Rainy weather is preventing me from welding. The humidity after rain kills me.
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No, no, she just blinked with her blue eyes. 
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One more of waking up to these temperatures and then spring weather. -10⁰F this morning and -15⁰F tomorrow morning.
The middle picture is my friend and I making trails to the maple trees. We could be collecting sap in a week or two. We should have about 600 trees to tap this year.
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I have a couple of taps this year. 
It is a lot more fun with 600 and an actual boiler, then it is with a pot over a fire. If I had like 10 trees I would get a little more serious about boiling, but I only have only collected about 16 gallons. I just keep hoping for hard freezes so I can pull off the ice.
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A coworker is wanting a charcoal burner for his little 95 Ranger. 2.3L i4 SOHC. I gave him an initial grocery list and I’ll be showing him the entire charcoal production process and make a grinder for him like mine. Luckily he also has the 5 speed manual so he can keep it in the torque band easier. I told him what to expect as far as power loss and he’s alright with that. I think the hardest part will be wiring because I personally can’t stand it. Maybe I’ll be lucky and it’ll have the same Airbag switch like @glgilmore. Anybody know much about the injector and pump situation in the 95s?
Edit: I checked his fuse box and owners manual and I only see a Fuel Pump Relay, and a fuse for Fuel System/Antitheft. I’m hoping if it’s shut off that it wouldn’t kill ignition as well as fuel.
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Im guessing the anti-theft might be an issue. But I think if you poke around this site there were some conversions of rangers in that era. I do not know if they used the i4 though.
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Cody all Fords of this era have a fuel pump shut off in crashes/rollovers switch.
Look under the passengers side plastic kick panel. It will be black or grey plastic with a red reset button. It works by a friction held steel ball normally bridging contacts. In front aft collisions; in roll overs; the ball inertia displaces, breaking the connection. Re-set back into place with the red button manually.
Wire your fuel pump turn off switch into there. Easy.
S.U.
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Good to know. I remember Gary had this exact setup but he has a later model so I wasn’t too sure.
Now the only challenge will be plumbing to the engine. MAF sensor is in the airbox so there’s no concern there, and it uses rubber snorkels in multiple sections. Just a little tight getting to the intake snorkel but I have a good gap if I use metal tubing and a heat shield coming up from the exhaust manifold side. Intake and exhaust are opposite of my Mazda 1998cc FE engine.
His truck appears to be throttle body injection just from a quick glance under the bonnet.
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Ordered a borescope. Always wanted one and now that they’re pretty cheap with 1080p cameras I can finally enjoy a great diagnostic tool. 40 bucks on Amazon 4.5 star reviews. 16 foot cable and built in screen.
Transverse engines are the bane of my existence just for the reason of not being able to readily see half of the block.
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Hurrah! We are finally getting our own fresh grasses and grub-bugs enrichened chicken eggs again. Most of our hens are 4+ years now and far past their eggs making prime anymore. They shut down in the depth of winter. Younger birds given artificial light do not. Just slow down laying.
Here’s hoping the one or the other of the 2-3 younger survivor hens will want to sit a clutch to replacement hatch outs.
Over the years due to coyote and neighbors’ dogs attack-kills we’ve lost the better of the setter hens. 21 hard days then with weeks, and weeks of chick worrying raising it takes the rare bird.
“Rare Birds” that’d be any who takes woodgasing out to producing shaft power and electrical generation IMHO
Regards
Steve Unruh
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hope the critter and neighbor dog problems wont be so bad at the new homestead Steve. It is interesting to me that we have a pretty crazy population of coyotes and bobcats around us, and that the coyotes typical of being a k9 have closely migrated into city’s and suburbs around people. Yet bobcats which I find to be the superior predator for hunting where as coyotes are more likely to scavenge or take an easy target, have more often chosen to stay out of sight in the foothills and dense brush. Typically cats are curios creatures and often not fearful of humans, but bobcats different. The long tail variety don’t seem to care about anything they move as they see fit. It is rare I get a call to remove a bobcat, but I get calls for coyote removal all the time
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Yes Steve I hear you. Our chickens are the same age, new chickens in the near future to replace the old ones. From 28 chickens down to 11 now. I want to get some wild turkeys eggs a raise them up. Just to have them around the place again. The last one we put on the dinner table was 27 pounds cooked. Yummy.
