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Figured out how to test my insta-pot. Filled half full of water and then check the water temp. Normal setting for keep warm is 145f. Checking the high setting now.

Edit to add...

The high setting is 160f. I was hoping for 170. Now I'll run the same tests for the slow cooker settings. The problem is I need to run the extraction for 48hrs which I can do with the keep warm function. The slow cooker function will only run 10hrs so I'll have to restart the extraction several times.
 
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Coffee. Taking my Pearl (GS350) in for spa day. She has a parking sensor acting up and needs a fluid change. Hubby is going to follow me over in the Celica-Supra and take me to breakfast. Have a little canning and some trim work assistance with dad planned later. Grandma’s house is almost completely done. Before winter even. I’m as surprised as my dad is.
Hear that @Pearl no more acting up. And you need a fuel change- grab another beer 🍻
Visited with Mom and Dad at the nursing home. We wheeled Mom out to the arboretum so she could look at the flowers and see all the bumble bees. Dad is getting weaker. Walking 100 yards is getting tough for him and he needed to sit down for a bit to catch his breath. I guess that's what happens when you're 89 and only 35% of your heart still works. It hurts me to see it.

I'm about to meet GF at Anytime Fitness for a gym date. My back muscles are still sore from our last gym date on Wednesday. Hopefully I'm not too wimpy tonight...
might ask to get him to tell some stories of when he was a young wooper snapper and the shenanigans he got into. Things we miss when the opportunity is no longer available.
 
This weekend is carshow. Last night was the cruise. A friend has a party every year: about 100 people, band, potluck etc and watch the cars. He puts up an old timey street light and often if a muscle car gets the red light, they stop then patch out. Well there were “several” entries that were not classic cars but “ethnic” rigs. One was an El Camino style low rider. It was at the red light and running the rpm’s up thinking he was patching out but wheels weren’t turning- slipping clutch. Killed it. Restarted it and took off. About 20’ later which happened to be right in front of us, it burst into flames. That was exciting. Flames go so well with mariachi music. We were all hollering - they seemed to think we liked the rig🙄. Everyone was okay but the dummy probably burnt up his rig. Otherwise a fun evening. I’m still catching up from all the activities last week. Mowed, laundry, rocked out to 80s/90s tunes while I cleaned, just pulled a loaf of bread out of the oven. A good day.
 
Last night our Thai friend who ran a restaurant for decades called us. Her husband shut the restaurant down a few years ago after her health declined from a stroke. She had a brain tumor that caused it. Had that happen back just before my dad died, but she still showed up to his funeral even though she could barely walk. Anyway, she wanted to let us know she missed us and that she's moved to Texas to be closer to her son and grandkids.

Got up early to greet the neighbor who came to bush hog (is he considered a neighbor if he lives a couple miles away but in the same general area?) Princess came out to see him too. He loves dogs so he made sure to pet her. He kept telling me I didn't need to help with yard cleanup, but I said I needed the exercise. I really do. It was cloudy so it wasn't so bad. He helped me get some waterlogged bags of trash out of my gorilla cart and then I rolled it along to load it up with trash (blown by wind or dragged by critters) all around the yard. Picked up sticks and branches as well. He got the barnyard and front yard done. The back and chickenyard will need tree cutting to clear them. I filled it up and dumped it in the burn pile. Some of it fell out, but Mike (the neighbor) used his tractor to push it in. He could see I was getting winded so he came over and told me to take a breather and he'd take care of the rest. He is such a sweetheart.

I'm hoping he can help me get more stuff moved to the burn pile.

Fippy gave me a scare because I saw him wandering around when the bush hog was going and only Princess came back into my room. I looked in Mom's room but she was sleeping and I didn't want to wake her. Didn't see him. Went out and looked all around the front field and stuff but no luck. Went back in and woke Mom up to ask if she'd seen him and she said he was under her covers with her. He poked his head out so I felt relieved. While outside I picked up Boo and brought him in to feed him.

Waiting for Mom to get up so I can cook for her.

Trying to figure out how much of the yard was mowed today. I'm terrible with figuring out sizes.
This is my yard on google maps:
1725757660747.png

Approximate property line outlined in yellow. Red circled area indicates where it was mowed. Is that about 10 acres? Or less? Maybe 5? I know the yard to the bottom right is 13 acres. Looking at it now it's looking more like the front is 5-ish.
1725757755139.png

This is a closeup of the yard and area that got mowed.
1725757835557.png

Google thinks the car port is the house. LOL.
 
It's been extremely smokey here for weeks now, only a couple clear days. High temp was 82 today. Still no rain in sight.
I finished up the new meat chicken coop and the wife painted it today. She painted it the same color as the house, the pump house, wood shed and the electrical building. We won't be getting meat chickens until next June, so until then it'll make a great kennel for the mutt. I'll start on digging post holes for the run tomorrow.
The Starlink hardware was delivered today. I'll take a look at it later and see if I make sense of it.
Tomorrow I need to change the hydraulic oil and engine oil on the log splitter. I've got about 5 cords to split right now. Still need 3 or 4 more cords to make it through the winter.
 
