You snuck that one in on me, W..... [ouch]

Thanks for the posting... I thought I was the only one listening to me.... however... I was told today that others use this posting as a method of seeing through the mountains to see what is going on on the other side.. so I know I must keep speaking even if at times it seems that I and the voices are the only ones listening...

The cloud was cool.... just steadily flowing from your place ...down toward mine.  I managed to get my camera out of my pocket and capture it even though I was only half awake.... sounded like it too...

Guess what else... My son sent me a Serj Tankian book signed by him.... to me.....Glaring Through Oblivion.... In it he speaks through poetry of what the blind refuse to see..... the subject and substance of my rants on the system....especially in the off topics section....  and he signed it...

To Glenn... Peace...., Serj  

What could be more cool than that....

Glenn, I make a point of checking in as often as possible just to see what you are up to 

Yup, check it every day myself just to see what new fiasco has arisen....makes me laugh sometimes, then people look at me funny.  Oh well, what do they know.

Hey, thanks, TT and NY.  I always tell people I am not really as crazy as I pretend to be here on the forum.... I just have to act that way to keep up the interest...

Then...they want to argue with me about that....sheesh...

Latest thought I had in my head this morning... is now trying to escape.... good luck with that...

It is...  drum roll please...

Regarding the feeding of "Weed Salad with EM Dressing" to the chickens.  I slacked off on it for the last month or so, just feeding the chickens plain weeds and grass very occasionally along with their feed.  EM Salad I was doing every couple of weeks.   Sassy and I both noticed a definite decrease in egg shell thickness, and during the cold snap the chickens stopped laying for a few days.  

Shell thickness I am sure is related to not getting the Salad and EM. The Microbes in the EM break down the calcium in the Layena pellets and make it more easily used for the shells by the chickens.  Apparently plain weeds without the EM does not increase shell thickness

Stopping laying for a few days... probably the cold weather, but feed changes could also affect that.

The brilliance this morning is taking it's toll on me... [idea]

Time to get a bite of breakfast and head off to work in Dead Horse Corral.  [deadhorse]

My son replied about the book.... He went to a book signing and told Serj about the Underground Complex... and Serj thought it was cool....

My son at the book signing.... Serj at the desk between the two body guards...  (Just guessing - they look the part to me)........



From my son....

QuoteI went to  a book signing in Burbank. He lives either there or Glendale.  Muchos of the Armenians do.  I was surprised at how personable he is. He smiled, looked you in the eye and was interested in what his fans have to say.  I told him a bit about you and your house and he thought it was great! So, you have left an impression in his head and he knows you live in Mariposa under the ground.  

Serj Tankian was lead singer for "The System of A Down"  And he now mostly sings under his own name and is a poet also.  Songs that have something to say about what is wrong with the world today.

Check out the message in a couple of his videos.... Oh BTW... It's not country...... [ouch]

Saving Us






The Unthinking Majority





 Likely many will not care for it but I liked the message and went on to get to like his stuff....

Yesterday I continued removing snow broken trees from the corral and horse area at my friends neighbors place.  

Due to us mountain boys sticking together... networking and looking out for each other over the last 35 years, I was the trusted choice recommended for doing this job.  Barter, trade, look out for the interests of your friends and neighbors.  Take care of them and they will take care of you when times are tough.

The limb that fell into the horse corral was 24 inches ... actually a little larger before we cut it off.  The owner said they were Live Oaks, but I think they are Black Oaks as I think they were bare of leaves.  Live Oaks have leaves year round.



The sky is falling ... the sky is falling... [ouch]  

That could really mess up your day.  It broke off about 25 feet up in the air.

It knocked down this pine - busted parts of it to ribbons then knocked it down on the dogs kennel.  Saved by the building and the gate frame... lucky dog......



I lifted that up and took it away ...the owner assisted as there was a lot the insurance doesn't cover....so we worked together on this making it come out as good as possible for both of us.

Next I got started hacking away at the big Oak... 42 inches across at the butt..... ahem.... the tree... not me....  