Bob
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Bob cat, long tail? You mean Cougar or mountain lion you are talking about? We still are seen both of those tracks down at the river. Two winters ago tracks in the cherry orchard next to the house. We had three injured deer living around us in the hollers or gullys. They did not make in through winter. But the cats and coyotes were happy and well fed.
Bob
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Jeez Cody. Is this what you are out stumbling across in your yard. I’d be on the first plane to the arctic.
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long tail is the slang term for cougar in the predator hunting world. They are largely fearless around here and cause a lot of problems in the suburbs, but also inhabit the hills. Heavy population and very few people who manage them in any meaningful way. Bobcats on the other hand or “bobbie” just are a very secretive bunch, silent and always watching and most often stay away from suburbs around my area. Just some observations I have made. And it is area dependent, I know on the east side coyote, long tails and bobbies will all run the same paths and inhabit the same area. Even though a long tail will hunt and kill a bobcat since they are direct competition for food sources. In much the same way wolfs will kill off coyotes within there territory, sometimes as competition, sometimes just to get rid of them for “sport” Early before trapping season I will set up bait stations using beaver carcasses nailed up high in a tree and set a game camera to watch it and leave it for a month. Within the first 2 weeks if there are any predators in the area they will find it, coyotes will circle the tree for a few minutes with no way to climb the tree they quickly lose interest and leave. Bobcats, long tails and bears can easily climb tress. The bobcat will climb up and feed for a while then leave and be back the next day and repeat until the bait is gone. Longtails will rip it off the tree and carry it off to cache it somewhere. Black bears will pull it down and lay at the base of the tree and consume it all leaving just the bones and walk away. If a bobcat finds the bait first but then a cougar comes along the cougar will not only steal the bait but often will be back and try to hunt down that bobcat. I only have gotten it in picture once but the bobcat was up in the tree looking for the bait and the cougar came along and tried to climb the tree to get the bobcat, which climber up high then the cougar could and calmly waited out the cougar. Some very interesting things to learn how these animals react with each other
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In the woods definitely. Luckily we have Blacksnakes to compete with them, non venomous. Gotta have snakes for the rodent problem but I’d like them non bitey.
Pretty sure Copperheads run as far north as Pennsylvania.
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By the way, Cottonmouth aquatic venomous snakes are pretty cowardly. The reason people think they’re aggressive is because they present their open STARK WHITE mouth and fangs in an attempt to scare you.
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It doesn’t have to work hard at all to scare me. My ex son-in-law was into snakes and lizards. One of my sons thought it would be good to have one so the SIL gave him some kind of python about two feet long. Luckily the fascination wore off after a few months and he gave it back. I was very happy about that.
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Dana in the 90’s when she lived in Granite Falls North of you saw a Panther Mountain Lion on her property is it was black. Very few people will ever seen one in the wild. Butch who lived behind her property saw it too. He was a professional tracker hunter for hire. Bosworth Creek boarder their property it was cat heaven in that area and they travel up and down the creek often.
Bob
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Even fewer people that get out get to see those very cool animals. In my dads small town of orting we have a small heard of local blacktail deer and one of them is a piebald. Few years ago one of its fawns got its colors as well, I see them almost every day. When I was a little tike out with my dad up in snohomish we saw a melanin deficient fox, jet black while out hunting grouse. There is also now in Washington wolverines, which were at one time native here and were trapped out in the 50’s they over the last six years have been slowly migrating down from Canada along the cascades. Thanks in part to the Washington state trappers association we have now reintroduced the fischer back to Washington and last spring I was lucky enough to see one of them hunting along the lakes edge on ohop lake less then a mile from our place
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