Hot and Smokey...

Been working in the garage a lot, since it's been so hot and smokey lately. At least I'm getting a lot mechanicing done, so that's something I guess. Maybe we'll see one of the "dead motors" running this year!

(Photo from Anchorage Daily News)

Any way the wind blows, we get smoke, since there's forest fires burning on three side of us, though the closest is mostly contained. We've already had half a dozen days above 80°F and it almost hit ninety today. This is getting to be too much like the midwest!

May Weather Summary...

The Alaska Climate Center finally got around to posting their summary for this past month...

May 2019 was the ninth consecutive month of above normal temperatures for Fairbanks. The warmest temperatures of the month occurred on the 26th and 30th when the temperature reached 75° F. The coldest temperature was 29° on the 7th, which was the last day temperatures dropped below freezing. The average temperature for the month was 53.8°, which was 4.4° above normal

Rainfall totaled 1.01 inches, which was 0.41 inches above the normal. The highest daily rainfall was 0.35 inches on the 18th, which also set a record for the most hourly rainfall. There was no measurable snowfall for the month. (National Weather Service, Alaska)

May was pretty decent, warm and just enough rain to keep the garden damp. June's been OK, but we're already getting the afternoon thunderstorms. One lightening strike started a forest fire about seven miles NE of here and they're still trying to contain it. The helicopters shuttling the fire crews in and out of the site fly right over our place. It's a little too close for comfort.

You can read about it here:
http://www.newsminer.com/news/local_news/more-crews-ordered-to-fight-wildfire-near-two-rivers-new/article_02150964-9384-11e9-a782-dfed0b1fcb45.html

Husky Revenge...

No, one of the dogs didn't get me again. This was my revenge on the "hernia maker" (All fools day...4/1/19). When we first got the new dog, Badger, he hadn't been "fixed" yet. One of the things that most rescue shelters require is that the adopted dogs are spayed/neutered. Since we got him on New Years day, we couldn't arrange it right away, so I promised Linn I'd getter done "pretty soon." Well that turned out to be a while, since I decided we'd probably be better off waiting until spring, that way he could run uninterrupted all winter in the team and not have his privates shaved off in the cold weather. But when I got the hernia surgery in the spring, we put it off again so I could handle him without worry.
So last week was his lucky day. We took him to one of the SNIP sessions, where they do a walk in spay/neuter clinic. When we brought him home, we kept him in the travel kennel in the garage at first, then into the basement.

Well he sure liked that, especially when he got up on the old couch. He's pretty well trained inside, Linn had mentioned that she thought he'd had some house training, and goes right into the kennel, so that made it easy to move him back and forth. The only real excitement was when the cat came down to visit. Badger boy saw "lunch" and the cat had to scramble to get back upstairs. He's pretty much back outside now, we only put him in the kennel when we let the other dogs off for their free run. He'll be back running with the rest soon enough, probably never realizing that I got my "revenge."

Tools are not the tools...

There's a blog I follow that occasionally has articles about tools:  http://progress-is-fine.blogspot.com
It kind of reminded me of my college days when I roomed with a guy who really was into wrenching on engines. His favorite saying was "tools are not the tools". Now "Crazy Bob" was a joker, but what I think  he meant is that you need to think things through before starting to tear into something. It isn't just the tool,  it takes brain power to get'er done.
Anyway, I never owned my own tools until I went off to school, I'd always borrowed some from my brother, dad or neighbor. so eventually had to buy my own. Now I have three roll-away tool chests full of them. But it all started with one crescent wrench; there's a few more now...

The top wrench, a 12 incher made by Diamond Tool of Duluth, MN, came from the Tractor Supply Center (TSC) in DeKalb, Il. I bought it just before I left for Alaska in '76, the great Buy Centennial year.  A big tool for a big move.

The next one is an 8 incher that I got at a local surplus store in the Chicago area back in the late 60's. It was in a big barn shaped building, crammed floor to ceiling with army surplus stuff and cheap tools. I loved that place. Made in Spain, this is the first tool I ever bought.

The next is a 6 incher that came from a hardware store in Delta Jct, AK. I was on my way to a job in Chicken, a mining town on the Taylor Hwy, and had forgot something, maybe some nails or screws, I forget. Anyway, I saw this on the bargain-bin table and couldn't resist. It's a cheap Chinese knock off and seldom gets used.

The bottom one is a 4 incher that came from my father's tool box after he died. There was an 8 incher in there too that I still have. This little one was probably the most used of all of them, until I got a good set of small combination wrenches. It's the only made in the USA Crescent brand wrench I own. Amazing!

All Tabled Up...

Been trying to get lots o' projects done, rebuilding an old Triumph, fixing the 4 wheeler and 650 Mogu, while still doing the spring chores like rototilling and mowing. The garage/workshop is full of projects, so all the benches are covered with parts and manuals. So what's the solution? Clean up the mess? No of course not, let's build another shop bench.
Back in the day, don't remember when, we got some foldable steel legs and built a spare table so we could have more folks over, mainly at Christmas. And for some reason we got two pair of the legs. Later on, don't remember that either, I found a piece of a packing crate, about 3x5', that I thought would make a nice work bench. So they sat in the garage loft for maybe twenty years, until I figured it was time to do something with it.

Now the top was kind of rough, had lot's of holes where I pulled out the nails that held the crate together. So asked Andy to pick up a small can of wood putty to fill the holes before I put on a coat of varnish to seal the grain. So she brings home a can of this stuff that looked like wood putty, but is really some kind of after the fact filler that can't be sanded or stained. OK, so whatever, I fill all holes, let it sit overnight,  then sand the filled holes. It works, sort of, but it obviously didn't harden. So I went ahead and varnished it. That didn't work out so well, as the filler shed varnish like a duck's back. But then I applied some stain after the varnish dried, so it's not looking too bad. Now I know, it shouldn't matter too much what a workshop table looks like, but still, why would you make a wood putty that doesn't harden or can't be stained or varnished?