Daily Chit Chat Showing 551-600 of 1,626

[Buck]

We are about to take our grandchildren on a road trip to Kentucky and Tennessee. We'll see Mammoth Cave and The Grand Ole Opry. A really long drive for us too.

[Jim]

I think your drive is a lot longer than ours plus kids. Ugh. No thanks. I loved to travel when I was younger. Pretty much hate it now. It doesn't help that we both have bladders the size of peas.
;)

[John]

Jim wrote: " The coon turned to attack, but got shot instead. He was a tough bugger & still managed to run off to hide in a garden full of tall cone flowers & day lilies."

What's more relaxing than capping a raccoon in the middle of the night just before a long trip? Ha. I wouldn't have fallen back to sleep at all.

[Jim]

I have to deal with coons at least a few times every year. They're better than skunks, though. I hate midnight drills to wash dogs because they got sprayed.

[John]

Jim wrote: "I have to deal with coons at least a few times every year. They're better than skunks, though. I hate midnight drills to wash dogs because they got sprayed."

Nasty stuff for sure.

[Ed]

Jim wrote: "...The coon turned to attack, but got shot instead...."

Interesting use of the passive voice. "Mistakes were made. Racoons got shot."

[Jim]

The mistake was the coon's. less than acre of the farm is off limits & it's well marked. Pip sees to that, as a typical male dog.

We're having a good, if exhausting, time. We went to my mother's last night for dinner & had a great time. As soon as I got there, she had me unload a pickup truck load of feed, took me for a tour of the new areas & then we had dinner with 2 couples we haven't seen in ages. Didn't get back to bed until 11. Up at 5:30 so I can take the grandmonster fishing. The pond belongs to a guy I went to high school with, so it will be fun catching up with him, too. I'm hoping to get a nap afterward.

[Jim]

We had a good, short vacation in MD with the grandmonsters, kids, & Mom. Our oldest adopted daughter now has a horse farm with a pool, so we wound up there 2 evenings with the other kids & Mom swimming & eating dinner. Good way to keep the kids occupied while we all got to talk & cool off occasionally.

My last remaining good friend from school has a small farm with a pond. We had a great time talking with him one morning & I brought my son & Colin ( 5 yo grandmonster) back the next morning to go fishing. Colin caught 8 bluegills, my son 4, & I got 2, one on my fly rod which I haven't had out in decades. The other was inadvertent; I cast out the line for Colin & had a fish on before I could pass over the rod.

Great time, but better to be home. I had to add a couple more buckets of stone dust to the newly graded area around the mounting block & put cinder blocks inside its legs to keep the damn horses from pushing it around.

Then I hopped on Cloud for the first time. He's my new pony, a flea-bitten gray that came into the Humane Society with Pumpkin, Marg's pony. He's 17, 14.2h, & narrower than I like. He's quiet, but I'll have to add a pad under my bareback pad for both our sakes. Even on the short ride, his back was doing a number on my perineum. Despite his narrowness, I could get a decent leg on him. With Marg feeding him, I expect some of that sharpness will go away, but I doubt he'll ever be a bareback pony for me. While we were gone, Erin took a video of him rolling in the pond, so that's a real plus.

I got the barn & north fields mowed yesterday, too. I probably had time to mow the south field, if I pushed & came in a bit late, but I felt like crispy bacon by then. Besides, my leg was hurting.

About a month ago, just as I started to put up the burlap, the scaffold slipped & my shin hit the sharp edge of a rough oak board with all my weight on it. Pretty ugly gash & bruise, not fun to work with, but I got all the burlap up since it didn't bleed much. It was mostly healed save for the deepest part which is right under a hard bump that I guess is a bone spur. Anyway, I hit the very center of that unhealed bit on the sharp metal corner of the tractor hitch while hooking up the mower which delayed mowing a bit. I had to stop by the house & wrap it up since it kept bleeding into my shoe. It's not too bad today, although it woke me up a few times last night when I'd hit it or Pip ran across it.