I sawed and sawed and sawed and sawed.  I got a decent face cut on the low side but by the time I had that done I had dulled 2 saws and things got interesting.  I couldn't cut straight as both chains were dulled one side and cutting sideways.  I was close enough I didn't want to stop and sharpen a chain at my buddies across the street..... crimoney... I had 3 saws there.  After a bunch of fooling with the big saws .. almost through, I finally gave up and finished the last bit with a smaller saw.... Didn't want to leave it standing with it cut 2/3 or more loose.  Didn't want a big surprise at the wrong time.



Arrrggghhh... that was a job.  

Okay, kids... lesson for today.  Safety is of great importance on a job...

Don't abuse or overload your tools.  

How can you tell if you are abusing your tools?

I judge by when the tires of the crane come off of the ground a couple inches......



Actually not so unsafe.  We were moving the logs to my buddies place across the street for me to later load on my trailer and bring to my mill.  The truck would not go more than a foot or so off of the ground as the log would stop it when it hit at the back, but also I could feel it go up so stopped moving forward, readjusted and moved it again.

Ahhh, success... Safely across the road to the staging area.



Water was still running out as I got ready to set it on the deck for hauling away later.  When I first cut into it, water was running out like a hose turned on to a gallon a minute flow or so - for several minutes.



Always something new and fun, eh?  

Awesome work.I love Hino trucks but they are some what rare in my area.

Thanks, Ben.  The Hino is a great truck and is Number One in Japan.  It has been taken over by Toyota now as I recall.  Not real popular in the states but still one of the best.

I had told the previous owner of this one that if he ever wanted to sell it I was interested.  He called and I bought it.  A real work horse and it allows me to do things I could not do otherwise.  It turns in a smaller space than nearly all 4x4 pickups.

In it's previous life it was built for building TV, radio and phone towers.

Dropped by the other Uhouse I am helping and consulting on yesterday.

He has his root cellar in, French drains dug from it about 7 feet deep BY HAND [ouch] and also dug around the entire structure for the upper French drains.  He is putting in piers with rebar pins. I had him increase the size of the pins around the perimeter in backfill resisting areas to 3/4 dia rebar.  

It will have more bearing for the bottom of the post against side pressure on the wood.  Weight of the structure and earth cover will also resist inward pressure though.  That worked well for me.



In the foreground is a rubble footing he is making for a popout area.  All footings went down through the softer red clay to the harder porphyry claystone that we consider a bedrock here.

Aside from that, I took Sassy to the Civil War that is happening this weekend.



She missed it last year and today she is in taking care of wounded veterans.....(back to real life.....)...

I learned yesterday that our area... that of the gold miners was considered the South and recruits from here served on the Southern side.  How about that.  Damn Yankees.....

Things got going good about 150 years ago right now....

QuoteApril 1861 -- Attack on Fort Sumter.

When President Lincoln planned to send supplies to Fort Sumter, he alerted the state in advance, in an attempt to avoid hostilities. South Carolina, however, feared a trick; the commander of the fort, Robert Anderson, was asked to surrender immediately. Anderson offered to surrender, but only after he had exhausted his supplies. His offer was rejected, and on April 12, the Civil War began with shots fired on the fort. Fort Sumter eventually was surrendered to South Carolina.

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cwphtml/tl1861.html

I had to go down to the valley yesterday to fix the water heater so Sassy would have hot water when she got home from work.  I had cleaned the air and gas feeds from the burner on the old one but obviously something more serious was wrong with the burner as it kept sooting up and likely making CO.

I put in a used one from a remodel that was given to us.  The owner was giving it away to get rid of it and told our friends who brought it to us that it worked fine.  Hey, it did.  What a great deal.

To keep from going down for just one thing I took my trailer too and brought back my Granddad's old 1924 McCormick Deering tractor, that I had brought down to the other house in the 1980's.



As a kid in grade school I would go to the library and check out whatever old tractor books I could find and studied gas engine theory , operation and repair... whatever I could learn to help repair that tractor.  I pulled the spark plugs, poured in oil and jumped on the crank trying to get it unstuck.  

