Raining Cats and Dogs...

Well not exactly, but we're finally getting some steady rain. It's knocked down a lot of the forest fires, the smoke that hung around through most of the summer is largely gone. Since July is, on the average, one of the wettest months up here, it's about time. Read about it here:
http://www.newsminer.com/news/alaska_news/rain-slows-wildfires-along-yukon-river/article_56848f80-b245-11e9-ae4c-87c2ae66ed07.html

One of the sled dogs, Little Missy, or Pissy Missy as I call her, has been acting up lately, so we thought bringing her into the house might help socialize her. The interesting thing that's happened is that while she's the loudest, most obnoxious dog in the yard, she's pretty mellow around the cat. Jack Black was apparently raised with a dog, but it was about his size, so he's not too sure what to make of the monster dogs that we have here. But by and large he's curious enough, or maybe he's just lazy and doesn't want to move, so he stays put on the couch when she comes in. Makes for interesting visits.

Backhoe's Up Again...

After blowing out a hose last fall (Hosed Again 11/10/18) and then getting the hoses replaced (All Hosed Up 5/1/19), finally got the backhoe working. Didn't want to finalize anything until the tractor was parked in place for hookup, so the length of the hoses could be checked.

So after finishing splitting firewood, removed the splitter, then had to install the mower to cut the grass before the dog yard disappeared from view. Finally got the backhoe hooked up today; I can see why farmers have more than one tractor, it's a pain to always change implements. But then there was only one leak after hooking it up, where I forgot to tighten one of the fittings. Also put the protective sleeving material over the hoses so they won't get banged up so much. They now run under the foot boards, instead of next to them, so should be pretty much out of harms way.

Hopefully these hoses will last as long, or longer than the old ones. Next project 'll be to hook up the pressure washer and clean off all the oily dirt that accumulated after the hose blew and sprayed hydraulic fluid everywhere.

Still Hot...

While we did get some rain and cool weather the other day, it quickly warmed up again. Figured I'd take advantage of the warm spell and get the rest of the wood split that was hauled in this spring (All Fools Day 4/1/19). Normally I'd have split the wood in May to get'er drying earlier, but had to wait to heal up from the surgery.

Here's the weather summary for June. The Climate Center over at UAF seems to be getting these out later than usual. They used to come out the first week of the month.

Mean monthly temperature for Fairbanks in June was 63.5°F, which was 3.1°F above normal. The observed maximum temperature was 89.0°F on the 29th of the month, the minimum temperature was 44.0°F on the 4th of the month. The total monthly precipitation was 1.5", which was 0.1" above normal. (National Weather Service, Alaska Region)

Almost a Triumph...

Finally getting around to putting the '64 T-bird back together. We got this bike on a trip to England back in the early eighties. Everybody likes to bring home a souvenir and I guess this was mine. Drove it around here for about five years, mostly to work, but then it quit on me on the way home one day. Had to push it the last few miles to my neighbors place, then walked home and got the pickup and hauled'er back up the hill. One thing I'll never forget, while pushing it down the road, I was passed by a group of Harley riders and they never even slowed down. Well so much for the brotherhood of bikers!
When I got it home and checked it out, there was a major short in the wiring harness and it pretty much fried it. That got me to tear into it some more, figured I might as well rebuild the engine and restore the rest. But then I got the '72 Triumph and '75 Moto Guzzi and the T-Bird was kind of forgotten, until now.

After getting most of the bits back on the bike, took some rubbing compound and rubbed out the tank and fenders. Surprisingly, the original paint still looked pretty good after all these years. Amazing!