Whatcha Up To???

[w_r_ranch]

Received the 12 Cree LED 60 watt bulbs last night, so today I cleaned the 6 remaining ceiling fans & installed the new bulbs. I love these LEDs!!!

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Made bread & then vacuum packed the pork roast & the veggie soup.

 

[w_r_ranch]

Watered the garden again as it is still dry...

This morning I started putting in the transplants... got the Brussel sprouts & the kohlrabi done, next up will be the cabbage, broccoli & cauliflower. I will then plant the spinach, lettuce, chard, carrot & radish seeds.

Smoking a prime sirloin for supper.

 

[Mike]

Primed trim last night and took a few measurement for additional trim needed. Tonight I'll be working on replacing the two ignition coils in my mower.

 

[w_r_ranch]

Finished working on a friend's computer (he dropped it off yesterday).

Continue planting the garden... the cabbage, broccoli & cauliflower are now in. The direct seed stuff will go in tomorrow.

Watered the garden.

Fed the cattle.

Received the next installment of LED floodlights today so I will install them tomorrow AM.

 

[w_r_ranch]

Watered the garden. Found another pipe leak (at the middle trellis) that I will need to repair as soon as the area dries out. They don't make PVC pipe like they used to...

Installed the LED floodlights that we received yesterday. Ordered 14 more, which will complete the interior of the house/guest house. Then I'll start on the 19 exterior floodlights (which is a whole different beast).

Made Italian bread. Then made a banana/nut bread.

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[ErnieCopp]

Found a fresh water Spring coming up through my Asphalt driveway, decided it was probably caused by the water pipe Springing a leak. Sometimes water can meander around before popping up through the pavement, and the only way to locate the leak is to follow the water upstream until the source is reached.

Prospecting was pretty lucky, and found a cracked Tee joinnt within a couple of feet sideways, and 30" down. Picked up some fittings and a joint of 1" PVC, but when i started to create the bypass, discovered the PVC joint was real thin cheap stuff, which expands and cracks easy. It had been the only grade on display, but i went back to Home Depot and found some thicker walled, higher pressure PVC, so got the good stuff.

Completed the bypass and no leaks now, but left the hole open to make sure. Thin walled PVC is okay for Sprinkers and low pressure, but does not stand much high pressure so will only use that for sprinlers and such. The Cracked Tee was about 35 years old, so do not blame that for the crack. We have up to 80 pounds on the Water Mains here that i know of, and it may be even higher sometimes. I crank that down fo 50 pounds when it gets under my control but cannot do anything about the mains pressure.

Ernie

 

[w_r_ranch]

Prepped the 18 pounds of 'Buck Board Bacon' for smoking tomorrow (I've had them in the cure brine for the last 2 weeks & then submerged them fresh water overnight).

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Watered the 2 ends of the garden before starting the repairs to the middle circuit of the garden's irrigation system (now completed).

 

[Mike]

Oh man that banana nut bread looks amazing. I love that stuff!

 

[w_r_ranch]

Yesterday I smoked both of the 'Buckboard Bacons', watered the garden, fixed one of the rain gauges, lit a burn pile & fed the cattle.

Today I sliced/packaged all the bacon.

Made bread & pizza dough for tonight's supper.

Received the last 14 interior LED floodlights & started installing them

We are suppose to receive a fair amount of rain over the next 5 days.

 

[w_r_ranch]

Watered the garden as it hasn't started raining yet.

Installed some admin programs on my computer to facilitate more monitoring.

Finish installing the remaining LED floodlights. Next up is the building the LED strip lighting for the kitchen & display cabinets.

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[Mike]

Where did you buy the LED bulbs Sam? I've got 3-4 lights with LED's in them, they are CREE's from Home Depot. Looks and works great but at about $12 each they are a bit pricey.

 

[w_r_ranch]

All the LED bulbs are pricey... The regular bulbs for the lamps/ceiling fans I got at Amazon.com ($21 for 100w & $9 for 60w). The R-40 100w floodlights I got from 1000bulbs.com ($30)

 

[w_r_ranch]

Been raining here for the last 2 days... yesterday we received 1.54" & today we have had 4.65".

Since I've been stuck in the house, I've been researching LED ceiling lights for the porches. I have 3 items that are important to me:

• Minimum equivalent of 100 watts.

• 5000K color (I don't like yellow light).

• Must be totally enclosed (to keep the wasps from building their nests in them)

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I have settled on the Luminaire DL6D-x13W Can Light Conversion Kit, & have placed an order for 10 of them @ $30/ea. They should pay for themselves in relatively short order (~600 hrs of use) , as we are going from 5000 watts total to 130 watts.