Hear that @Pearl no more acting up. And you need a fuel change- grab another beer 🍻

might ask to get him to tell some stories of when he was a young wooper snapper and the shenanigans he got into. Things we miss when the opportunity is no longer available.
He's shared quite a few stories. On of the best is when he and 3 buddies got a huge shipment of fireworks. They were driving around in his car with the fireworks in a big cardboard box in the back seat, shooting rockets and roman candles out the windows. Dad hit a bump and one of the guys dropped his lit bottle rocket into the cardboard box. The whole thing ended up going off inside the car. He said none of them could hear for a week and the inside of the car looked like a family of giant mice had moved in...
 
We just got our internet restored, after 3 days of no internet I came to realize how quickly a smart house can get stupid... Alexia couldn't even tell you what time it was without the internet :).

Got up this morning and did the dishes, today is a range day so I have to be out by 7. The property is shut down today so the logistics may be interesting, I have a key but I can't leave the gate open so for the shooters it's either get there on time or be locked out...
 
animal care, then clearing out some more area to store the new hay bales under the roof of the old barn and the shop area. We still have 4 old ones to use up before it gets really cold ( it is 36 degrees outside this morning brrrr!!! ) that need to get moved to the other barn. There is an area of junk ( old fridge left behind by someone, old pallets, old fencing) that needs to go to the dump. Might take it tomorrow on the way to take goats to the meat processor. I would like to take some more lambs but we don't have any yet big enough. Used up all the large ones already.
I wished we had a dump truck. THat would be a very useful thing to have around here
I am also going to trim some goat hoofs and Otto's nails ( one at a time for a treat LOL)
 
When my dad was in middle school they had chickenwire on the windows to prevent things from being thrown in or out and the windows were either broken or open. One of the kids had a firecracker and started showing it off when the teacher wasn't looking. Dad pulled out a lighter and lit it and the kid tried to chuck it out the window. It bounced off the chickenwire and landed right behind the teacher. It went off, teacher literally crapped himself, and then furiously demanded to know who threw it. No one would speak so he told everyone to write the name of the culprit on a piece of paper. Now, there was one goody two-shoes kid in the class and he didn't like my dad. He wrote my dad's name on the paper (but not the name of the kid who actually brought the firecracker or threw it). Now, Dad and the rest of the kids all knew this kid was a snitch. So the teacher gets back the papers and one of them says my dad's name and the other 30 or so said the name of the snitch. Teacher was even more angry because he couldn't do anything to my dad since everyone else accused the other kid.

I'm awake early for no apparent reason.
 
Yeah in my family if you told anything you were toast, and not in just a little way.

Any one of us growing up would rather be dead than even say a word to anyone about what we saw or did.

I took some beatings for things I didn't do and we all did because of it, but Honor is something best kept by those who maintain it.

NO it leaves no room for talking to the cops at all about who done it.


its 58f and sunny wonderful.
 
Figured out how to test my insta-pot. Filled half full of water and then check the water temp. Normal setting for keep warm is 145f. Checking the high setting now.

Edit to add...

The high setting is 160f. I was hoping for 170. Now I'll run the same tests for the slow cooker settings. The problem is I need to run the extraction for 48hrs which I can do with the keep warm function. The slow cooker function will only run 10hrs so I'll have to restart the extraction several times.
Do you have an electric turkey roaster? Maybe you could get a consistent temp with that
 
Woke up to the sound of a dozen raindrops at 6:30 and bolted out to the porch to bring the dehydrators inside. False alarm apparently, mostly wind and smoke and at least one roll of thunder. A newer fire north of us is burning in really heavy timber and it’s producing thick smoke. Since I was up, i mixed up a couple loaves of sourdough. Going to get some coffee, head to church after a while, and maybe swing by Costco.
 
Was 58* early this morning!!!

WOW, how alien cool weather feels ... it's been so long!!!

63* now, going up to 83* today.

Rely enjoying the cool breeze coming in from open windows.
It's like being someplace else... early September in Texas....this is so weird!! Every year we had a snowy winter it was cool in September!!😉
 
Do you have an electric turkey roaster? Maybe you could get a consistent temp with that

No, but I figured out how I'm going to make this extraction. The manual for my insta-pot says I can only set the slow cooker function up to 10hrs. It's wrong, I can set it for 20hrs.

That means I only have to restart the process twice, I can live with that. And the 'slow cooker' function gives me 180f on the normal heat setting, the temp I wanted. So it's all good, I have a workable plan now.

The last time i tried this I used an old fashioned crockpot. Results were marginal, there were to many unknown variables. The temperature swing during the on/off heat cycle was 30 degrees. I wasn't going to try this type of extraction again unless I could come up with a better way to do it. The insta-pot maintains the temp within 5 degrees.

Today I just have turn all the usnea into powder with my Mr. Coffee grinder. I'm going to keep some and make a wound powder. The rest will be used for the extraction in the insta-pot. :)
 
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Sitting on the rear veranda in the sun soaking it up, wanna be in nothing but a towel to sit on and cover a few things, but it might scare one of the deer walking the back trail to see me sitting out there HEHEHEHEH!!! much less any trail riders that happen to do a side by side run.
 
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Took a quick break!! Cleaned my building, been hard at work at home!! Got some laundry done, replaced the clotheslines that were not in good shape. Now I'm going to hang clothes!🙄 Did some liquid weed whacking and got the push mower ready to mow. Taking a lunch break and nap after mowing. I really need to clean the inside of my truck, that might happen this afternoon!!
 
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