Being retired, it’s totally possible for me to stay at home. Actually I haven’t been on the main road out or here since Sept 26 and only then because I ran out of cut off disks. Actually I could stay back here for a year and a half with my current stocks. Especially now that I can get power from charcoal thanks to you guys. Of course I do get a fair amount of stuff delivered but it’s mostly for my projects so I may go more crazy without it but it wouldn’t kill me. At least I don’t think it would.
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all i need do is write checks to lawyers
Ha! Ha! Nice sentiments: stay home for others. Please. I love it when they do. Less traffic means more safety for us.
Me always a key-holder, a business opener; it was get there no matter what. No excuses. Get it done. Ha! Proof doing this is why you get to be the key-holder.
So before my wife in 1993 I did just lugged snow tires and chain up as needed. Still. Ditched it a few times. Ice, ice, ice. I was anti-studded tire guy back then too.
New wife was an in-charge Nurse. Must she always make it there. Her Father taught her that meant studs front and rear no matter what she drove.
So I loved her enough to commit and marry her. Meant I had to on-off her studded wheels and tires.
Ha! And then in the ice storms travel with her to get staff pried out from home to release staff stuck who’d been double and triple shifting in place.
THEY rode to in-home assignments in the wife’s safe, safe studded tired vehicle. And I got to slip and slide their often bald tire’ed personal vehicles, following.
My wife proved to me she was an excellent bad weather driver.
And I am no slouch.
Better tools mean much less drama getting the job done.
Nokian, Hankook and Cooper winter studded tires are the better tools.
Essential workers tools.
Nokian and Bridgestone stud-less are ok.
Like using an adjustable jaw wrench when you’d really want a fixed specific box end wrench.
Use extremely carefully!!
S.U.
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Smart as I may seem. This morning I broke the pull rope on my woodsplitter. 30# oil at 26F (-4C) did it.
I have been using for the past ~10 years 5W-50 Castrol premium synthetic in all of my aircooled small four stroke engines. Use it year around. Near impossible to find anymore.
So . . . . I thought I’d be OK on this all mechanical 10.5 hp Briggs and Stratton using up the remains of a gallon of Lucas 30# high zinc and phosphorus break-in oil.
Nope. New rope. Started. Used the splitter. Then dumped out that straight 30# oil while warm. Put in a quart of 5W-20 Shell synthetic. (all I could get locally on a Sunday)
Dumb, dumb me.
By the way the newest gasoline engine oil standard is now API SP. Supersedes API SN and SN PLUS. Made to the new ILSAC GF-6 testing standards.
10 new criteria to help with long chains wear driving multiple overhead cams; cold cam shifting vane phasers performances; internal chain driven waterpumps wear leaking; turbo-boosted engines to help the hot, hot turbo bearings try and live longer; etc.
And check your late model owners manual and they no longer want you seasonally adjusting your vehicles engine oil viscosity. Use same-same specified year around.
5W-20 means, 5W-20; not 5W-30.
0W-16 means 0W-16; not 0W-20.
Many more internally mechanically sensitive factors in todays modern engines than just 15 years ago.
Even small engines.
Wasn’t the piston/cyclinder and bearings cold drag that caused me to cold pull over break my pull rope.
It was the thickened oil then non-functioning exhaust valve lifter system NOT giving compression release at cranking RPM.
And that I’d finally identified in long term woodgased engines with oil thickening from soot deposits.
Woodgased fueled; chargas fueled you just going to have to change the oil more frequently or suffer problems.
Regards
Steve Unruh
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Well J.O.
Yesterday another rare-rare break day between the cold rain storms.
I put on the 3rd last set of studded snow tires that I will do. Iffy doing this. Half the studs worn off. Tread 70% worn. It was the too wide of summer road tires the wife let the tire shop talk her into in 2013. Now only 20% worn, but now age hardened. This light Hyundai Tucson hydroplaning on me highway straight driving that convinced me; get-them-off!!
Cold blowing rain here this morning. Snow mountains ski slopes accumulating just above.
I woke early to stoke up the wood stove. The central electric furnace cycling too heavily was disturbing my sleep.
All sleep still. I stoke.
So down in your man-cave furnace room . . . do they say down “More Heat. More heat.” ??
Or fuss, why you “isolate yourself”, “with your wood slaving mistriss”??
Here with three females to please. One always cold. One always too wood stove driven hot. One just right.
How I know I am doing it right.
Regards
Steve unruh
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Well Steve at least you didn’t open your eyes up to this.
Weather man called for rain, he missed it again. Hopefully it will turn to rain. I covered the wood I chunked up yesterday with metal siding and tarps. I have about a cord of wood chunk up and in the wire cylinders fencing, not counting what is bagged up under cover.
