What did you do today? - 2023/2024 version

[Gumby]

Replaced the brake pads on my Subaru Forester. It has been rain showers today, so I had to do the fronts, run inside when it started raining and then run back out to do the rears when it stopped. By the time I was done with the rears, it was raining again. A pain, but I'm glad it's done.

 

[5Miler]

DGF and I woke at 06:00, had a spot of coffee and breakfast before walking over to the boat dock at 08:00 to catch our two each, one tank boat dives. Got back in about noon, had a bit of lunch in the room. I'm lounging at the pool for the afternoon. It is currently deserted as most guest come and go on Saturday and the old guests have now gone and we are waiting for the arrival of the new ones. DGF just headed off to take her nap. Going out for ribs this evening.

Been here for 1 1/2 weeks with 4 weeks still to go.

 

[skyking1]

Here sounds very nice!

 

[1242Vintage]

Got out on my gravel bike for a 44 miler today with 4K feet of climbing. Training up for gravel race season which starts in June.

In other news I’ve been signed up for a golf tourney …. and I don’t golf much anymore. Gotta hit the driving range so I don’t look like a fool at the first tee!

 

[Gumby]

Went with my neighbor to Lowes and bought 45 2 cuft. bags of mulch to share. At Lowes, they used the forklift to load a pallet into the bed of the truck, but we had to unload every bag by hand when we got home. Man, I'm sore and tired.

 

[aja8888]

Watched The Masters.

 

[Jerry1]

Watched The Masters.

Same here. It was a nice day and I should have been doing something outside, but, it’s the Masters and I got caught up in that instead.

 

[skyking1]

I've been battling with a cold for the weekend. I got the large lawn picked up, mole hills shoveled (ARGH), and mowed. Puttered about and kept a low profile for the most part.

 

[W2R]

I did the laundry, got the sound working again for my laptop computer, and took a nap. Everyday life in retirement is pretty good.

 

[street]

Spent entire day at the ranch. I rebuilt the threshold on the old shop walk in door and replaced some old wood siding. Spent three hours taking out a man-made ditch that carried water from live crick to a field for irrigating. One scoop at a time and hand leveled. I'm about half done and been working on it from time to time for the last month. I was just going to quit and a local rancher came over and took the rest of ditch out in about 30 minutes. I really did appreciate that very much.

I was going to turkey hunt for a few hours but was getting hungry so headed home. A beautiful day in paradise today.

 

[Music Lover]

3-4 days of rain and cooler weather expected starting tomorrow. Cleaned up outside and bought a couple concrete grinding discs and some concrete patch so I can prep the basement floor for glue down vinyl plank flooring.

 

[Ronstar]

Yard work up the wazzoo. One of my oldest perforated drain tiles has almost completely silted closed over the past 30 years. Lots of earthmoving - shovel and wheelbarrow. I need some rain to test my results. I may need to try jetting out the clogged line, or renting a trencher to put in a new line.

 

[Gumby]

Did bookkeeping at church for about 3 hours, went grocery shopping, then got to work spreading around the 45 cuft of mulch I bought yesterday. The hard part isn't actually spreading the mulch, it's hoeing to remove the weeds first. Otherwise, they just keep growing up through the mulch.

 

[MC Rider]

Primed some trim boards I cut yesterday.
Demolished another section of deck rail.
Talked to another painter about the exterior.
Painting the whole house is too much for me.


To be continued.

 

[skyking1]

Yesterday I was feeling good enough to go for a 4 mile walk at the Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge.
It is a local treasure with a mile long boardwalk. We saw all sorts of birds and a harbor seal.

Looking north across the sound at Anderson island on the left, Ketron on the right, and Tacoma Narrows bridge in the distance.

Twin barns from the original farm.

 

[1242Vintage]

Mountain bike race yesterday. Since my bike is in the shop, I borrowed and raced a factory demo. Super nice ride (with a price tag north of $10k) but racing something you’re not so familiar with its handling, gearing and shifting isn’t such a good idea. Finished a sad 5th.

With fingers crossed my bike will be out of the shop next week.

 

[street]

Beautiful pictures skyking1. 1242Vintage that is interesting sport you are doing. Amazing the price of that bike. Wow!

Stayed home yesterday and will today also. Been working on old pickup getting it ready to sell it once my new one comes in a few weeks.

Been doing a little fishing on the Yellowstone River in between working things around home.

 

[MBAustin]

Went to the gym this morning - twice this week after more than a month off after I bruised a rib doing something careless. Good to be back.

Now defrosting our 34+ year-old upright freezer. Only needs it every 2-3 years, can't remember the last time I did it exactly. It's in the laundry room so I did a couple of loads of laundry so the dryer heat would help the process along. Made fish stock in the pressure cooker from the sizable accumulation of fish skeletons (I often get whole fish at the farmers' market and filet them myself). Once it cools I'll strain and package it to put into the freezer this evening when it's back to temp. At least I hope so - it's so old that I worry one of these days it just won't come back on after a defrost!

