blog1119

Saturday, November 2, 2019

Auction day. I drove up to Rose Hill in search of bargains, and found some. Today's haul included a slow-moving vehicle triangle for $2, some plastic sewer pipe for $2, three screw-in broom handles for $1, over a dozen large casters and a few small ones for $12.50, five Model T coils for $1, four aluminum levels for $1, and a table saw for $20. I'll use the sewer pipe for a drain where water collects in front of my shop when it rains. The coils are mostly junk, but may have some usable parts. The table saw is a big improvement over one I bought years ago that has never been adequate for all the things a table saw should do. After the auction I went on to Wichita for shopping, dinner at El Agave, and a movie. The theater had a big crowd to see Harriet, and they weren't disappointed. Most movies don't get applause from the theater audience, but this well made biopic of Harriet Tubman did. Director/writer Kasi Lemmons skips much of the graphic violence expected in depictions of slavery. There is some of that, but she uses incidental glimpses of scarred backs to make the point as well. Cynthia Erivo as Harriet carries the story, assisted by good performances from a large cast. All historical movies have anachronisms, but in this picture there were none so glaring that I would notice them. I believe that is one measure of a quality production.

Sunday, November 3, 2019

Today's main accomplishments were drivng to Rose Hill with the trailer to bring home the table saw I bought yesterday, and putting ID tags on trees while they still have leaves so later I can transplant them during the winter. A couple of elms have E tags and about a half dozen redbuds are marked with R. The idea is to get the tractor with a loader running and pull them out of the ground while they're dormant and put them in more convenient locations.

Monday, November 4, 2019

My cousin Wally is a construction pro and a skilled woodworker. Today he brought out the new windows he made for the living room. We spent a few hours taking out old windows and installing new ones. We finished the south side, and will do the east side in the morning when the sun is shining there. After we finshed with windows I laid the fires for this evening, then went to town for some groceries, and that was the day.

Tuesday, November 5, 2019

Today we finished installing the new windows. That's easier said than done. It seems no two things are alike in this old house, including the spaces where we had to fit in the new windows. All of them required some trimmng to fit, some more than others. We finished about 1:00 PM, then in the afternoon I went to town for medicine and groceries. The last job of the day, after laying the evenng fires, was splitting more firewood. The forecast shows colder weather coming, so I'll brng in more wood tomorrow.

Planing the edges to fit.

Where's the bottom part of the old frame? It fell apart.

Removing old weather stripping.

Removing old putty. Some of the panes in the old windows were the antique wavy stuff, so we saved them to use in the new windows.

Installing glass in the last new frame.

They're in for now, and will stay through the winter. When warm weather returns I'll take them out to install new sills under them where the old wood is rotten.

Wednesday, November 6, 2019

With the forecast threatening rain tonight, today I got busy with the chain saw and the splitter and got a load of firewood under cover. I finished about two, and felt the first drops as I was boxing up the last batch of scraps. But the storm was pretty much of a bust. I don't know if it was a light shower or a heavy mist, but it was only enough to moisten things.

Thursday, November 7, 2019

Today I bought money. I dislike single dollar bills. I prefer to use twos and dollar coins. So this was my day to drive to Winfield and reload at the only bank in this county where I can buy $100 in twos and another $100 in dollar coins. All the other banks typically are able to scrape together just a few of either.

Friday, November 8, 2019

Today I got a little more done on the write-up of my September trip, and replaced the vise in my shop with a better one I picked up at some past auction. When I went to town for celery I checked my blood pressure on the tester at the pharmacy and found it still high at 148/87. The medicine I've been taking for it didn't seem to be helping, so recently the doc told me to double the dose. So far that hasn't brought it down to normal. This is one of the things I hate about getting old, but I guess it's better than not getting old.

Saturday, November 9, 2019

First up today was a visit to the Defore auction to see if they were selling anything worth my time. Nope. My work today was helping my cousin Pete put a tarp on her leaking roof to keep out the rain until she can get it fixed. When we finished that I drove to Wichita to see The Lighthouse, another of those movies that will never be shown down here in Podunk. Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson are the whole show, with brief appearances by Valeriia Karaman as a mermaid. The picture is shot in black & white, in the old 1:1.19 format used in the teens and twenties. The performances by Dafoe and Pattinson are outstanding, the dialogue by writers Max and Robert Eggers is colorful and at times poetic, and Robert Eggers as director uses the camera artistically without making it obtrusive. After the movie I did another BP test and got a reading of 150/96. I went to dinner at La Fiesta, then did another BP test. Stuffed with enchiladas and frijoles I got 87/62. Maybe comida Mexicana is the cure for high plood pressure.

Sunday, November 10, 2019

As usual, Sunday morning was a lazy session of wasting time on the internet. In the afternoon I did the rare thing of starting and finishing a job on the same day. That was trimming a new floormat to fit in the runabout. The mats are made a little oversize so they can be cut to fit in various bodies from 1915 to 1924.

