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Post by HiTemp on Dec 24, 2016 16:25:01 GMT -7
Merry Christmas!
I am cooking two prime rib roasts for three families that will be sharing the table this year. I'm not sure if that was a grocery bill or a mortgage payment, but it was pretty steep. I hope some rancher somewhere got a good price for his beef.
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Post by Grug - American Neanderthal on Dec 24, 2016 21:12:03 GMT -7
Heh, go right ahead, we'll make more. Although that just goes to show who makes money on these deals, prices were way down for us this year. The plus side is I am not paying the high price for excellent grass fed beef. Merry Christmas to you and yours as well, sounds like its going to be an extra belt notch afternoon.
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Post by HiTemp on Jan 3, 2017 12:48:36 GMT -7
The roasts came out really well if I do say so myself. I've never cooked anything before that required a pre-dinner pause for people to take pics of their plates with their cell phones for posting on FaceBook. They were snapping away like photogs outside the lobby elevator in Trump Tower. Soon as they were up from the meal they were dinking around with posting the pics from their phone. So I reckon that means the meal was downright enjoyable. I know I enjoyed it.
Was great having the kids home for the holiday. My daughter in Maryland, the only way she could make the trip was to bring her dogs and cat along with her. So it was quite a menagerie around here for a few days. This one has to stay in these rooms because he can't be with that one, who can't be with the other one... you get the idea.
After a few days of familiarity with my chickens and no seeming problems (while under scrutiny), one of my daughter's dogs saw an opportune moment and took out my top egg laying leghorn and a New Hampshire red. Could be she was playing and didn't see any issues with cycling a chicken neck back and forth about 5 times a second as she does with her stuffed toys. But the chickens weren't up to it and met an untimely end. My daughter was horrified and was all apologies and such but I wasn't all that upset. She called me on the phone (since I wasn't at the house) to tell me and says, "What do I do?" I said "start plucking" but she failed to see any humor in that given how upset she was. So the dog got put in doggie supermax for some period, and she was only allowed out if the birds were cooped.
My wife's Honda CRV suddenly decided it needed a new water pump Christmas day, so day after that I was out there in the driveway cussing a storm against the Japanese and calling for them to be renuked as retribution for building a car that no man-sized wrench or socket-ratchet will fit into. Took me almost 7 hrs to get all the crap out of the way, remove and replace the pump, then fight with a serpentine belt that desperately wanted a finger or two of mine. At the end, I was ready to start a GoFundMe page for the purchase and deployment of a thermonuclear device on Honda HQ. Good cars, just don't ever have to do any work on them.
Best wishes for a safe, happy, and profitable New Year. Rest assured I'll do my part as consumer to keep the ranchers happy.
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Post by Grug - American Neanderthal on Jan 3, 2017 21:35:37 GMT -7
Heheh, sounds like me cussing the chinese everytime I am on the 3rd part swap for the same thing with in a year or 2. The latest is the fan speed resistor on our F150, they put that thing where you have to have no bones in your hand to get to it, make the screws so stiff it takes cheater pipe, and then I get to replace it 3 times now. Apparently their engineers are from Jupiter and have tentacles. Our Xmas was kind of a bust, it blizzarded here so Kayla couldn't make it up, had her come up on the following Wednesday, but her grandmother had to go home, kind of a bummer. We had a nice quiet new years though, just the wife and I, pigged out on Queso dip and mudlsides. It's been cold here again, not that wussy cold like 'I have put on a sweater' but the 'damn my fingers hurt' cold. The forecasts in a 24 hour period went from flurries with a dusting to anywhere up to 5" now. Did I mention I have had enough winter wonder already?
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Post by HiTemp on Jan 4, 2017 17:21:24 GMT -7
Yeah you definitely know what I'm talking about as far as the auto parts placement thing goes. I was telling the guy at the oil change place that I just replaced the pump and what a b1-itch it was and he says, "Oh, you only have to take off the idler pulley itself, you don't have to take off all that other stuff." I said I'll give you $50 right this minute if you can get that pulley off without taking anything else off. Really? Yeah, really. So after about 45 minutes of him tinging and tanging wrenches and sockets under my hood while I'm reading the paper in the waiting room watching him through the glass, he comes in and says, "You know, I think with more time I actually could do it but we got other cars coming in for service so I'll have to take that fifty off you some other time." LOL. Yeah, okay. I saw in the news that there is another one of them frosty whatchacallits coming down from the Washington/BC/Alaska area. Trump wants to build a fence so bad why doesn't he build one up there to keep that crap outta here? Story said it was going to cause low temps and snow all across the Gulf States... then went on to describe predicted snowfall in TN, KY, and northern MI and AL. Gulf States? Certainly not the first two, and the predicted snow band in the last two was 3 hrs drive north of the Gulf Coast. So I don't expect snow around here but it'll likely get in the 20s for sure, maybe into the teens which is as cold as it gets around here. In fact, I don't recall ever seeing any electric cow heaters down at the feed store so I guess this is technically a cows-stayed-thawed zone or something. Last couple days I've been putting some cattle fence panels up in the back yard. They basically wall off the garden from the chickens who would field strip the garden beds in a couple hours if left unimpeded. So the cattle panels were on sale and cheaper then rolled wire fencing (and WAY easier) and I put a layer of that plastic bird mesh over the outside of it to thwart those hens that might otherwise squeeze through. Tomorrow I should finish the gates and by then I'm sure the Admiral probably has more tasks for me. I just work here.