In the 80's I finally asked my uncle if I could have it and brought it from Oregon to California.  It has been yard art ever since, but I know some of the story behind it so it is special yard art.  Dad said it really belonged to my uncle Joe, but grandpa was the last one to use it.

I still remember the old beast chugging away as my grandpa pulled around the corner of the old house pad where the big old family house had burned down years earlier.  He would be towing 3 or 4 alder logs, skidding them across the ground from my uncles part of the ranch about a half mile away.  Dust would be flying into the air as he rounded the corner to the wood lot.  No need for the brake to be working well on the tractor as the dragging logs would stop it at just the right spot.

The logs were dropped at the flat spot on the hillside that was used as a wood yard near the newer house perched on the side of the mountain.  There grandpa cut them into stove wood lengths and split them to dry to become part of the 10 cords of wood he stored in the basement of the house.  He transferred the dry wood to the basement with an old flat bed wooden wheelbarrow he built with 2x4 handles whittled to fit his hands.  There was a headboard on the wheelbarrow to allow a good sized pile of wood to be hauled and a salvaged steel rimmed-steel spoked wheel that kept it rolling easily for years on end.  I think my cousin may have gotten the wheelbarrow.

Grandpa always liked the house to be 80 degrees or so all winter and the wood was carried up the back steps of the basement past the bathroom to the wood stove.  Seems the wall may have had a door so the wood didn't have to be carried through the kitchen.  Grandpa's chair was in the corner where he could bask in the heat radiated from the old stove and sleep through the winter rains... OK... fall, winter, spring and part of the summer.  The homestead was after all, a few miles inland on the northern Oregon Coast.

I remember one get together with the house full of people... uncles, aunts, in-laws, outlaws...etc.  Grandma cooked a giant meal, usually mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, beans, meat, several deserts, ice cream and the greatest big raised dinner rolls in the world.  Grandma was a cook for the lumber camps in the old days so we always were fed well at get togethers.  Later she cooked for several local restaurants.

I still remember grandpa crawling on the floor trying to hide under the table as uncle Woody (really my dads cousin), tried to get him to take a drink of whiskey.  I don't recall grandpa ever drinking though.

I remember after dinner we were all playing poker.. I was probably about 9 or 10, and my uncle Mandeville (really my dads uncle-grandma's brother... not sure I had any relatives... everything was dad's)....  made me stop playing because I was winning too much.  I helped uncle Mandeville rebuild an old homestead house and was taught all phases including electrical and plumbing, sheetrock etc, and the get togethers were after work each weekend usually.  He would cuss us up one side and down the other if we weren't doing things right, but likewise, nothing would please him more than to have us do the same thing back to him. One of his favorite tricks was to walk over beside us and drop an SBD, then walk away snickering.... (a few of us kids helped him or were assigned to learn from him as well as some of his friends).  I really think we learned quite well....

In the years after grandpa passed on, until I took it to California, the tractor sat at the edge of the meadow near the woodlot, rusting away in the Oregon rain, into the solid non-moving mass of cast iron, tin and rubber that you see above on the trailer.  The rubber tires were added by uncle Joe as it came out with steel wheels with lugs.  Dad said he thinks John Holiday (a logger) modified it at his shop.  Grandpa had the rocker cover off of the rocker and pushrod assembly so the rockers could be oiled manually.  I don't recall if the old McCormick even had an oil pump or just splash system, but likely the engine was not in that great a shape anyway with all of the dirt that was sure to have entered it through the open top.

I guess those were the good ol' days....

Whitlock came by today and said it was time to move the cows back to the spring so they could eat the grass down before fire season.  After we moved a bit of equipment I went looking for the cows but it took a bit.  Actually they found me... a couple loud moos in the woods above and they came running.  They were excited.... the old 60 miles an hour downhill routine again.  hmm All except Bossy Cow...

I caught a bit of it on the video as they came screaming in to a halt.



A bit of a look around revealed her watching me from the brush and grass above.  A damp area provided grass that was good enough that she was not real excited about leaving.  She eventually gave in though.



Once they were all together we took off for the spring.  Lots more running and playing on the way over there.  They knew they were getting their spring back... their favorite place.

