Glens Falls (NY) Online Book Discussion Group discussion
What are U doing today?
>
What are U doing today? (Ongoing thread)
Linda, I was talking to Mom this morning & she too has to bring in a bird feeder every night due to a coon. Seems to be a common problem.
We take in the feeder between 9 and 930pm for the raccoon sometimes comes before 10pm. However, I did catch the raccoon at the feeder (which hangs off the deck) at 530am just before dawn. Taking a last drink before he scurried off to bed.
Nina wrote: "My husband and his fellow sailors used to wind surf on ice using sails. Yes, it was cold but they warmed up with hot toddies from a crock pot"Perhaps they enjoyed the hot toddies more than the wind surfing! LOL
A lot of both, Joy. They really had fun with the surfing but nice to warm their insides after the race was over.
I have a raccoon story from an old timer living in the Ozarks. He said he put a music recorder in his cornfield and turned it on at night thinking he'd scare them away and then he said he came home one night after dark and what he saw were those raccoons dancing up a storm.
That's funny, Nina. Musical raccoons!
I got my post hole digger today. Of course, it was raining so I got soaked unloading it from the truck & putting it in the shop. It came on a pallet in a box in pieces with no instructions on how to put it together save for an exploded diagram, but it did have 10 pages of safety warnings & more shields than the Spartan army. Sigh. I left most of the shields in the box & wound up pulling them off the universal joints of the PTO shaft, too. I left the plastic shield around the PTO shaft. That one actually makes sense. The rest make it impossible to maintain the PHD. Before putting the PTO shaft on, I tried to grease the universal joints & couldn't get the end of the grease gun on properly. If I can't do it while it's on my bench, I'm sure it will be impossible in service.
I'm pretty sure the old Danhuser auger will work. The top of the auger is larger than the shaft on the new PHD, but I made a sleeve out of part of the old PHD to take up the extra space. There's now about 1/16" all the way around, so I think it will be OK, but I'll have to buy longer shear pins (1/2" #2 bolts). It only came with 1 shear bolt for the PTO shaft & 1 for the auger, so I needed to buy more, anyway. I also have to get another 1/2 gallon of gear oil. I have most of a quart on hand, but the gearbox came empty & requires 86 oz to fill from scratch. I don't have anything with a leaky gearbox, so I rarely use it, thankfully.
I hadn't realized that the auger is only a 10" one, a little smaller than I'd like. That only gives me 2" around a 6" post, but I'm going to stick with this auger, if I can. Not only will it save me $250, but it's a whole lot tougher & better than the ones for this PHD. The metal is half again as thick & very nicely tempered.
Jim, I'll remember all that when I have to dig a hole. :)
Jim, I would have given up after getting soaked. Ha haSounds very complicated.
Yippee - it's Friday. Good Friday. Office is not closing early. I'll be visiting with a client today at 4pm.
After Good Friday comes Easter Sunday. Best wishes to all. And Happy Passover too. https://www.thesun.co.uk/living/31495...
Yes, Happy Easter to all. Just made a cheesecake to take to my daughter's for Easter and stemmed loads of strawberries to go with it. I have been making this cheesecake recipe for over fifty years can you believe? One of my daughters always wanted it for her birthday rather than a traditional cake. I so remember Good Friday when I would sit with my mother for three hours at church from twelve to three.
Forgot to mention that both my husband and myself got stuck in an elevator at Ikea yesterday morning. Not fun. Finally, got a message saying, "help is on the way."
How long were you stuck, Nina? That stinks.
Not very long. Just seemed like it. No one else was in the elevator except us. Unlike when you fall off a horse you are supposed to get back on. We didn't want to get back on an elevator there.
Nina wrote: "Forgot to mention that both my husband and myself got stuck in an elevator at Ikea yesterday morning. Not fun. Finally, got a message saying, "help is on the way.""Nina, I know the feeling of being stuck in an elevator. It happened to me at our public library when I didn't realize that the buttons on the two different elevators (front & back) were different. One "L" button means LOBBY and in the other elevator "L" means LOWER (which is a restricted area). I wasn't in there long but it felt much longer. I just kept yelling help until help came. (Actually, all I had needed to do was press a different button, but I didn't think of that.) I pressed the emergency call button and they said they would respond. But before they could respond, some helpful persons came and the door opened.
Nina wrote: "Yes, Happy Easter to all. Just made a cheesecake to take to my daughter's for Easter and stemmed loads of strawberries to go with it. I have been making this cheesecake recipe for over fifty years ..."Nina, that cheesecake must be good!
Joy, I am glad I wasn't in the elevator alone. I might have panicked. I understand your confusion. Not fun is it? Near eighty degrees today but there is a fierce wind blowing so not too pleasant when I took a walk. Will you have family tomorrow?
I've never been stuck in an elevator, and yes I'm knocking on wood as I write. Whenever an elevator gets overloaded with people, meaning we look like sardines in a box, I fear THIS time the elevator will get stuck. Feels like there would barely be enough air to breathe.