We're super dry again. 2 weeks ago, we couldn't wait for it to stop raining, but we haven't had a lick since then. I need to get some weeding done, but the ground is like a rock. Sigh. First it was mud, now rock. The gardens are a wreck. On the plus side, we have a fair few hummingbirds & a lot of stuff is blooming. The hibiscus, lilies, & Rose of Sharon are all going strong. I have the first lining the back porch, the second lines the entire fence line of our 1/2 acre back yard, & there are 4 of the last scattered around. Really pretty & they're drawing in an amazing amount of bees, butterflies, & birds.

[Cheryl]

Another group posts tips to use Goodreads. Here's something pretty obscure about finding out how ppl have shelved books even if it's not a popular book (that is to say, an older SF novel... ;). We might want to look at GR members' shelves to have an extra data point when trying to decide if a story is SF, or horror, or fantasy. (Or we might not... it's just a neat trick if anyone does care.)

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

The key bit is this:
1. On the book page, click on the 'All Editions' link visible in the book details section (underneath the Get A Copy-buttons).

2. The URL of the All Editions web page should show text identical to the beginning of this example: https ://www .goodreads. com/work/editions/ 12345678-book-title

3. Change the word 'editions' in your URL to 'shelves'. Exact spelling is a must for the link to work.

4. Press Enter.

[Stu]

I will add two ways to find books.

1. Libby or Overdrive app: using either of these apps you can connect to your library. I’m connected to 3 libraries. As a Navy veteran I can use their library. I’m also connected to the Air Force library as a retired AF civilian. I’m pretty sure you can connect to the Navy as a veteran of any branch. The Navy has a massive number of Sci-Fi/Fantasy. My third library is my local library in NC. NC has a statewide digital library so has a decent number of books. I’ve borrowed over 200 books in the last 3 years.

2. LibriVox: If you’re looking for old books that are likely in the public domain this is an excellent option. All the books are free. They are all audiobook format. Similar to project Gutenberg is for eBooks.

Currently I’m working thru to Top 100 Greatest books sadly only a couple are SF/Fantasy. I’ve done 87 so far and have managed to mix in 23 SF books.

[Jim]

We were supposed to get a lot of rain out of the remnants of a hurricane. Some areas did, but it was really spotty. For all the ugly looking clouds, I'm not sure we managed 1/4" & that sucks. After practically drowning up until a few weeks ago, we haven't gotten any since. The ground is cracking & even the weeds are drooping.

The hummingbirds are hitting the feeders really hard, too. A lot of flowers are blooming (Rose of Sharon, hibiscus, lilies, & trumpet vine) all over my yard, but they're drooping closed from lack of rain. I'm seeing a dozen birds in the gold fish pond & stream where I usually only see one or two. I can't keep the bird bath full. I've warned the girls to keep an eye on the horse water trough. While the ponds still have water in them, dry times like this are when we get critters falling in & drowning in the trough.

Another oddity is my goat, Rosie, bagging up. She's never been bred, but I've read that clover can cause this. We have a lot of white clover & she's pretty fat, so that's probably the cause. There's a fungus on the clover that gives the horses the slobbers. My new pony, Cloud, has a particularly nasty case. Makes me wish he could use a hackamore since opening his mouth for a bit winds up coating my hand. He coated my foot the other day, too. Riding with a shoe full of drool isn't particularly fun.

[Jim]

I'm getting tired of this drought. Putting up the hay wasn't bad. It was only 50 bales & we waited until 7pm, so it was bearable. But now the wild animals are getting thirsty & that means they're taking chances they shouldn't. Couple that with an overpopulation of coons & it's just ugly.

I came home Thursday, sat down with a cup of coffee & while talking to Marg, she saw 3 scoot up the tree just 20' from our house. The seed & hummingbird feeders have been getting attacked. I haven't seen a frog in the gold fish pond & one of the gold fish died from a tear in its side, so I'm guessing these 3 were just a little early for dinner. I hope they enjoyed their last one since I shot them out of the tree. They looked so cute staring out at me, but they wouldn't leave.