I invented a breakfast dish that is so good.... probably never tasted before .... I can hardly stand it.... I mean the flavor is out of this world....yummy.....

Unfortunately I have to go to work now.....  Let's say it has to do with butter, onions, eggs, saffron, tarragon, Romano Cheese sprinkled over it, a bit of Realsalt and a secret ingredient.......

Takes about 10 minutes to make.

Haven't stopped by in a while Glenn but I always enjoy catching up!  Man that Oak would be awesome to have but I suspect 2-3 years of drying is in order eh?

Thanks for dropping in OJ.  I am thinking it is a year per inch of thickness after it is cut into boards.  I ordered blades today for my saw and am considering rebuilding it for bigger stuff in the future.  Likely I will use up the ten blades I ordered before any changes though.  It needs to be cut into boards and cants before drying though.  Then it might be worth something for furniture or otherwise.

Things can be built with it that do not require dry wood if allowance is made for shrinkage.  Just depends on what it is.

I brought the first three logs home today - I'm guessing about 10,000 lbs or more in them.

I fell an 80 footer today.  Hopefully I will get some pix up soon.

OK ... the mystery ingredient from breakfast.



And - not presented well but it was for me and I was running late.... so it's still in the pan....



I was in a hurry so scrambled it in eggs rather than make an omelet.  Next time I want Feta Cheese to go with it and some sour cream would be nice......and some bacon..... 

Figured out the mystery ingredient yet?

I was getting high today... never mind the man there in the bucket lift without his safety harness.... He would have worn it if he had remembered to get it from the other truck 40 miles away... other than that, he is not subject to OSHA as he is an owner/operator... that does not make it smarter though.... [ouch]

I had to be double careful without the harness.....




Todays 80 footer goin' down...  click the pix for a short video






The deed is done....

Sassy got back from work yesterday, and she successfully guessed the mystery ingredient in the breakfast omelet.



Cattails..... When I moved the cows back to the spring I was looking at the pond thinking I needed to remove some of the Catttails so I pulled a few and took them back to cook.  

Remember Mike talking about them?  Click for a short video.



They taste quite a bit like a potato when eaten raw... texture of tender Asparagus until you get up the stalk a ways to where it starts getting stringy.  You can feel it with a sharp knife as you slice it, then sample to the point the strings get too tough. On a pulled stalk it seems to be about 8 inches to a foot.

Good expanded information from Sunny Savage..




http://wildfoodplants.com/

Went prospecting a couple of days and got a bunch of new wildflower pix. 

Let's try this... I put them up on Facebook as public.  Lets see if you can view them without trouble.

Click the pix to go to the album.  These are all local wildflowers that we see here each spring for a couple of months before everything turns brown... [ouch]

Thursday we started removing trees that were of possible danger to the horses at the corral I am  cleaning up storm damage from.

Good thing we did.  As soon as I looked at the new trees to remove I spotted another limb ready to go - directly over two horses that were not dead yet.....

An 8 foot long crack had developed in the center of the limb.  In the manlift bucket  on my crane I am near 35 feet up.  The crack was wide enough that I could see a 1" gap in the center of it, and it was about the center of the limb.



The bar on that saw is about a 25 inch.  These Black Oaks are huge and I would estimate that limb to weigh 3000 lbs or more.  I cut it up at the max. height  I could reach which was around 40-42  feet and a few feet above the crack.  The owner did not want to remove the corral as he needed to put the horses back in it.

I whined and complained about not removing the corral as I knew there was a good chance the limb could hit it.   When I cut off the limb the gap closed back shut.  That is how close it was to falling.  I missed the corral by about an inch and actually it bounced into it at the bottom.  I did all I could to make the owner aware that there was no guarantee of missing the pipe rail fence.

I am keeping all of the wood that is reasonably able to be made into good boards and some if it will wind up in future Underground Cabin projects I am sure.

Got home with another load of Black Oak logs after the last days work...