 

[MC Rider]

My phone battery has been swelling some for a while but seems to be getting worse. Ordered a new Samsung Galaxy A15 for $200. Should be plenty functional for me and I am not spending 4 figures on a phone.

 

[aja8888]

Visiting with my old friend George (he's 86) in Joplin, MO.

We worked together in manufacturing in the 1970's and 1980's and were long distance runners who ran a couple of marathons together back in the day. he's slowing down and only walking a few miles every other day now. Still sharp as a tack, though.

Tomorrow I drive back to the Houston, Texas area.

 

[Walt34]

Mowed the "back forty" after doing the front yesterday. Also today sprayed four gallons of weed killer, mostly in the back. Since that's where the woods are it's not surprising that most of the weed seeds are coming from there.

Tomorrow's project is to cut out/widen the cracks in the front concrete sidewalk and patch them with filler. The plan is to use Sika "pro select" self-leveling sealant in Sandstone color. I ended up buying the industrial-size 29 oz. tube (most are the normal 10 oz caulking gun size) and the 29 oz. caulking gun since Amazon didn't have that color in the normal size. But the tube was only a few bucks more than the 10 oz. size and I'm rarely opposed to buying a new tool. Might need it again someday.

 

[Ronstar]

Sunday 5 am. Interesting day so far. Awakened at 2 am by DW peering out our bedroom window. Small boat in the lake behind our house shining a spotlight around. Light shining through the bedroom window woke her up. Boat stayed for a few minutes and then went away. Interesting to have a boat out at 2 am at 32 degrees.

I went out to investigate. Figured I'd drive to the neighborhood boat launch to see what's up. On the way there, came across a vehicle stopped in the road with a driver inside, another man outside. When I pulled up, the outside man started walking up a long driveway toward a house (also on our lake). I asked the driver what he was doing. At first he ignored me. Then I asked again and in broken English he replied "Uber". I took some pics of his vehicle and plates.

Then I left and drove to the boat launch where I found a truck (Illinois plates) with a boat trailer (Pennsylvania plates). No sign of the boat. Took pics of the truck and trailer plates and left. The first vehicle I encountered was driving by the boat launch as I left.

So I reported all of this to the sheriff. Now I can't go back to sleep.

 

[Venturer]

Spread 90lbs of contractors mix grass seed and covered with 8 bales of straw on a section of our yard that we recently had leveled. Was a tired old man when I went to bed last night,so today I rest.

 

[ShokWaveRider]

We got our Covid Booster in preparation for our cruise next month. Sore arms today

 

[skyking1]

I had an epic couple of days. First it was out early to meet a friend in Cle Elum for breakfast on Friday.
Then I took a different path to get to my friend's place on Lake Roosevelt. He was taking delivery of two 53' semi loads of his log cabin home.
I went over Blewett pass to Cashmere and down across the Columbia to head north on 97.
I drove up through all the little towns and burgs heading up to the Okanagan,
driving along the big river. I left it at the Okanagan river and followed that north and bade farewell to the mighty Columbia for a few hours.
At Tonasket I took a right onto 20, heading for Republic and eventually Kettle Falls.
This was new road for me.
Right at the top of Wauconda pass (Elevation 4310) I spotted this museum relic, preserved by the dry climate. Who knows how long it has sat on the edge of the field.

Republic is a quaint bustling little town, like a boardwalk western without the boardwalk. It does have a tractor on the roof of the feed store.

It is a steep winding climb up out of Republic to Sherman Pass, the highest year round pass in the state at 5575'. I had no clue about that, and it had several logging trucks up and down it. From the top it is an even steeper descent east to the bridge over the river at Kettle Falls. it drops down to ~1300' in 22 miles.
Twin bridges at Kettle Falls, the green highway bridge superimposed over the red iron railroad bridge.

That afternoon we got ready for the delivery, moving the camper and things out of the shop. The pickup camper now has a nice view, and is connected to water power and sewer. These are my digs when I come over to help.

He'll put it inside before the snow flies.
We shifted these three trailers with his truck to over by the container, and then I attempted to take that feeder next to the forklift to the same area behind the container.
Nope. Right about the end of that right trailer the front end cut in 2' down to the axle. It weighs 25,000 pounds and is really good at finding soft spots.
I extracted myself using the boom and we patched it up. No more driving there for a month or so.

We had time Saturday to do other things and we asked the neighbor if we could stage or turn around the trucks at his place for a contingency plan.
The neighbor has a ~500' runway and a hangar.

We got to BSing about stuff as a couple of pilots do, and he showed me this Just Aviation Super STOL that needs about 300' of that runway, maximum.

On the way back we spotted a 310Q out in the middle of a pasture. It is a disused grass strip that is too short for those operations, in my old not bold pilot's opinion.

There was an ex-Army Twin Bonanza next to the hangar.

The trucks were not getting there for a while so I measured up and ran for the plumbing to hook up the sewers. When I got back they had a load ready for me to start, and I unloaded the two trucks in an hour and a half. It's what I do.