This morning, Pip wouldn't come in to eat & it turned out he had another young one 'treed' on top of a post. Again, very cute, but it wouldn't run even though Pip & I were inside the back yard. It could have run off into the field or woods, so I'm guessing it was sick or really starved. Looked pretty thin, although it's hard to tell with that thick hair & I didn't look too close. Ticks are really bad this year. I got several tiny (pin head sized) ticks on me from handling the others. Those buggers burrow into the skin quickly, carry disease, & are itchy as can be. One on my leg took over 2 weeks to quit itching.

Anyway, it's a hell of a depressing way to start the day & the weekend.

[Jim]

We might have good news in the Internet department. I live out in the middle of no where with unreliable cell service, no cable, & very few options for Internet. Looks as if there is a new one that might cover us & finally give us higher speeds for a reasonable price.

[Jim]

I think my hummingbird population has peaked & is now dropping. For the past couple of weeks, I've been feeding 6 cups of sugar water every day in the back yard. Last night, I didn't have to fill the two 3 cup feeders, but will sometime this morning. I guess the babies have grown up enough to start moving on.

One reason I've been feeding more than normal is the drought we're having. Even well established plants like my hibiscus & Rose of Sharon are drooping by the afternoon from the heat & dry. I watched a bee trying to get into a bloom & it had a bit of a struggle pushing drooping petals out of its way. I've never seen so few blooms on the Trumpet vine or so little growth out of it. The last is kind of nice. Keeping it in check is tough.

[Rosemarie]

We've had more rain than normal and our grass has been green all summer, a very rare event.
Right now we have lots of Monarch butterflies. And the blue jays are back, a sign that summer has peaked and we're heading towards fall.

[Ed]

I was interrupted in my afternoon reading by the unexpected sounds of a square dance party across the street. I used to enjoy that as a kid. I'm not sure when the change happened, but it now seems that some square dances require dancers to bleat like sheep.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

Ed wrote: "I was interrupted in my afternoon reading by the unexpected sounds of a square dance party across the street. I used to enjoy that as a kid. I'm not sure when the change happened, but it now seems ..."

Kids these days and their dratnabbed square dancing! I wish they would stay off my lawn with that stuff.

[Jim]

I took a couple of days off work since the worst of the heat broke & we got some rain. I have a lot of chores to do & the tractor figures in them prominently, so of course I had one of the rear tire valves go bad. They're big tires, almost 5 feet tall & they're filled with fluid. IOW, beyond my ability to fix them. Doug's tire said they could probably get a truck out here today, thankfully. Still, even my stay-at-home, working vacations seem to be expensive.

We started out the morning by catching a young raccoon in the apple tree in the front yard. He was quite comfortable up there & sneered at the dogs. I put them back in the house & finally got him to leave by pelting him with some apples. You should have seen the look he gave me as he ran off over his shoulder!
:)

[Buck]

Here comes Dorian.

Got the generator out and cranked up, filled up 8 gas cans. The grocery store was crowded, the shelves were rummaged, but not empty. They were restocking them quickly. They rolled out a cart of bottled water - it was gone in less than a minute.

I saw a map on Facebook - the different hurricane zones: 2 cases, 4 cases, 8 cases of beer. I don't have that much, but a nice assortment of new beers to try, while sitting around waiting for the power to come back on.

We have an enclosed porch that has a window air conditioner. And we have gas hot water, so no cold showers. Air mattresses. My lovely spouse calls it glamping - glamor camping.

We weathered Charley, Frances, Jeane, and Wilma; We had a mandatory evacuation for Irma. We spent endless hours stuck in the car with four cats on I-75 with all the gas stations out of gas. The storm surge they predicted didn't happen. Our home suffered no damage more than a few downed limbs. The lesson we learned is we ain't agonna evacuate no more.

[Jim]

Good luck, Buck. I hope Dorian doesn't do much damage.

Doug's Tire never made it out here today. Now they say tomorrow morning. Drat. I was planning on putting in fencing tomorrow morning before it got hot.

[Jim]

I've been getting frustrated by my library's audiobook selection lately. They usually have about 5000 available, but pickings are getting pretty slim in science, SF, & other genres I'm interested in. I thought some libraries allowed out of state lending, but I couldn't find any.

