moonhare

Damn, it seems like we were just celebrating the 200th! On July 4, 1976, I was with a friend visiting his hometown in upstate New York. They had a wonderful ‘small town’ parade and fireworks to celebrate the Bicentennial. *sigh* good times…

Flash forward to our 250th! We celebrated here at home (yesterday) with a nice family cookout. Tonight I’m watching events unfold on YouTube, although bad weather has postponed the DC activities, and I’ll be in bed before any fireworks displays happen ;o)

And still few, if any, fireflies here, but there is a large doe grazing on the front lawn. And there is a fawn, across the road; cars are slowing down, thankfully.

Happy 4th, to those who celebrate!

Is this truly trashposting? I spend too much time looking at ‘funny’ memes and pics, and of course feel obligated to share… ;o)


I had to look this up. I found the reference quickly enough but I’m still confused :D




*Hathi, clearing his throat* Quite so.


Want!




We just got a car with one of these and this is exactly how I view it!





It’s a furry thing ;o)


Every.night.

Good night!

This guy was spotted a couple of miles down the road from my house:



Another resident reported a bear sighting in a different part of town; it could have been this one, or maybe another. Unfortunately my trail cams are messed up because I’d love to see one of these fellows go through :o)

We heard/felt a large explosion during our stormy Saturday (today) that seemed like thunder but could have been a sonic boom. The news stations said otherwise. Possible space rock burning up in the atmosphere, thought our local meteorologist.

An FB post by a group that monitors emergency news first mentioned this, along with a screenshot from Twitter-



In other news today’s storms caused about 9000 customers here to lose power, down to 1100 now. Thank goodness for my talismans (2 generators): my power never even flickered ;o)

Last night I watched The Life and Times of Farmer Al, a collection of early Paul Terry cartoons. I think of Terry’s “Terrytoons,” like Heckle and Jeckle, when I hear his name, but this documentary of sorts, hosted by Leonard Maltin, explored his first cartoons up through about 1930. Most of these were silent, of course, but Terry even produced a cartoon ‘talkie’ with synchronized sound before Disney’s Steamboat Willie!

Anyway, Terry did a series called Aesop’s Fables, which had some animal characters drawn in a style beloved by me, and were an early furry toonophilic trigger for me.


The style of these simple, happy characters was magical. Other animators of the times, like Ub Iwerks, also captured this feeling for me.

Was this a good movie? I enjoyed Maltin’s historical sketch, but not all the cartoon choices presented. I kinda zipped along after a few until I saw the Aesop stuff…

Heh, I struggled to draw one of the raccoons in that title card, but tonight was not the night for it. Maybe another day…


A copyright bug from my early webpages.

Busy, busy. I finally cut down the second tree that was damaged during our blizzard.


It’s the leaning tree in the background.


Bzzzzzzz! *blush* I trapped the bar/chain in my first cut at the base of the tree, even though I knew better, and had to disassemble/swap it out with an older, saved “just in case” one to continue.

I brought the tractor and cart in to haul these off and *bang* the tractor threw its drive belt. Actually, a stick got into the rear pulley and forced the belt off. I spent a frustrating half hour trying to get the belt back on from underneath before giving up for the day and going online for help: “Remove battery, battery box, and access the pulley from above…” *laughs* Some sites suggested tilting the tractor up on its side, or removing pulleys!


In.

Out. That’s the pulley beneath the plastic battery box. I stopped taking pictures after removing the battery. The box popped right out :o)

And, as the 21 year old belt was in questionable shape, I bought a new belt, installed it, and all is well! And I have saved the old belt, just in case…

(aside- I still have an old set of ‘saved’ belts around here somewhere from my scrapped ‘71 Plymouth)

Anyway. All the wood has been removed and stacked for future splitting. The broom, seen in the cutting pic, above, was my measuring stick for making sure the logs would fit my splitter: 20” max to fit, 40” min log length to be trimmed later. I ended up cutting those longer pieces down today due to their weight.

*sigh* So I also had to do chainsaw maintenance. The chain was dulling so I got to use my Xmas gift sharpening kit to clean it up! Nothing fancy, just files and an angle guide. What a diff that made.


Internet pic.

