What did you do today? - 2021 version

[Gumby]

Mowed my lawn this morning. I'm hopeful that will hold it until September, when the weather starts to cool and the grass starts growing again. Most years I don't need to mow in August.

Then I worked out in our garden plot. Every time I see the big bunches of Roma, San Marzano and Amish Paste tomatoes slowly ripening in the sun, I feel hungry for the great meals they're going to make after we roast, sauce and can them. We're growing 22 sauce tomato plants this year, so it will be a big canning effort in a couple weeks. We just used the last of our 2020 sauce in June. We've also got 4 cherry tomatoes and 3 slicers (Mortgage Lifter).

 

[ivinsfan]

It was a bit cloudy today, so I decided to do a bit of yard work early in the morning. At 9AM, I gave up and went inside to the comfort of the AC. The temperature was only 92F, but the dew point was 70F. My body could not handle that. I was sweating profusely, and my T-shirt was all wet. I was freakin' miserable. Did I say it was partially cloudy?

I think this is one of the reasons SS is in trouble. In the old days before AC, weak guys like me just dropped dead and did not claim SS for very long at all. Now, they stay inside in the comfort of cool dry air from the AC, eat, drink, and merrily buy stuff on Amazon, and claim SS for a looong time.

That's OK we don't want you drop dead NW we would miss you! Have another cold beer...

 

[ls99]

Great kayaking morning, barely a ripple on the lake.

 

[NW-Bound]

That's OK we don't want you drop dead NW we would miss you! Have another cold beer...

Thanks. I don't want to drop dead either. Before retreating back indoors, I told my wife I quit! She's tougher than I am, she can stay out there as long as she wants.

I will resume the yard work tomorrow, at an earlier hour.

 

[ivinsfan]

We did the weekly crop tour and can see some of the corn will most likely not tassel. We'll have some completely barren stalks..


No rain in the forecast either... and PS don't all of you go out and buy long corn positions either, lots of the corn belt is getting good rain...

 

[REWahoo]

In the old days before AC, weak guys like me just dropped dead and did not claim SS for very long at all. Now, they stay inside in the comfort of cool dry air from the AC, eat, drink, and merrily buy stuff on Amazon, and claim SS for a looong time.

Damn! You figured out my retirement strategy...

 

[braumeister]

No rain in the forecast either.

I guess you don't have one of those fancy drive-through tractor wash places?

That's the surest way I know of to make it rain.

 

[NW-Bound]

Damn! You figured out my retirement strategy...

I trust that you have a generator to keep the AC going if the grid power is lost.

Croaking early and forfeiting years of SS for lack of AC is a real bummer.

 

[REWahoo]

I trust that you have a generator to keep the AC going if the grid power is lost.

Yep, l’m all set. I had the opportunity to give it a test run when we lost power for 50 hours in February. Worked great.

 

[W2R]

I guess you don't have one of those fancy drive-through tractor wash places?

That's the surest way I know of to make it rain.

There's one way that's even more sure.

Move to someplace like New Orleans where it rains a lot! I think it has rained almost every day since February. And usually it's thunderstorms with torrential rain, like today. From Jan 1st through Jul 17th, we had over five feet of rain here. And the year's only half over.

Yeah, you might end up with webbed feet if you live here, and also you'll need to discover the more appealing, positive aspects of humidity. Still, one thing's for sure, it will rain! And then it will rain some more. After that, more rain.

I may complain about the rain, but actually I love it. It keeps everything so nice and green and clean. I haven't washed my Venza even once since I bought it in January 2010, and it looks perfectly fine due to Mother Nature giving it a bath every day. You never have to water mature lawns here, either. And the birds love frolicking in the puddles and wet grass so that's fun to watch. No drought, no forest fires.

 

[finnski1]

The DW started volunteering for the local Loon preservation committee and we got to release a loon a few days ago. Pretty neat to see them that close and the striking colors of the head and eyes.
This particular male loon had somehow tumbled over the dam of the pond it was raising chicks on and fell about 8 feet into some crazy rushing stream(we have had 12 inches of rain here since July 1st) and apparently someone happened to notice this. A few people including the wife and I started searching for it the next day. Luckily another couple found him about a half mile downstream beached and exhausted on the river bank. They only found him because he called out when they were near. He was brought that night to a local bird rehabilitation facility and deemed to be in good enough shape to release the next day. He would have been out of luck down the river because it is heavily wooded and there was no long, open water runway to be able to gain flight. Also they basically can't walk on land.

 

[Ronstar]

^Thanks!

 

[Ronstar]

The saga with our leaking water heater continues. Usually I install a new one when the current ones starts leaking.

Not this time. I bought a 9 year warranty water heater 2 years ago that now leaks about a cup of water a day.

We made a warranty claim to Rheem. They are making this difficult. We have receipts and have had our warranty registered with them since we purchased it.

They will review our info and get back to us if our warranty claim is valid.

 

[NW-Bound]

Yep, l’m all set. I had the opportunity to give it a test run when we lost power for 50 hours in February. Worked great.

Right! I forgot about the freeze that knocked out power plants in Texas. However, I also recall now that you ran out of gas.

 

[NW-Bound]

There's one way that's even more sure.

Move to someplace like New Orleans where it rains a lot! I think it has rained almost every day since February. And usually it's thunderstorms with torrential rain, like today. From Jan 1st through Jul 17th, we had over five feet of rain here. And the year's only half over.

