With the past week of fifty degree weather, at least in the afternoons, this week was decent bike riding weather, so was able to get out twice..
Autumn is pretty much over, the leaves have lost their color and are mostly gone. But at least the low angle sun provides a little warmth and some interesting shadows.
Had our first frost this morning, about two weeks later that average. Not sure it means anything about climate change, since we've had late frosts before, but we kept a few plants growing under visqueen a bit longer than usual. Now it's all that's left of another great garden.
Or just get a few pets.
But playing dog down is their favorite pastime.
Trying to get out and enjoy the fall colors on the rare days it's not raining. Here's a few pics...
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No, not the knockout drug dispensers, these guys are here to get a roof on. The old roof dates back to the late 70s when we built the cabin. We did all the work ourselves on the original cabin, but time and weather had taken its toll, on all. We tried to get something done last summer, but couldn't connect with any roofing contractors. This time a friend suggested I talk to one of the roofing suppliers in town and they gave me a list of three names. The third one on the list had the lowest bid and turned out to be a great guy to work with. We also decided to replace the fiberglass insulation with insulfoam to increase the insulation and make it easier to heat the house. He knew a contractor that did spray foaming and would coordinate the work with him. So after several rain delays, they got to work on it.
First they had to remove the old roofing and insulation, then spray the insulfoam. I bagged up as much of the old insulation as would fit in the garage loft and will use it to insulate the loft.
Then the roofers laid down the new steel panels. Pretty amazing to watch these thirty something guys scurry around on the roof. Brings back memories of when we installed the original roof back in the day.
Now they're installing snow guards, to keep the snow avalanching off in the spring, and a roof ladder for cleaning the stove pipe. Pretty neat stuff.
Back when I was a kid, my mom would take me downtown on the "El" train. I still remember standing on the station waiting for the train while she'd lecture me about the dangers involved: don't run for the train until it's stopped, stay in your seat, and don't ever touch the third rail. Now I hadn't ridden the El in years until the last time we flew into Chicago. Now they have an El train that takes you to the various parking areas scattered around O'Hare airport. Amazing!
Anyway, while I've been recuperating from the shoulder surgery, been trying to find low impact things to work on. One thing I noticed is that when we first put in both stairs, then rebuilt them a few years ago, there was only one railing installed, on the side away from the wall. That's no problem when you've got two good arms, but now with just one, figured it'd be a good time to add that third railing. So after a lot of measuring and searching for suitable lumber in the garage loft, got started on the new railings.
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After a warm June with maybe a dozen days around 80° F, July started off cool and rainy, but the last five days have been over 80°. While it's uncomfortable for us, the dogs are ones who suffer the most.
Since getting the shoulder surgery, I haven't done much except hang around the house, rest and recuperation, as they say, just taking it easy. The pain is mostly gone, just some soreness when I move it too far. So when I went to physical therapy this week, of course Jeff, the therapist, has me moving the arm in all ways it hurts. I think PT really stands for Physical Torture. When we went to the Dr, the nurse checked me over, then pulled up the x-ray and went out to get him. So Andy took a photo of it with her iphone while we were waiting.
Anyway, with little to do for the next few weeks, I can just hang out and watch the corn grow in the garden. It's doing great after all the hard work Andy's done with it.
Mentioned before about how my right shoulder's got the dreaded bone-on-bone arthritis and the failed attempts to get it fixed (April No Fool 4/2/24). So now I finally got'er done. It's been three days and the pain's let up considerably, can even type with the right hand, tho the left takes care of most of the rest of the chores. Been icing it down several times a day; puts new meaning on gettin' the cold shoulder. So now I'm hoping it heals fast enough to get back to doing summer stuff, like riding the Guzzi, before the snow flies. Read about it here...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_shoulder_replacement
After finishing welding up the snow blade, I realized there were a lot of vise grips pliers. So I dug around in the garage, the basement, and upstairs and this is what was there...
Apparently they're all Vise-Grip brand, except the second from the top and bottom, which are Craftsman. Since I always bought the original vise grips, not sure where the one near the bottom came from, maybe out of my dad's toolbox after he died. The smaller one near the top was found on the side of the highway when I was driving the tractor over to a neighbors. Then I remembered there were a couple more...
The top one's for bending sheet metal while is bottom's mainly for welding. It didn't get used this time cause it wouldn't work setting the wings at an odd angle to the snow blade.
According to Wikipedia, "The first locking pliers, with the trade name Vise-Grip, were invented by William S. Petersen in De Witt, Nebraska, United States in 1924; the brand name Vise-Grips is close to a generic name for this type of pliers. Locking pliers are available with many different jaw styles, such as needle-nose pliers, wrenches, clamps and various shapes to fix metal parts for welding."
So there you go, you can't have too many vise grips when it's time to weld!
After mounting the old plow on my new, for me anyway, 4-wheeler, the resulting plow job was less than spectacular (Solstice Stuff 12/23/20). Most of the snow falls off the sides of the blade, so figured it needed some side boards to keep the load intact. A while later, maybe a couple of years ago, made some angle wings out of a piece of steel that had been cut from an old barrel we had used for making a stove.
Finally got around to welding them onto the blade. Since we couldn't find the magnetic welding forms that Andy bought me years ago, had to finagle some way to hold the metal wings on an angle to spot weld them to the blade. Who says you can't have too many vise grips?
Not much new to report, mostly been splitting and stacking wood for next winter. The wall o' wood slowly disappears as well as a few spruce and birch logs got bucked up and split, adding to the stacks of firewood. But Andy's been getting some random shots of Jack Black, so thought I'd add them to the post.
Bred from a cross of German short hair pointer, greyhound, and husky, they've come to dominate sprint dog racing. so maybe that's Earl's breed. Here's a few pic's from today's run.