Enough. Have a cute comic-

Our daughter gifted us some Breck’s bulbs last year, on our anniversary, and they arrived ‘in time for planting’ this past Friday. Yesterday I pulled the rototiller out of the shed and prepared a nice bed for these; I was well pleased with the machine (started on the third pull), considering it hadn’t been run since last Spring! 25 Gladiolus and 20 Tiger Flower bulbs planted :o)


The fence is to keep my little digger away from the plantings.

Today I took a ride to Ace Hardware and picked up Ball canning lids that we purchased through an online special. At 40-50% off we bought three packs each of the regular and wide mouth sizes. They had canning jars at similar savings, but we have plenty of those.

Also today I fueled up the truck: 23+ gallons at $3.72/gal. Ouch! I then hit the packie for a couple of bottles of coffee brandy (yummy). I wanted to buy mulch at Lowe’s today, 15 or 20 @$2 per 2 cubic foot bag, but wasn’t up to it. Tomorrow…

Exciting times indeed!
—
Some humor for these trying times-






I’m there!

Wednesday I decided to take the ballast out of the truck bed. It had rained off and on all day, but it seemed high time to do this. It took maybe a half hour.

Serendipity. Had I put this off due to the weather I would not have discovered that my hot water heater was leaking. I change into my working kit near the furnace, and upon returning from outside I saw a puddle on top of the tank and water below it :o(


Water seeped out below the fitting, pooled under the flange, and ran off onto the floor. The top of this tank had a fiberglass insulated cover, removed now, that hid the fact that it had gotten wet over time from a leaking Hy-Vent, retained moisture, and corroded the flange and compromised the seal. I’ve been watching this area for a couple of years, but now, 13 years on... The pic was taken after I shut off valves and cleaned things up.

I had a tech assess the situation even though I saw no solution beyond replacing the heater. I spoke with my oil company Thursday, and Friday they installed a new unit.


Woohoo! Fast, professional service, and pricey, but necessary.

My only concern was the water temperature; I measured this at the tap using a meat thermometer and got 150°F. Although I had an idea how to change this, I asked the installer to show me how. Unfortunately he set it a bit higher while explaining: he turned the wheel the wrong way. After hearing the furnace run longer than expected last night I checked the temp again and got 152°F+. Yeeek! Long story short, I went online, felt I got the wrong results from the Duck’s assist, and then found a clear YouTube video that clarified things.


150°+- The Duck said turn the notched wheel counterclockwise to lower the temp. The video agreed with my feeling that it was clockwise. The reason I was having trouble with this was that the control is in a tight spot and it is difficult to read the stamped temperatures on the shiny, notched wheel straight on.


120°F Joy!

—-

An unrelated note


I look for crocus each Spring, thinking of porsupah, and I saw this out front on Tuesday. 2024… time, time, time

(Unable to put this up last night due to problems noted at the end of this post)

Most of our deep snow has receded in our rains and 50° to 60°F temps! Yesterday was a lovely day, and I took advantage of this to build a bluebird nesting box :D I wish it came out better, but it should be adequate, providing the bluebirds return before other feathered friends, or mice, take it over.




Side fence, facing east; somewhat clear.

It rained last night and today was cooler, then cold with snow flurries. I have one more box to build, weather permitting.

—-
Two for the road-





Comment from last night- Edit: Why is DW constantly 504ing?

Tonight.

The storm has abated! We still have a few flakes falling, but the winds have died down. About 41K electric customers are still without power tonight.


Some snow out front was waist deep in areas. Using the snowblower on the driveway and dog path was a challenge where the snow was higher than the front housing: slow going with much repeating over spots. I had to refill the gasoline twice.

Dog’s yard!


The weather had just gotten pleasant enough to finish sawing up the fallen tree out back. The paths were clear to mud. I did some generator shed cleaning, too.


Ah, well. The pup is a priority and I cleared part of her path before doing the driveway.

Should be sunny tomorrow. Schools are cancelled for storm cleanup and parking bans remain in effect. We have a state of emergency still, and driving is prohibited: the street out front hasn’t been this quiet since I was a kid. I’ll clear the last of the snowfall from the driveway and try to open the whole dog path.