Of course, GR groups to the rescue. I was pointed to an article & from there I applied to the Brooklyn (New York) library. They have about 20,000 audiobooks available & allowed me to sign up for a $50 annual fee, the cost of 2 or 3 audiobooks if I were to buy them. It was a surprisingly fast & easy process only taking a couple of hours through the web from filling out the form to getting access. I'm tickled.

[Buck]

I just started getting an audiobook service, related to BookBub I think, called Chirp (chirpbooks.com) No fees and low cost specials on audiobooks. My library has a good selection through Overdrive and Hoopla, so I haven't need to buy one yet. But occasionally I do have to download one to my kindle because the library doesn't have the audiobook version.

[Buck]

Dorian has veered away from us. Whew. Look out, North Carolina. I ran the generator out of gas this morning - back into hibernation until the next one.

[Jim]

Buck wrote: "Dorian has veered away from us. Whew. Look out, North Carolina. I ran the generator out of gas this morning - back into hibernation until the next one."

Super! Glad it will miss you.

You should run the generator at least once a quarter, if not once a month, under load for 20-30 minutes to keep it working properly. It's not the engine, but the charge it generates. Modern ones might be better at holding the charge, but I'd read the instructions on that point closely. My Honda came with a once a month for 20 minutes recommendation, but I've had it for a decade & only run it under load a few times each year.

We had a generator back in the 80s that we didn't run for over a year. When we did use it, everything ran strangely, if at all. Plugging a clock with a second hand into it & comparing it to a watch showed that it was running at 40 cycles per minute. (The second hand moved 40 seconds on the clock compared to 60 on the watch.) That was a PITA for our power saws & drills, but it will burn out any modern appliances such as refrigerators or freezers. "Energy Efficient" also means picky about incoming current.

[Buck]

Thanks for the advice. I'll read the manual.

This generator was new in 2005 . Used again in 2017. And started for a third time just now, but not used to generate. I put just a quart or two of gas in its tank to do a test start. Its muffler is so loud that I used a turkey baster to empty the tank so that it only needed a couple of minutes to run the gas out.

Our first generator was stolen out of our carport, so we keep this one inside in a storage space. It has no wheels, so it is a PITA to take it outside if you don't really have to. I've been thinking about getting a little red wagon and modifying it to give the generator wheels.

We'd prefer a built in propane generator to run the whole house, but our house is old and the original wiring has two-prong outlets, no ground wire. We got an estimate to have a generator added: $12K+, but then they declined because of the old wiring. It'd be cheaper just to take a week's vacation to Europe until power is restored after a storm rather than get a full house generator installed.

[Cheryl]

I'm going to be traveling most of Sept. starting with a long drive tomorrow (which is why I'm doing all the first of the month chores now). I do look forward to reading the BotM *We Are Legion*, but when I visit my mom I'll be reading books from her library system in WI, and then when I visit my sons, I'll be using OKC's library system to get a bunch more that I can't get locally... so I'm not sure exactly when I'll visit the BotM thread.

(I admit it; I'm not an avid reader; I'm a rabid reader. ;)

[Jim]

What generator to get is a tough decision. We lost power for 6 days in Jan 2009 due to an ice storm & I thought about a whole house generator. It would have been nice, but since then we've rarely lost power for more than a few hours. The last time I got the generator out for that, the power came on as I was walking in the door with the extension cord. It was magic!
:)

I got a Honda 2000i which is only a 2000 watt generator. It will run one appliance, but weighs about the same as a full 5 gallon gas can, so it is very portable. It won't run our heat, but I have propane tanks & a Little Buddy portable heater. I thought I'd use it more since it was portable, but it turns out I don't. At one time, I would have used drills & such around the farm, but cordless tools are too good now. Even with the electric out to the big barn dying (I guess something broke the wire.) I don't use it often.

I do find it handy for trimming some of the bushes. I put the generator in a wheelbarrow & wander around the place with my cheap electric hedge trimmers on a 25' extension cord. Very handy.