Next up are the floodlights for the yard... As these will be exposed to wet conditions, I'm leaning towards the TCP L17P38D50KFL, which run about $28 ea. I'm still researching though...

Reinstalled 'Virtualbox' on Mrs. Ranch's computer as it stopped working...

 

[Mr_Yan]

This weekend I am continuing to re-finish / re-furbish my upstairs floor. We ripped out the carpet then found that putting in new wall to wall carpet would run about $1200 for cheap carpet. After ripping out the carpet we found that the pine T&G subfloor looked pretty good. I am sanding that to clean it up a little. After the sanding I will put down a clear finish. It will then need some area rugs but will be finished for about $400 rather than $1200. This counts the sand paper I am using, finish, and area rugs.

 

[w_r_ranch]

Still raining here... we have received 1.33" since midnight. There is probably more than that, as it has been a very fine mist blowing out of the north all day & I doubt that it is registering in the rain gauge. Kind of cool here too, the high was only 61 degrees.

Made Italian bread & a loaf garlic bread.

 

[w_r_ranch]

The garden is drying out... the plants are looking pretty sad after the 7.5" of rain...

Started cleaning the garage in preparation for winter.

Ordered 5 new heavy cast aluminium floodlight fixtures for the back yard. The shame of it is, I just install the present ones last year, but I don't think they will support the weight of the new LED floodlights.

 

[Mr_Yan]

Kid-2, three years old, was running a fever on Friday / Saturday but was running around fine Sunday and most of today.
Kid-1, five years old, was fine until late Saturday when she started throwing up. That ended around 1 AM today (Monday). Now she's acting fine
Kid-2, the three year old, expelled his lunch just before dinner today.

On the third load of laundry since about 5 pm.

Public service announcement to new parents When the kid gets attached to a certain stuffed animal get a spare and rotate them weekly. Toys R Us will not have the special stuffed animal two years later after it got sick on and had to be cleaned. A wet Bow-Wow-Doggie is not fun to cuddle with. We'll see how well the surface cleaning with Oxi-Clean works.

The original Winnie-The-Pooh is a pretty good book to read out loud with a three year old.

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Over the weekend I:
Finished sanding the pine sub floor upstairs. Photos if I ever get some sleep again.
Cleaned the gutters.
Blowed and shredded the leaves in the back yard. (Yes I used the word blowed)
Finished harvesting the greens up at my community garden - 24 pounds donated
Watched Back To The Future 1 and 2 - made me glad I was too young to participate in the '80s
Plus the requriset play with the kids, clean up after a sick kid, etc.

 

[w_r_ranch]

Took Mrs. Ranch to do the weekly shopping.

Made a pot of pinto beans for supper.

Built a new fishing rod rack for the garage.

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[Mike]

I guess we're getting all the rain you had Sam as it's been raining here for the last 3 days.

 

[w_r_ranch]

We have more coming this weekend, they say...

 

[Mr_Yan]

We've been getting mist for a few days now. Possible to turn to flakes tonight.

I really need to disconnect my hose and bring it in tonight.

 

[w_r_ranch]

Replanted the lettuce, spinach, carrots, radishes & chard. Also used all of my spare plants to replace the ones that didn't look to good after the last rain... I may have to buy some, it there is anything left around here.

Bathed both dogs in preparation for winter.

 

[w_r_ranch]

Waiting on the rain...

Made bread & rolls. Mrs. Ranch is making macaroni salad.

Cleaning out the joints in the bath tub/jacuzzi so I can apply the new sealant.

 

[w_r_ranch]

Rain finally arrived here after nightfall. We received 0.09" yesterday & 0.93" today. We did good as we were between the 2 really bad lines of storms... some places an hour away received 17"!!!

Received the new floodlight fixtures yesterday, so this morning I assembled them & soldered the wire connections together. I'm still waiting on the new LED bulbs, but at least I'm ready to roll when they arrive. These are really nice fixtures!!!

Finished applying the sealant to the joint seams of bath tub/jacuzzi. It should be cured in a couple of days.

Since all the hummingbirds have moved on, I cleaned their feeders & put them away.

Drained & cleaned the redneck 'swimming pool', then flipped it over in preparation for winter.

Made a pear crisp for dessert tonight.

 

[Mr_Yan]

Raining and about 40° F here. We're staying in.

We carved pumpkins this morning. Kid-1 and Kid-3 got typical geometric faces but Kid-2 wanted a T-rex pumpkin. Out came the dremal tool and roto-zip blades.