About your cheesecake. Hmmm with fresh strawberries. I just had lunch a slice of cheesecake with strawberries and a cup of coffee sounds delightful.Weather here is 70 degrees. Sat out on the back deck and had my lunch.
Happy Easter and Passover everyone.
Nina wrote: "... Will you have family tomorrow?"No, Nina. Our family visited last weekend for my birthday.
Linda wrote: "... Happy Easter and Passover everyone."The same to you and all!
Busy day today. Josh & I replaced their hot water heater this morning. That was a bit of a comedy of errors, but it's in & working fine. It came out that I give the poor kid tediously long instructions on some things he knows well & then don't on things he doesn't. Found that out when I told him to siphon the water out of his old one & call me when he had it going well. I figured that would give me time to get my tools together & get down there. He forgot to turn off the breakers & open the vent (which he didn't know about) or even any faucets, so I wound up cooling my heels for half an hour after I got it going correctly.During the waiting period we were looking around the soon to be backyard & found that we need to take a big maple tree down before putting in the fence. Someone clipped it years ago & it's mostly rotted inside & tall enough that it will hit the house if it falls the way it wants to. It will crush the fence we're planning to put up just about any way it falls. Nothing is ever as simple as I'd like it.
After lunch, I chopped back the bushes (some sort of juniper) that sit between our front porch & the lane. There's limited space & one was 25% bigger than the other 2. I've been wanting to do it for a while, but kept forgetting to find out when the best time was to trim them when I got my monthly letter from the Extension Office. It has a really nice list of April chores from the University of Missouri which is broken into categories & weeks. I found it online here:
https://ipm.missouri.edu/MEG/2016/3/A...
Anyway, trimming evergreens was on the list, so I did. I filled up my little pickup with the trimmings. The big one is now mostly bare branches & the others have bare fronts. I've trimmed the big one back before & it took a couple of years to recover, but was fully green before I started in today. Not sure if it will survive this pruning, but it either does or I'll yank them all out & plant new bushes. I was sort of planning on doing the latter, but that's expensive & time consuming.
Poor Pip thinks we're being horribly mean to him. Thursday, he got neutered. He's pretty old for it, but he hasn't outgrown his humpy phase (especially this time of year) & yet he's full grown now. He muscled up very nicely, far better than if we'd neutered him earlier. He can take on coons & groundhogs with confidence, but this cone-of-shame has him whipped. Unlike Pixie, he can't manage the dog door, although he can jump up on my bed. Any time he hits the edge of it against something, it freaks him out & it took him days to figure out that yes, he can do his business with it on. The first time we took it off, he peed for 5 minutes. Didn't know that little body could hold so much. Poor thing.
:(
Hope Pip will be back to normal soon.
Poor Pip it must seem like trial and error to him.
Gorgeous weather day yesterday. We went for a ride with fishing poles in the car. Many of the lakes were a bit frozen along the shore lines. Off from work today. Plan on going for a walk and getting caught up on housework (unless I end up goofing off which is very possible since it will be a nice day).
Nice day but breezy, they say.
Still ice on the shore lines, Linda? Brrr. We're nice & warm, although we had storm cells blow through yesterday. I never managed to get much done. Seemed like every time I'd get into a project, I'd get rained out.I did brace the gate post by the shop, but it started raining on me as I loaded tools up to do the burlap on the barn, so I put that chore off.
I got the final coat of poly on the dining room table, but just as I was finishing a massive cell blew in. It took me about a minute to get to the window in Marg's bedroom which was cracked less than an inch, but water was slopping off the sill. I had to wring out a hand towel I used to wipe off the water. Did the same in the kitchen window & the dog door.
I tried weeding a while later, even though I knew it would be muddy, but got rained out in about 15 minutes. Another time I got a small patch weeded & some annual seeds planted before getting rained out again.
I finally quit, came in & watched some TV. Marg went out to feed the horses & she found a tree down on the fence line, so I had to run out there at 7pm to cut it up & fix the fence. Of course, it started raining on me again. Dinner was delayed until I got back in & dried off.
A quote for you, Joy. "Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts."Rachel Carson
Good one, Nina. Thank you.
Jim wrote: "Still ice on the shore lines, Linda? Brrr. We're nice & warm, although we had storm cells blow through yesterday. I never managed to get much done. Seemed like every time I'd get into a project, I'..."Jim, you certainly keep busy with different tasks and chores.
Our dining room table needs to be lightly sanded. Waiting for 1) time, and 2) energy and 3) a good dry day to bring the table out onto the deck (which is a chore in itself) to do electric sanding instead of by hand. Then apply a coat of tung oil.