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Post by Grug - American Neanderthal on Jan 5, 2017 18:26:11 GMT -7
Heh, yeah, well our 'up to 5"' turned out to be about 8", and we are at a balmy -9 right now. One more day then we get a warm up, and I can see what it looks like above freezing again. And I was worried were were not going to get a winter.
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Post by HiTemp on Jan 6, 2017 10:25:36 GMT -7
I think you guys in WY just have been slow in accepting the global warming party line and now you're paying for it with sub-goose-egg temperature. No warming unless you swallow the GW dogma. Jan and Feb are the coldest months down here, and the first two weeks in Feb generally the worst. Usually on Christmas day I am running around in a short sleeved tee shirt, but this year was a tad cooler and demanded at least long sleeves. So colder than normal so far, and the Almanac says we're in for a short winter but an unusually cold one.
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Post by Grug - American Neanderthal on Jan 6, 2017 20:24:47 GMT -7
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Post by HiTemp on Jan 9, 2017 6:19:51 GMT -7
I already had the Laramie-Cheyenne area pegged as the #2 coldest spot on the planet from the one time I passed through there in the early 80s (In January). My #1 ranked coldest spot on earth is the south formation pad at the Electronics Technician Phase II school at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center in Great Lakes, IL. Sits maybe a couple hundred feet off the western shore of Lake Michigan and maybe 75 feet above the water. The slope is curved like it was made using an ice cream scoop. In December, we'd get out of school about 11:45 PM and have to form up there while staff checked the building and then came outside to do a head count. So it meant standing there at parade rest for about 15 minutes, during which the sleeting rain would form ice all over our combination caps and icicles would form as water dripped off the bill. I was used to New England winters back then but was totally unprepared for that kind of cold and freeze-blasting wind. Coldest I've ever been in my life with the stop in Cheyenne a very close second. Been down in the low 20s at night here last couple nights. Yesterday I dumped out the chicken's water to change it and a full one inch of ice had formed over the top. That's unspeakable for FL, even this part. My PVC line to the way-out-back hose, mostly underground, had frozen too but at least it didn't crack (yet). The birds - they seem to care less. Even when it was raining a couple days ago, COLD rain, mind you, they were out tilling the yard like nobody's business. People say chickens are pretty stupid; I believe it. At least the only thing I have to shovel is some mulch.
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Post by Grug - American Neanderthal on Jan 9, 2017 19:46:42 GMT -7
Heh, yeah that is cold for you guys, that's just normal here this time of year, maybe even on the warms side. It has warmed up we were around 50 today, but with all the ice under everything the water is not going anywhere, and it's so dang slick to walk I look like Michael Jackson trying some new moves half the time. We are usually 10 plus degrees warmer than Cheyenne, because we are almost 2000 feet lower, but we have been as cold or colder than them in this latest freeze. I am trying to decide who to complain to.
Personally I think the great lakes and back east in the northern midwest is colder than here besides the windchill, they have humidity, when we are cold the humidity is way down too. Not that the fingers seem to like it any better.
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Post by HiTemp on Jan 9, 2017 21:58:37 GMT -7
A quick search on YouTube reveals there is no FUBAR channel and no Honcho channel with video of moonwalking on ice, so I had to turn to Hulu for my entertainment this evening (Homicide Hunter re-runs). I didn't realize Cheyenne was up that high; after crossing the Cascade mountains it seemed like downhill all the way to Ohio.
Climate complaints should be addressed to:
Mr. Al Gore Office of Alabama & Tipper Gore 3810 Bedford Avenue Suite 250 Nashville, TN 37215-2563 USA
This time of year is what my wife calls "shovel time." It's when all my neighbors ask, "Hey, Tom, you still got that shovel?"
Years (and years) ago I bought one of those snow shovels that has a shape like a quarter circle. The kind where the guy in the hardware store says, "you just push and the snow rolls ahead of you like a plow," but the first time you try it the snow is always wet and heavy, and after 2 feet of pushing it comes to a dead stop and you have to react fast so as not to be harpooned in the nuts by the handle. That kind of shovel.