Yeah, you might end up with webbed feet if you live here, and also you'll need to discover the more appealing, positive aspects of humidity. Still, one thing's for sure, it will rain! And then it will rain some more. After that, more rain.

I may complain about the rain, but actually I love it. It keeps everything so nice and green and clean. I haven't washed my Venza even once since I bought it in January 2010, and it looks perfectly fine due to Mother Nature giving it a bath every day. You never have to water mature lawns here, either. And the birds love frolicking in the puddles and wet grass so that's fun to watch. No drought, no forest fires.

And one may even get to practice boating or kayaking out in front of her house every so often.

 

[REWahoo]

Right! I forgot about the freeze that knocked out power plants in Texas. However, I also recall now that you ran out of gas.

Came close to running out. My son-in-law who lives nearby came to our rescue after finding a station with both power and gas. Learned my lesson and now keep a minimum of a two-day supply on hand at all times, refreshing it every 3-4 months.

 

[aja8888]

My old friends and I had an 11:30 AM tee time today so rather than a late lunch at Cracker Barrel, we had breakfast at a Waffle House before golf........

 

[harley]

Carb loading before strenuous exercise is a well documented strategy.

 

[RobbieB]

Did garage sorting in the morning while still cool. Had some sushi for lunch and then took and passed the CA boating safety course so's I can get my "boater card" which is now required.

Anchor's Away -

 

[Venturer]

DW and I had Dr. appointments yesterday morning after which she declared she was hungry & would like a waffle,so off we went to Waffle House. While there it came a gully washer for about 15 minutes, then set in to a steady rain for the rest of the day. It is still sprinkling as I type so today will be another stay at home and rest day.

 

[MBAustin]

Yesterday was our 35th wedding anniversary. We decided to celebrate by having an early lunch outside (before it got too hot). The "small plates" at this place were much larger than we expected, so we ended up having the leftovers for dinner, along with a nice bottle of French Champagne. I enjoyed the break from cooking and minimal dishes to wash!

This morning I decided to tackle more of the dead wood from the February deep freeze. Seems like no matter how much I do, there are always 3 yard bags full from a session, and there is still more to work on. Our semi-annual large brush collection is in 2 weeks so I want to get the dead tree limbs down by then. I realized that our pole pruner, which has been carefully stored in the garage for the past 11+ years, is missing the nut that holds the blade tight, so I guess there's a trip to Home Depot in my near future.

 

[W2R]

Yesterday was our 35th wedding anniversary.

Congratulations! What a great accomplishment.

As for the trees, well, I am often quite glad that I had every tree and bush on my lot removed right after I moved into this house. This is especially comforting when a hurricane threatens. I love trees. When I want to look at them, I look at somebody else's trees.

 

[Walt34]

Actually it was yesterday, but went out flying R/C airplanes at 2:00 in preparation for meeting my student at 4:00 (I wanted to get some flying in too) followed by a club meeting at the field at 7:00, followed by some more flying until dark.

At my recommendation he'd bought a new trainer airplane, a HobbyZone AeroScout, that has a pusher propeller configuration. This helps keep all the "expensive bits" protected inside the fuselage, and according to reviews it'll take a lot of damage and still fly. It was a bit frustrating to get the radio configuration set up properly in large part because both of us were having difficulty in telling the difference between a capital letter "I" and a number "1" in the instructions. It took a third club member with apparently better near vision to solve the mystery. Good thing I'm scheduled for an eye exam next week.

The second mystery involved the flying modes. Like many R/C trainer airplanes this one has three flight modes: Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced. Beginner limits the airplane to no more than 30° of bank and pitch angles, Intermediate expands that to 60°, and Advanced removes all restrictions. We were also using a wireless "buddy box" system, meaning that I flip a switch to give the student control on his transmitter and when I need to rescue the airplane from impending destruction I just move one of my control sticks and control "automagically" reverts to me, the instructor.

Naturally as the instructor I am flying it in "Advanced" mode so I can wait until the last possible moment before taking control to give the student every chance to recover from disaster by himself. But we were finding that the "Beginner" mode wasn't working for him but it did when I flew it on my transmitter alone. Hmmmm. It turns out that the "master" transmitter (mine) also controls which flight mode the airplane was flying in, a little factoid not mentioned anywhere in the manuals. So I have to switch my transmitter to Beginner mode in order for that to work for the student.

All the mysteries now solved, we still got in a couple of successful flights before dark and I'm confident that within a few more flights he'll be able to solo and be cut loose to [-]wreak havoc on[/-] fly serenely over the countryside below.

BTW, I can now heartily recommend that AeroScout trainer airplane to anyone wanting to learn to fly an R/C airplane, with the caveat that they also have an instructor to help. Preferably one who has had a recent eye exam.

 

[Tekward]

Two hours of great outdoor Pickle-ball, breakfast, email, nap, lunch, prepare to teach veterans tonight (free 4 hour class via Zoom), drink a beer.



Tomorrow is rinse & repeat. No complaints.

 

[street]

Went to ranch again and hiked in to look for a survey pin. I never was to that corner of my property but had a a good ide where the pin could be where 3 sections come together. Well, I got very lucky and found the pin. It is on a very steep side hill with trees hiding the pin. The pin is sticking up about 10 inches and it had an old lathe right beside it.

I now know where there is two pins and I'm hoping that is all the surveyor will need to survey the new land I'm buying.