The wet season is on it’s way, maybe wood chunking season is over for me, I was just really getting into it too. Hopefully the snow will stay away so I take the truck out for one more drive or two before the we get snowed in and I need my 4×4 to get up the hill from my place.
Bob
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Had some wind , power was out to 30,000 people for 11 hours . Used cell phone for internet to laptop . Went to sleep early . Next day started generator made coffee turned off generator . Made fire in wood stove . Hours later restarted generator , power came back on . Need gas for snow blower , diesel for generator , have tire chains for truck .
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well , well
I have a working well . I am worried at some time it will stop working .
I do not think hiring someone will work . They will just want to dig a whole new well .
I do not want to go down there but I think i need to . I have a second well looks similar spare parts .
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Henry,
If they are working, use them. Most all of the homes around me, including mine, have similar wells. They tend to be very reliable. What I have had to repair / replace has been the pressure switch (small gray box in photo lower right), and the pressure tank, because the rubber bladders inside start leaking. I am guessing the stone-lined pit is an older/ shallower well that was ok but insufficient volume for farm use. I would guess that the one in the concrete-lined pit is a newer/ deeper/ higher flow well and pump. Probably not many parts change-able from one to another. We always have some potable water, and bottled drinking water stored. We also have an old cistern I have resisted filling in for emergency garden and toilet flushing water. What bothered me most was the un-protected electrical wiring. That would not work in our Indiana climate. Hope the well pits have sturdy covers. You can send a drinking water sample to an independent testing lab hired by you, and avoid the paperwork nightmare.
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have had water tested , have another test I have not used . It is good to know pump last a long time . The pump has lasted a very long time . I can not find anything that looks like it if I need to replace it .
I do not want to touch the wires . I think the starter capacitor was replaced . I talked to person from company that installed it . He said it was not a good idea to attempt maintenance on pump but call them when pressure tank needs service .
Hand dug well could have had bucket and roof . Huge heavy concrete slab lid had hole and bolts for hand pump . I built a deck over the thing as it was in awkward position and would be tripped over .
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Been busy on the farm, and winter has come early this year, but with some crazy fluctuations, the odd day up to plus 16, and numbers of nights at minus 16, minus 18. The top of the ground is frozen. Beaver ponds are completely walkable.
With the cold my attention focused on water heating for the cattle. This set up does the job nicely. Nice when a design works as intended. 25 pound propane tank welded to 50 pounder. Interior reflecting tin liner to keep combustion temp up. Still needs insulation in the lid, hinge and a handle, smoke and steam leave unit just around the hot enough to not hold onto long term. Got the weight just right to keep it on the bottom with 2 1/2 feet of 8" channel iron. Will need more weight for a bigger trough.
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Nice I would build a well insulated wooden box to put around that bucket. A friend of mine did that with a water system of horses that he was heating with electricity. Needless to say his electric bill was crazy even after building a well insulated setup.
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I’m planning on bubble wrap and a plywood cover to limit heat loss. Dad made a box like you describe packed with straw for insulation, it worked, but it’s hard to move etc. A 200 gallon trough will help, more mass for the surface area. I expect most of the heat loss is from the top of the water. It’s a comfortable bath temp now after burning an armload of wood, daytime high was minus 5. Plenty of heating capacity. It was funny watching the cattle make strange at the sight of heater #2, and the warmth of the water. Those that didn’t like it can get a drink as it cools over night. From experience years ago on my parent’s farm, they will learn to love a warm drink on a cold day, big calorie boost for them out in the cold.
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Build it on a wagon frame it will be so easy to move you will be wondering where the cows decided to put it. 
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I understand old Dodges are what we’re all looking for.
I found one over here 
Blocket - Sveriges största marknadsplats, bilar, bostäder, möbler m.m.
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I’m sure that model will run on wood gas, and no plastic intake to worry about. 
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If google is correct that is one heck of a deal at $116.25 United States Dollar
You could definitely do an old school conversions on that one I have seen the photos of them done during some of the darkest days in history.
I love those old cars always wanted one just because it was an amazing bit if history.
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Haha, I wish…that car is up for an auktion. It’s were bidding starts but it will probably end up as expensive as a brand new car.
@taitgarry00 Metal intake and probably slow turning too, with 3.5 litres and 35 hp
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That 35 hp won’t be so hungry…
You should bid you can’t win the lottery if you don’t buy a ticket…
Just dont keep bidding or you might be living in the car when the wife finds out. Lol
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Ha, wife buys lottery tickets. I don’t.
I keep reminding her I win every time
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