When I moved to FL I moved everything, shovel included. I had it hanging in my carport on the outside wall of my shop for years... actually two whole decades now come Feb. My neighbors would spot it and, most of them being native Floridians, would ask "What the heck IS that?" Over the years I came up with many creative answers to that question. For instance, I told one neighbor who asked that it was an "UP" shovel. "A WHAT??" An UP shovel. See the curve on the blade? It's curved like that so as you dig you naturally curve upward. Thus if you're in a tunnel underground, this is the tool you need to get back up. Then I watch their wheels spin for a moment as they consider the possibility. "Are you kidding me?" Yes. It's a freakin' snow shovel ya moron.
Well twice this week I got asked, as I do every year about this time, "You still got that shovel?" Damn skippy I do, and I know first couple inches of snow we get you'll all be over wanting to borrow it. Bring your checkbook.
Amazing the entertainment value out of a simple tool I probably should have tossed years ago but it's been so much fun watching my neighbors look at it like it was a UFO. Got some rust on it now so maybe a new coat of paint this year when it warms up. Maybe I'll sand and refinish the handle too, make a few of my knucklehead pals think I bought a new one.
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Post by Grug - American Neanderthal on Jan 10, 2017 15:51:26 GMT -7
Heheh, yeah we use a version of that kind of shovel, who ever thought snow does not compound in weight as you push it up in piles definitely had a desk job. Since its not all that common to have big snows here, hi tech snow shovels are not a real priority, if it snows that much, I am usually cussing my tractor and blade instead.
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Post by HiTemp on Jan 10, 2017 20:25:06 GMT -7
My son from time to time sends me links to stuff he finds on YouTube. He finds the damndest stuff. Not too long ago he send me some links to these videos about snow plowing trains, these gigantic snowblowers powered by a diesel engine that plow snow off the tracks in those areas way up north that get hundreds of inches of snow. Sounds kind of strange but I was captivated by the videos, I must have watched eight or ten of them. You want to see some serious snow fly, check out one of those. Just type in "snow plow train" on YT and they'll all show up. Some trains are plows, others are gigundous snowblowers.
They have to be really careful when they plow these remote areas in the mountains because with that much snow on the mountain even blowing the train whistle can cause an avalanche that would barrel down the mountain and knock the plow train clean off the tracks and tip it over.
Pffftt, place has snow so deep it's three quarters of the way up the side of a train, that's an area where people shouldn't live AFAIC. Some places are best left to the polar bears.
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Post by Grug - American Neanderthal on Jan 10, 2017 20:48:07 GMT -7
Yeah that's the kind of stuff that's fun to watch from the comfort of a the warmth next to the wood stove. I remember when I was a kid in MT, going with my dad to a ranch that was using a D7 cat to push out roads to feed cattle after a big storm. The snow was about 6' on the level, and it didn't take much pushing to make it tower on each side of the road. It made trip up a drive way seem like an eternity longer than normal.
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Post by HiTemp on Jan 10, 2017 23:25:41 GMT -7
Where are all those genetically modifying scientists when you need 'em? For a place like that you need cows with big ol' giraffe legs and load up a feeder on the stout limb of a tree. Starting to warm back up a bit, up in the high 40s - low 50s today. Ridiculous. Supposed to be as high as 70 later in the week, followed by more days in the 30s. I keep a spare jacket and a couple tee shirts in my shop now because I never know what the temp is going to be. Not as bad as my next door neighbor though, he's the type who wears a winter parka with shorts and flip-flops. I don't even know where to begin to classify that kind of fashion. Must be a selection from the Winter Redneck catalog. I see Rev. Al is planning a big march in DC and has 1,000 people signed up. Not much cash to be made from a crowd that small. Will be interesting to see what kind of shenanigans the lib activists pull in their attempt to shut down the inauguration. I'm sure it will be an idiot magnet and draw in some of their top wackos. I started to watch some of the confirmation hearings but I can only take so much when people are acting like whiny little b1-itches. I get tired of yelling at my own TV: "Ya lost the election and you're outnumbered, get over it and go do something important like redecorate your office or go tell CNN what a deep thinker you find Meryl Streep to be." They never listen to me.
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Post by Grug - American Neanderthal on Jan 11, 2017 9:20:27 GMT -7
I don't even bother, they made the bed they are forced to lie in with how they pushed Obama care and some of the judges through, now they will reap what they have sown, and no amount of whining is going to stop it. The dems have managed to have marginalized themselves to a point that they are their own worst enemy, and they just keep battling on.
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