Monday, November 11, 2019

25º F isn't terribly cold, but with a strong north wind blowing it felt plenty cold today. My first job of the day was making a new web page showing how I fitted my new floor mat. Then I made a trip to Winfield for a couple of things. One was getting a stretched chain for my saw shortened so it will fit again. The other was a visit to the phone store to have the contacts from my old phone transferred to the new one. I looked all through the manual and didn't find a word about how to do that, but the guy at the store did it in just a couple of minutes.

Tuesday, November 12, 2019

Relaxing in a chair at the dentist's office for a cleaning didn't do anything for my blood pressure, which remained stubbornly high. I'm keeping a record of all the readings, and when it's been two weeks since I upped the dosage of my medicine I'll print out a copy for my doc and see if he can come up with a treatment that works. I don't feel bad, but I know that over time hypertension can do serious damage.

Wednesday, November 13, 2019

Washing and wood were today's main attractions. My depleted supply of clean sox determined that this was laundry day, and the depleted supply of firewood in the house said it was time to fire up the splitter and bring in some more. I did some online shopping, this time for paper bags. I found what I wanted, but couldn't bring myself to buy them because of the high shipping cost. The website didn't say, but I suspect it was UPS.

Thursday, November 14, 2019

A part of becoming a person of the elderly persuasion that I hate is the geriatric clumsiness that turns a simple thing like buttoning a sleeve into an exasperating frustration. Eventually I get it done, but it's annoying getting there. Today I printed out the record of my blood pressure readings for the past two weeks and left it at my doctor's office. I hope he'll come up with something to get my BP back down to normal. The pills I've been taking aren't doing the job. On the labor front, my work this afternoon was cutting firewood. I have a new chain on the saw, and the way it cuts through a log is very satisfying.

Friday, November 15, 2019

More wood work was today's fun. First I fired up the splitter and made a lot of big pieces into many more little pieces. Then I went to town with the chain saw. Wally had a big dead pine tree in his yard cut down. He's keeping three big sections of the trunk, each weighing several hundred pounds, and having them sawed up for lumber. I trimmed the branch stumps off those to make them easier to move. The top part of the tree was smaller and too knotty for lumber, so I cut that up for firewood, which Wally brought out here. We piled it by the splitter, but I'm thnking it's so knotty I may end up just cutting it in slices insteasd of trying to split it.

Saturday, November 16, 2019

As often happens on a Saturday morning, I checked out an auction in town and found nothing to keep me there. The centerpiece of today's activity was another session with the chain saw and the splitter, reducing the pile of wood behind my shop. I tried splitting one of the pieces fromWally's pine tree, and found that even a piece free of knotts was too stringy to split well. Looks like I will be cutting the pine in slices.

Sunday, November 17, 2019

This morning I was out of here early go go see the Big Boy at its stop in Coffeyville. When it left I chased it through three counties, all the way to Yates Center, shooting video. On the way home I explored a road I had never taken in Greenwood and Butler counties. Some of it was rocky and low-pedal, and some was high gear road. In about thirty miles all the traffic I saw was a truck hauling firewood and a guy on a motor bike. I did encounter a couple of fords, the wet kind. This road will be part of a future Model T trip.

Monday, November 18, 2019

After my very unhappy HP laptop experience I swore I would never have another Windows computer. But recently I acquired a coil tester with software that is for Windows only. So last week I bought a refurbished Dell for $99 to use only with the tester. This afternoon I called tech support for help activating the thing. Next I'll set up the tester and try it on some coils. I spent the morning on a trip to Wichita for an appointment with my eye doc, where I got good news. The anti-glaucoma medicines I've been taking are doing their job. A test showed a pressure of 13 in both eyes, which is good. Before I began treatment the pressure in the left eye was 17, which is not good. It would be nice if my blood pressure medicine worked that well.

Tuesday, November 19, 2019

The forecast claims we have a rainstorm bearing down on us tomorrow, so today I did a lot of wood sawing and splitting, then when I went to town for groceries I picked up a couple of tarps to keep it all dry until I can move it inside under cover. I'm making pretty good progress cutting up the pile of wood behind the shop, and I should have the part that's blocking my loader tractor out of the way by the end of the year. I want to get that tractor running so I can get it out and use it this winter.

Wednesday, November 20, 2019

Best laid plans. Today's plan was to untarp the pile of firewood behind the shop and move it into the garage before the rain was predicted to arrive around noon. But the truck had a hard tine starting, ran rough, and died. I went to town and got new plugs and installed them, and the truck started right up and ran. By then it was noon, but the ever-changing forecast was predicting a high chance of rain followed by a break an hour or two later. I ended up spending the rest of the day working on the story of my September trip for The Vintage Ford.

Thursday, November 21, 2019

First thing this morning I finished up the trip story and sent it to the editor. The main event of the day was working on a coil testing station. When I went to town I stopped at the lumber yard and got some 1 x 12 boards for a work bench to hold the tester and coils. After making that I moved some Model T wheels and other parts out of my office the make some space.When I finish cleaning up there and vacuum that part of the room I'll be ready to set up the equipment and test some coils.