Linda, it's a never ending battle to stay on top of things around here, especially in the spring. I got the back yard fence weeded tonight. It's about 200' long & the lilies are really getting a foot hold so there shouldn't be as much weeding next year. They're the orange 'road-side' lilies, tough as a keg of nails & this is their third year. I think year 4 or 5 is when I can leave them to their own devices & I'm looking forward to it!I got the little gardens on the south side of the house weeded, too. I sprinkled some annual seeds in them. Nasty chickweed & henbit are choking out my bee balm that should be growing in them. Hopefully either the annuals or the bee balm can make a go of it now.
Love seeing the road side lilies. I tried growing in my yard but not enough sun - lots of pine trees. Now my driveway - the top portion which is actually the parking area - would be a good spot. Nice and sunny but hard to plant in asphalt. Ha ha
Linda wrote: "Love seeing the road side lilies. I tried growing in my yard but not enough sun - lots of pine trees. ..."The great thing about them is that they come back every year. They are like perennials.
One plant does grow in our yard. Hostas. They come back every year and bigger. I get right in them cut them apart and plant the cuttings.
Sadly our bunnies also like the hostas leaves.
Nina wrote: "Sadly our bunnies also like the hostas leaves."So do ours. :)
The deer don't seem to like the hostas. Perhaps because they are located right along the house. I haven't seen any bunnies. Not sure why. Only in the winter do we see some tracks.
Linda wrote: "No hummingbirds yet."They'll be around soon, I'll bet.
We've had hummingbirds for the past few days, maybe 4. It's tough to tell this time of year how many are around yet since so much is in bloom, but I've only seen one or two so far.
We looked at a pony last night. All 3 of us rode him. He liked Erin the best & Marg next. He didn't like me at all. He'd barely move. I don't think we're going to get him, although the gal selling him was very impressed by us. She said it was so nice to get 3 people who could all ride & knew something about horses.The Garmin took us for a ride on the way there. What took us 10 minutes on good roads on the way back took us over 30 minutes on the way there & got Marg car sick. Tiny, windy roads. Ugh.
I saw a killdeer trying to lead me away today & I found her nest. Just 3 eggs, but one was really big. I put a few temporary electric fence posts around it so no one will drive over or step in it. They're such neat birds. I love it when the babies are born. They're the cutest little miniatures.
I finally got around to putting roadside lilies around a telephone pole just outside the fence down by the kids' place. I put some tulip & other bulbs there a year or two ago, but never got around to doing anything else. It started to rain on me & there were really dark clouds. I was hoping it would cut loose, but after a few drops, it stopped. There's still hope, so I didn't lug water up to them.
I'd taken the post hole digger off the tractor & hung it on a beam near the grader blade. I think it should be easy to get on & off now while remaining protected. While I had the tractor out & the grader blade on, I put a few buckets of gravel on the end of the lane & graded it out. We've had some real gully washers that damaged it even though I have a swale to run most of the water off to the side. It's come down so hard & fast that it went right over the swale a couple of times now, though. Not much I can do about that. It's already big enough that it's kind of a pain to drive over.
I did a good enough job that it only took me a few minutes to do a final raking by hand. I love having the gravel at hand & the tools to do a job like that so quickly & easily.
Jim wrote: "We looked at a pony last night. All 3 of us rode him. He liked Erin the best & Marg next. He didn't like me at all. He'd barely move. I don't think we're going to get him, although the gal selling ..."I wonder how the pony decided whom he liked and didn't like. When we first got our dog when he was 10 months old, he didn't seem to like men. It took him a while to warm up to my husband.
J have never noticed a dog having favorites before this or even horses but aren't they human so why not?
Nina wrote: "J have never noticed a dog having favorites before this or even horses but aren't they human so why not?"We figured that our dog might have been mistreated by a man and that's why he might have been afraid of all men.
Mistreatment seems to be the most common reason for an animal's preference between the sexes, but it's not the only one. My pony, Chip, wouldn't listen to Marg or Erin at first, but always listened to me well. He spent his first year being raised by a man who was a good trainer & then went to a gal, very much like Erin, who let him get away with a lot. He had the idea women were pushovers. Then he met my girls & had to rethink his position.:)
It's fun to wonder what dogs (or animals) are thinking. Our dog often sets a steady stare on me. I wonder what he is trying to communicate.
When I would come home from an extended trip abroad for six weeks my Irish setter would want to be let outside so she could run and run out her excitement at seeing me again before coming back into the house and greet me without knocking me over. She had the sense to do that. Also, when we were ready to leave our property at our Lake house she never wanted to leave so she'd go to the farther corner of our property and refuse to come when called. My husband would have to go pick her up and carry her to the car. She would then look out the window and whimper for several miles.
Glens Falls (NY) Online Book Discussion Group
Books mentioned in this topic
Educated (other topics)Pride and Prejudice (other topics)
Moby-Dick or, The Whale (other topics)
The Count of Monte Cristo (other topics)
War and Peace (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Tara Westover (other topics)Ann Howard Creel (other topics)
Ann Howard Creel (other topics)
C.W. Gortner (other topics)
C.W. Gortner (other topics)
More...
Wind surfing on ice - must be a pretty site as well.