mike L
" We were around 15 degrees F today and my sandwich froze solid while I was eating it at 1 PM when it was in the 20’s with 30 mph winds. I am wore out … Those southern boys don’t have a clue :o) … The snow did not melt today … Safe trip, Mike "
Good Morning Mikie,
Real sorry to hear about your sandwich !! As a Southern boy I can’t offer much advise on the matter except eat faster.
As an experiment I stood on the porch this morning eating one of the wife’s cat head biscuits with a little sorghum syrup. Could tell no difference in the biscuit from start to finish. However the syrup may have been easier to keep on the biscuit toward the end of the experiment.
SWEM
Wayne .
Mike
You can keep your clue and frozen sandwich too, I’ll stay here. Seen -10f once here. I think it was around 1988.
Marvin
On second thought send the sandwich down here and I’ll thaw it out for you.
Everyone should move to Tennessee. It’s almost, always perfect here.
carson
Just from here in South Africa, we have been experiencing the hottest spring in our recorded history on the farm 32 years, we have got to 47 C 116 F and it’s not even summer yet, we have had several hail storms.
Now try operate a gasifier in a shed when the corrugated iron roof is the same temp as the head exchanger.
By the end of the day I feel like a piece of biltong ( jerky ).
Enjoy the bad weather, it makes one appreciate the good weather even more!
Patrick
Well sure glad I’m neither especially cold or hot n’ dry like many of you folk. Once our always too short of “dry” summer broke on Aug 27 we’ve only had 10 day it has not rained in the last 81 days. Only had 5 actual glorious sunny days one by one skitter, scattered in there ( when I take the show off mountains and canoeing pictures). By end of a 150 year historic wet Sept after the 4th longest no rain period of 62 days my outside wood is now again 60% sinker wet saoked through and through. Be able to really dry out again maybe beginning mid next July and be dry by mid August to begin it all over again.
Ha! But my Doug FIr trees love this and do grow some year around! More tonnage per acre growing than in the Brazil rain forest.
Nice stove ArvidO. Be real easy to glass front that door. Tell me how big or small and I could see about shipping you up piece.
S.U.
Here’s 200.000 BTU worth of fast heat. This is a double inner barrel damper setup for door loading without much smoke puffing. One inch rebar protects the bottom barrel for at least a decade.
http://jamclasses.drbanjo.com/static/dimages/Barrels.JPG
HA! That’s what Im building Doug! Except out of old LP tanks… and I spent an excessive amount of time making my own door and hinges…
Whats the inside look like?