Your idea of mounting your big generator on a little red wagon sounds pretty good. You'd want fairly good sized wheels, even if they're on concrete all the time. Those things are heavy. Casters would probably just be a PITA, although you might want to look at some of the bigger ones like an 8" & mount them on a 2x4 frame. That would sit lower, but you'd probably pay almost $100 for a good set of 4.

[Jim]

John wrote: "Have you looked into an UPS system for your house. .."

No, I'm not spending that kind of money nor do we really need it. We can live a few days without lights all over the house. I do have small UPSs on the computers & TV, so they can work off the generator along with a couple of lights & one major appliance. Running the fridge or the freezer for a couple of hours keeps the food fine.

The Tesla battery & other articles have made me think about adding solar cells or wind turbines, but I'm not sure about the pay off or pay back. About a decade ago, Ace Hardware said they were going to start selling a roof mounted wind turbine that would cost about $5K installed. They never did, but about 5 years ago I looked into buying something similar & found out that neither wind or solar is reliable enough to pay here even though my electric company pays residential rates for any current I put back into the system.

Part of the issue is the cost of electric here. It's cheap, 8th cheapest in the country. We have a lot of coal & natural gas in Kentucky, but not very good sun or wind according to NOAA or several locals that have tried it. I'm sure that will change at some point, but a big problem is that I don't feel I have reliable data on the wind or solar conditions on that roof. I looked around some, but didn't find anything that would give me data for a year or so on either one. If I had accurate data, I could apply that to the devices & work out what the pay off would be.

The small, roof mounted turbines vary a lot, but most won't generate any electric until there is a few knots of wind & some actually generate less when the wind gets over 10 or 15 knots. Even with a big barn with a clear western facing roof, an electric pole right next to it, & no batteries, it was going to cost $8K-$10K to install the first one, about another $6K for any additional ones. If I could afford to install a few, it would more likely be worth it.

I haven't really looked into solar panels. They're getting better & changing a lot right now. I expect the efficiency to go way up fairly soon & it will have to if I want to use them here.

[Ed]

This site is promoting little-free-libraries this week. Yay! I love them.

But I love just as much the ones that aren't registered with that organization.

Anyway, I've finally decided to put "The Difference Engine" into one today. I only read half of it when this group read it, and I know I'll never finish it. It is a first edition, in great condition, with the slipcover. Probably worth $20. I got it myself from one of those boxes, so I'm putting it back in one.

[Cheryl]

When we plan a road trip we make a point of checking to see if any LFLs are registered near our destination or at any reasonable via point. Usually I find them crammed full and wind up moving more books than the ones I want to read, but I always carry donatables just in case.

[Peter]

Cheryl: "I always carry donatables just in case. "
Good on you! I always check the ones I pass -- & they do seem to be proliferating -- but I don't recall ever actually finding anything of interest. OTOH, the Public Library giveaway shelf/carts are often a source of hidden treasures . . . . ❤️ 🎶 ❤️ ⚡️

[Cheryl]

Oh yes, always visit the public library in a town we're stopping at if time, especially the Friends' shelves.

[Jim]

We had a near miss yesterday. We got a new horse trailer 6 months ago. I went to hook it up yesterday & the hitch on it fell apart! All things considered, we got lucky since we weren't driving down the road with horses on the trailer when it broke.

Looks like a bad casting to me. I'm not sure how it's going to get repaired, but I certainly hope they honor their warranty. They'll have to come here to the farm to fix it, though.



I've never had this happen before & this sort of hinged hitch is fairly common. The pin that goes through the main portion doesn't seem to have an entry or exit hole. I guess it's covered by a weld or something.

[Jim]

It's been a busy weekend. I took Friday off so my daughter & I could go to the Wood Expo at Masterson Station, a place we generally go to ride. They also have a Fiber Festival in the spring, too. Anyway, this featured a lot of big equipment, chainsaw artists, other woodworkers plus wildlife & tree information booths. It was great.

