With piles of weeds stacked along the
fence, the lane to the wood lot is clear behind me.
All that remains to do here is to mow the dead grass in the distance. |
Cottonwood chunks for the splitter. This
wood is relatively soft and burns faster than some others.
That's OK. I have several more dead trees to cut up. I'm not about to run out. |
Monday, December
12, 2022
Oh Boy, what a day! Actually there was no more physical exertion than usual, but I feel pooped anyway. I drove up to the county seat to pay the property taxes, then up to the north end of the county to check out a newspaper story. Recently the local paper ran a story saying the the old Fox stone arch bridge, washed out in a flood several years ago, was being "rebuilt". I was very skeptical of this, and went to see for myself. My skepticism was well placed. The old stone bridge is gone forever. It's being replaced by a modern steel and concrete span, not rebuilt. With my curiosity satisfied I headed for home. A few miles east of Winfield the tire pressure light went on. I stopped at the Walmart tire shop in Winfield for air, then headed for a gas station to fill up. I had gone less than a block when the pressure light started flashing, then went on steady again. I returned to the tire shop for repair, and did some of my shopping while I waited. I did a lot more waiting after I finished the shopping. The shop was short-handed, and took over an hour to fix the leaking tire. By then it was a half hour past my usual quitting time of 5:00 PM. I filled up the car, drove to Arkansas City, bought a big bag of dog food at the Walmart, port at the liquor store, and groceries at the market. I got home about 6:40, lit a fire in the kitchen stove, and got dinner ready. By the time I ate and filled the feeder so Shorty could eat, it was after 8:00PM. All I'm doing this evening is checking a couple of the usual websites and posting this blog entry, then I'm going to crash. Hasta mañana, amigos. Tuesday, December 13, 2022 Getting up late (a little after 9:00 AM) and spending way too much time net surfing, I didn't get around to outside work today. I should have, because today's high was 58º F and the highs in the rest of the ten day forecast are all in the forties and thirties. Then at the end of next week we'll step off the cold cliff and plunge into the teens and single digits. It's unusual to have that severe cold in December. Single digits usually don't come until February. I have a lot of wood cut and ready to split, and I'd better get on it tomorrow. I'll have to make sending my Christmas letter to friends and relatives an evening project. It looks like I'll be addressing envelopes by hand. I used to print them, but I can't do it with my current software. It's probably possible, but I can't figure out how, and the so-called "Help" doesn't tell me. Meanwhile, dozens of chores and projects await my attention. I suppose I could be overwhelmed and depressed by all the stuff I want to do but never seem to get around to, but I remember the old saying: Don't sweat the small stuff. It's all small stuff. |
Friday, December
16, 2022
After a trip to town for printer ink and a prescription, I finished printing, stuffing envelopes, and applying stamps to thirty copies of my Christmas letter. Actually it doesn't mention Christmas. It's a year-in-review letter. After another run to town to get the letters in the mail, I had just enough time to lay the evening fires and light the kitchen stove before getting dinner ready. With 95 days to spring, I have several more weeks of sitting by a hot stove to eat. Saturday, December 17, 2022 The ten day forecast, like the weather, changes constantly. Today it shows a low of -1º F next Friday morning. This morning I worked on my old laptop, trying to download a newer operating system that will accept current browsers. Twice I got a little window with the message: "This OS will not work on this computer." I'll have to take the thing to a computer shop and have a pro do the job. This afternoon I got to the splitter and filled three boxes of split wood and one box of small scraps. My Saturday treat night was dinner at home — tostadas, one of sardines and two of frijoles refritos. This week's movie was James Cameron's new Avatar sequel. One of Cameron's talents is that he knows how to use 3-D. Some directors don't. Like the first Avatar movie, this new one is technically impressive, beautiful, and well acted. Many action movies bore me because their CGI battle scenes look staged and phony. Cameron doesn't have that problem. He and his hundreds of artists manage to make the imaginary look real. Sunday, December 18, 2022 Today the ever-changing forecast showed Friday's low at -6º F. This morning I worked on a new web page about Model T travel. This afternoon I made a shopping run, then spent the rest of the day on outdoor chores. That would be sawing some more on fallen trees blocking the road in the woodlot, bringing the pieces up in the truck, and tarping wood in the yard in case tonight's rain really happens. |
Friday, December
23, 2022