Friday, November 22, 2019

Today's main event was cleaning up in my office to make room for the new coil testing station. That means vacuuming, sorting, tossing out, and boxing stuff to really sort later. I took a walk down in the wood lot to see if recent fair weather has dried out the road any. Nope. It's just as swampy as it's been ever since last spring. Six months later there's still enough water in the bottom of the draw to be flowing with little ripples. This has never happened before in the 34 years I've lived here.

Saturday, November 23, 2019

First thing today was the traditonal drive to Winfield to see if the Defore auction had enough interesting stuff to keep me there. The answer was no. So I came home and spent the rest of the day on my office-cleaning project. I quit at six for my weekly night in town, which meant carnitas at La Fiesta and Midway at the theater. I knew a movie like that would have plenty of cgi, and I was afraid it would just be a cheesy video game on the big screen. But no, it was excellent. The script by Wes Tooke explained what was going on, the actors played their roles well, the cinematography by Robby Baumgartner was first-rate, and the sets, costuming, and vehicles were spot-on. The whole production captured the look of 1942, and the battle scenes looked real. There were good performances all around, but my favorite was Dennis Quaid as Bull Halsey. Director Roland Emmerich has created a great film, and an Oscar nomination for editor Adam Wolfe would not surprise me. If this picture is still playing next week I may go see it again.

Sunday, November 24, 2019

There's more cleaning up to do in my office, but I took a day off from that. It was a pleasant day for outside work, so I fired up the old truck and hauled in firewood. In a few days the weather won't be so cooperative.

I filled the back of the truck and several boxes,
but there's still more to bring in.

This should last well into December.

Shorty and Puff supervised to be sure I was doing it right.

Monday, November 25, 2019

As I was eating popcorn Friday evening I bit down on something hard. It turned out to be a crown that had come loose. So one of today's activities was a visit to the dentist to have it reinstalled. Another job today was replacing a damaged mirror on the Camry. Last week I wrecked the passenger side mirror driving through the narrow door into the garage, so I installed a new one today. The last job of the day was gathering tools and materials to finish installing rain gutters on the house tomorrow. The forecast shows rainy days later in the week, so I'll find out soon how well they work.

Tuesday, November 26, 2019

Today I did grocery shopping in the morning to leave the afternoon free for outdoor work. At the market I made a happy discovery. A couple of years ago the local Country Mart closed down. When shopping there I was always asked if I wanted my groceries in a paper bag, or plastic. I always took paper. We already have too much plastic in the world. I use the paper bags for paper trash. When a bag is full it goes in the fireplace for a little heat. Down the street at the Dillons store they never asked. They always just put everything in plastic bags, so I assumed that was all they had. But today the woman in line ahead of me asked for paper and got it, so I'll be asking for it from now on. This discovery comes just in time. My supply of saved paper bags was getting low.

In the afternoon I finished installing the rain gutters on the east end of the front porch and in front of the living room. I believe that's where most of the runoff occurs. I didn't have enough hangers to finish on the west end of the porch, so I'll have to get more tomorrow if the lumber yard in town has them, or later if I have to get them in Ponca City or Wichita. After the gutters, I spent the rest of the afternoon cutting, splitting, and fetching firewood. This evening I dined by lamp light. This is why I keep kerosene lights ready to use. The power went off at 5:28 and was off until 8:15.

Wednesday, November 27, 2019

Today's trip to town included a stop at the lumber yard to see if they had more of the hangers I'm using on rain gutters. Nope. I'll have to pick some up on my next trip to Wichita. My afternoon work was another session with the chain saw and the splitter, attacking the pile of wood behind the shop. I have tarps over the big pile and the stack of split wood so they can stay dry during the rain that's forecast for tomorrow and Friday. Maybe I can get all that split wood into the garage this weekend.

Thursday, November 28, 2019

Thanksgiving Day. All I did was go to my cousin Pete's house and eat. She's a good cook. I brought home leftovers that will feed me for several days.

Friday, November 29, 2019

The new insulated winter bibs I bought the other day felt too tight, so this morning I went back the the Orscheln farm supply and exchanged them for a better fit. I don't know how many years I've had the old ones, but they've become so raggedy it's time for a replacement. Except for a break to lay the evening fires in the kitchen stove and the living room fireplace, I spent the drizzly afternoon in the shop putting things away and organizing tools. I have way too many of some sockets, and not enough of others.

Saturday, November 30, 2019

Seven months ago, at the end of April, I finished my new road. But I never got to use it. In early May the spring rains turned parts of it into a swamp where my truck would sink to the axles if I tried to drive there. In the past this has not lasted past May, but this year has been so wet that all those low places have stayed swampy all through summer and fall. If this is the new normal I'll have to corduroy some of that road.

The glint of sunlight on water says don't drive here.

The little stream in the bottom of the draw usually dries up through summer, fall, and winter.
But on the last day of November, this year it's still flowing.

All the pools are full.

Shorty enjoys the wading.

Taking advantage of a not-too-cold day I took the truck out to the splitter and moved the pile of wood there into the garage. At quitting time I departed from my usual Saturday practice of eating in town. With lots of Thanksgiving leftovers to use up, I enjoyed a Turkey sandwich, green beans, and sweet potatoes. For this week's movie I went to see Midway again. On second viewing I found it just as impressive as it was the first time, perhaps more so.