Reading on preventing checking, I found that a paint containing aluminum in spar varnish is best to coat the ends with so that was interesting.  Need to do that I guess.

http://www.ehow.com/how_5732228_dry-wood-splitting.html

Got another pix of the current blooming wildflower... camera soon to be upgraded for better pix with less trouble, more features and professional functions... like I can figure out how to use that... [ouch]



Our ancient one toothed cat decided to be cute and freak me out when I went for a glass of water... what is that moving on the second shelf...

Yeah ... I ran her out of there with a good chewing out ... after I took her pix......I don't know what she was thinking of... senility I guess....



....and collecting the things I need to get the hydroponics going soon... Food costs will be climbing greatly this year.  Hydroponics, while not organic, do give the plants what they need at lowest cost for highest production in my opinion, and they are better than the corporate produced stuff we buy in the markets.


Pictured are a suitable container for the nutrients - not too small or values will change too rapidly.  A pump of sufficient strength to get nutrients to the level and flow needed for your setup...from a small submersible to a larger one as pictured here.  A filter if using drippers though I will be using NFT - nutrient flow technique, on for 15 minutes about 3 times a day or as needed.  This allows air to the roots for faster growing.  For that, a $8 or so Harbor Freight Timer with 15 minute increments is good. 

Nutrients - Hydro Gardens in Colorado seems to be the most cost effective and good quality.- I have Hobby and Tomato formulas - used in separate systems.  I buy from them.. no other affiliation.

http://www.hydro-gardens.com/index.htm



And - pictured earlier in this thread... a TDS meter will be needed to checking nutrients in solution.  A way to test PH will also be needed.  Good tap water, well water, rainwater or other non-chlorinated water is best or study up on what to do with city water.

Nice logs Glenn.

Quote from: glenn kangiser on April 24, 2011, 01:21:38 AM
Thursday we started removing trees that were of possible danger to the horses at the corral I am  cleaning up storm damage from.

I am keeping all of the wood that is reasonably able to be made into good boards and some if it will wind up in future Underground Cabin projects I am sure.

If they are dried correctly they can make very good boards.  Here is a picture of a bookshelf I built from California Black Oak back in 1980.  Milled from trees cut off the property I was working on.  I used the ones with the most character to build the bookcase using no metal fasteners.  After more than 30 years it is going strong, currently storing books and toys for the grandchildren...

Glenn

With NFT the flow will need to be continuous.

Most hydroponic systems have inadequate flow rates, which results in reduced oxygen levels at root surfaces. This stresses roots and can increase the incidence of disease. Oxygen is soluble only as a micronutrient, yet its uptake rate is much faster than any other nutrient element.
The nutrient film technique was designed to improve aeration of the nutrient solution because of the thin film of solution, but the slow flow rates in NFT cause channeling of the solution and reduced flow to areas with dense roots. The root surfaces in these areas become anaerobic, which diminishes root respiration, reduces nutrient uptake, increases N losses via denitrification, and makes roots susceptible to infection.

If you let the water fall into the reservoir that will be all the aeration it needs otherwise I would add a small air pump and stone(air).  

Light can also be an issue, meaning keep as little light from the reservoir and channels as possible.  35% H2O2 will help.

Check your water with that TDS meter, sometimes well wate is hard.  You want it to be less than 100.

Yes, I like hydro!

Hi everybody.  I am in with Sassy for her to get an operation to repair a herniated disc that is pressing on her sciatic nerve.

It is supposed to be a fairly short procedure so she should be out this afternoon.

Thanks PEG.  I hope to get some good boards from them.  Have to run the metal detector over them since the were in a front yard.

I'll have to go into professional mode to do something like that Pine Cone.  Wish me luck.

Todd, you are correct when it comes to the common way to do NFT, but I will be using an intermittent flow technique with it that allows the air direct access to the roots as the flow is stopped.   It was found that the plants grow even faster.  I experimented with it successfully about ten years ago.  We had more than we could eat.  Root growth was massive.  My troughs were too small before.  I should get more going on this this week.

Typing on this Android is a pain, Todd but I welcome more info from you as it sounds like. You know a lot about it.

I think I should be back to my computer tonight.