A couple of woodworkers made toy vehicles. Most were pretty common, but a few were works of art. One guy made a school bus that was 3' long with a lot of detail. Another guy did really incredible vehicles. A fire truck had over 200 pieces in it, but that paled beside the excavator which was on a lowboy tractor trailer. He made treads for the excavator out of tiny pieces, 109 pieces per tread! It's not a great picture, but I think you can get an idea of the detail.

[Deb]

I have just finished this book I found really fascinating I know it is not really what this group is about, because it is not 'science-fiction' it is a factual story of the canine cosmonauts of the early USSR space programme. But one thing I really found fascinating was how many early 'classic sci-fi' themes tie in with the text.

The notions of colonising the Moon and Mars, a lot of the images, that whole cold war thing that is prevalent... It also mentions quite a bit of early Russsian sci-fi, so I thought some classic sci-fi readers might be intrigued by it;
by Olesya Turkina

review; https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Cheryl]

Excellent!
Btw, we do have a discussion topic for non-fiction, if you want to copy your post over to there, too.

[Ed]

I've also read "Soviet Space Dogs" and also rated it 4 stars. I've already forgotten most of the details, but I do remember Belka and Strelka.

It is interesting that the Soviets used Dogs while the USA used primates.

[Ed]

I suffered the worst fate imaginable today: a power outage! I was unable to update my reading status here and was forced to read a book instead!

When electricity came back, my router didn't survive. The company will be sending me a new one. Till then, it's a good thing that I have physical ethernet cables to help get my fix.

[Jim]

Bummer, Ed. Is it super hot & dry where you live? It's miserable here.

[Ed]

Jim wrote: "Bummer, Ed. Is it super hot & dry where you live? It's miserable here."

September is when we get our hottest days. But they are over now. It all depends on wind direction. Last Wednesday got up to 94 (wind from the interior), the next day only up to 64 (wind from the ocean). Today is 65, which is pretty normal and is all right by me!

At first I didn't get the connection between power outage and temperature. Then it dawned on me you are thinking about AC. Nobody has that here! Have you considered getting yourself an ocean?

[Jim]

Ocean-side property is scarce in Kentucky.
;)

[Cheryl]

Bedbugs!!

Well, actually just one exoskeleton, but I know where I must have carried it from, and he's been fighting with them for several months (can't afford an exterminator).

Now I don't know if I should call an exterminator already. It is not an insignificant expense. Would I be be panicking, or would I be nipping a problem in the bud?

[Ed]

Yikes! I once carried some home from a hotel. I was able to get rid of them myself by using diatomaceous earth, pesticide, and putting sticky stuff on the legs of the bed to keep them from crawling up.

If you've only seen evidence of one single one, I would start with the easy stuff like that.

[Cheryl]

yeah, maybe a multi-pronged approach like that... thanks for the encouragement!

[Jim]

Oh, that's awful. Good luck!

[Jim]

Well, Tuesday hit 98 degrees in Lexington & next Tuesday the low is supposed to be 42 degrees. Most of that change will take place on Monday. A 56 degree change. Ugh.

[Cheryl]

Iow, a typical week in Carson City. I miss that.

[Anna]

Sounds like some rollercoaster weather going on. Happily it's turned quite cold in NE England.

(Hope the bedbug thing worked out ok Cheryl.)

[Cheryl]

The consultant found no evidence of bedbugs. Crossing fingers I'm 1. having a very delayed reaction (last night no 'new' bites) and 2. the shell I found was a stray from a book or something.

I'm in the midst of reorganizing the closets for the change of season and finding no bugs or mess so that's encouraging.

[Ed]

Deborah wrote: "I have just finished this book [Soviet Space Dogs] I found really fascinating ..."

I was just reading a kids SF book called AstroNuts Mission One: The Plant Planet:. At one point the taxidermied heads of Belka and Strelka are shown, implying they arrived at the plant planet and were killed by the evil plants. American kids today would have no idea who those dogs were. In real life, those dogs made it safely back to earth, but they really were taxidermied and can be visited in a Moscow museum.

Strelka's puppy Pushinka went on to live in the White House with JFK. (Hmmm... wonder whether she had implanted microphones.)