88 days to spring The day started at 1º, and by the time I was in town shopping this afternoon the car thermometer was reading 18º. When I was rustling grub at five, the thermometer outside the kitchen window showed 14º. When I went upstairs to turn on the electric blankets awhile ago my bedroom was at 20º. With electric blankets that's no problem. My office work today included downloading more Iowa county maps for my flash drive atlas. Using the atlas when I'm traveling should be easy because I don't need the internet for that. Using the internet, as for Google maps, is a problem. With a hot spot I've found it miserably slow. I'll have to see if there's some way I can speed it up. A little project in the shop today was making a couple of casting/freeze plugs and putting them in the box of spare hardware that rides under the seat. You have to grind the edges a little to make them fit. Better to do that in the shop than out on the road. The Model T section of this site has a page about those plugs. Saturday, December 24, 2022 87 days to spring My "new" laptop was delivered yesterday, and today I did (or started) one of my unfavorite activities, setting up a computer. Part of that is simple, like entering URL's and passwords in the browser memory. Another part is even more simple — the computer takes an hour or two to download apps and updates on its own. But it seems there's always a part where I'm stumped and need help. In this case that part is email. I'll need to get some help on the phone Monday. Meanwhile, I'll use the old laptop for email. It can at least still handle that. |
Sunday, December 25, 2022 86 days to spring My work in the
office today was downloading more Iowa county maps
to my digital atlas. In the shop I dug into my
malfunctioning Stewart 100 speedometer. It was
behaving erratically, suddenly jumping up to 40 or
50 mph, then spinning back to 0. Russ the
speedometer guru figured the magnetic drum was loose
on the main shaft. But the photo on the left shows
me holding the drum and trying to turn the shaft. No
go. The drum is not the least bit loose. So I sent a
PM to Russ asking if it's possible that the glitch
is in the cable, not the head. I also sent the photo
of the speed cup not returning all the way to 0 and
asking about that. A little after three I fired up
the splitter and turned big wood into small wood,
enough to fill four boxes. In the current cold snap
I'll burn through those four boxes in three or four
days.
|
Friday, December 30,
2022 82 days to spring My trip to town
today was to take the 1915 runabout's cracked lower
windshield glass to the glass shop and order a
replacement. The young lady who took the order
assumed they would have to order a ready-made window
from an outside source, the way they do with modern
windshields. The guys who do the work were out on a
job, but I expect they will explain to her that they
can cut it from flat safety glass they have in stock
right there in the shop. My afternoon job today was
splitting firewood. But first I made up four paper
bags of kindling to replace the three I used during
recent wet weather, plus an extra. I split enough
wood to fill nine boxes, and took them all into the
house. If nothing changes my plans, tomorrow I'll
take the chain saw to the wood lot and finish
cutting up the fallen trees that are blocking both
my roads. This evening after chow I did a bit of
speedometer work in the shop. The 1916 Stewart 100
speedometer wasn't returning all the way to 0 when
the car stopped. It would go down to about 3 or 4,
sometimes 5 or 6. I took the works out of the case,
pulled the tiny pin holding the tiny coil spring,
advanced the spring about ⅛" and stuck the pin back
in. That was the cure. The speed drum now returns
all the way to 0 as it should. I hope I didn't hurt
the speedometer's accuracy. I won't know that until
I get it back in the car and go for a test drive.
Maybe the slightly tighter spring will cause the
speedometer to read a little low, but it won't
change the odometer any.
Saturday, December 31, 2022 81 days to spring Best laid plans again. I was about to begin the road clearing operation when I discovered that I was out of two-cycle oil for the chain saw, and I had to go to town for that. I got six little bottles that mix one per gallon of gasoline. They were priced at 96¢ each. The scanner rang them up at $1.48 each. The checker had to correct each price separately, one at a time. Computers are no more infallible than the people who run them, or as the old saying goes, garbage in, garbage out.When I got home I mixed a couple of gallons, loaded the saw and the gas & oil in the truck, and headed for the wood lot. I never got there. A dead tree had fallen n the lane, blocking my way. I thought it would take a few minutes to clear the way, but the saw would not start. I went through the starting procedure three times, and it absolutely would not start. It wouldn't even cough like it wanted to start. So all that work will have to wait until I can get the saw running. For this week's movie I went to Wichita to see The Whale, one of those pictures that's unlikely ever to show up at the local theater down here in Podunk. It's the story of a man who is suicidally huge because he deals with the stresses in his life by eating. Brendan Fraser and the other good actors make it worth the price of admission. |