What's everybody doing today?

[Neb]

My brother and I will be preparing to pour the concrete floor in the back half of the basement that we dug out if the weather permits. Fall back plan is to continue sorting the 5 garbage bags of Legos I harvested from a dumpster a few years ago. The Princess (my better half) decided a few weeks ago we should turn one living room into a "Lego Lounge" and line the walls with bins to store the blocks. I have a long way to go but it has been a big hit with the g-duaghters. It keeps their noses out of hand held screens and lets them be creative.

Ben

 

[phideaux]

This day is moving along so far.

Got my grocery list ordered , pickup I 2-3 pm.

Found the problem with Golf Cart not charging.
Remember that lightning strike , took out transformer for water softener?
Tripped a bunch of breakers?
Well haven't used the golf cart since then , so when I went to plug it up a couple days ago , the charger was kicking its breaker.
Well after checking the cart controls went to the charger,
Voila...jumpered relay ...
Transformer good , 54V Ac to rectifier, no output from rectifier, 1 diode in dead short.
So I ordered a rectifier from eBay.

Now gotta do some roundup before going to pickup groceries.

Jim

 

[Meerkat]

Made a dent in the cabinet cleaning project yesterday will finish it up today.
All in the family is ok now.
A little less hot today so far. But still too hot to remove brush from fence.

 

[Terri9630]

Moved the cows out of the pasture back onto a dry lot, fed the animals, watered the garden and harvested what is ready and have some laundry and a canner going. The kid is making a stuffed crust pizza from a new recipe she found and when its done were going to watch a movie.

 

[Patchouli]

A movie sounds like a great idea. Not sure what movie...
what movie do you think you'll watch, @Terri9630 ?
The girls will fix dinner again tonight, thank goodness. Stir fry.

 

[Terri9630]

A movie sounds like a great idea. Not sure what movie...
what movie do you think you'll watch, @Terri9630 ?
The girls will fix dinner again tonight, thank goodness. Stir fry.

We watched the new Mulan last night and are planning on watching Artemis Fowl tonight. I think.

 

[Patchouli]

We watched the new Mulan last night and are planning on watching Artemis Fowl tonight. I think.

Freaky. I watched the trailer. I know there is a book series, they say it is way off from the books. But i don't care. Looks fun

 

[snappy1]

Walked first, fed dogs,walked dogs, raked garden area, pulled some weeds, made rows, put fence back up and then planted and watered. Big job for one 63 year old lady! 92 degrees also! Glad it's done, though. Planted collard starts, everything else from seeds. Daigon radishes, bok choy, tunips, mustard greens. Par boiling some chicken to finish on grill tomorrow. Day late. LOL

 

[LadyLocust]

Just finished darning my 4th pair of socks- 3 pair yet to go. Riveting I know. So not my favorite task. 7 pair is probably a pretty good indicator of that. I haven’t bought socks for years though. Night night all. Back to the grind stone tomorrow.

 

[Meerkat]

Just finished darning my 4th pair of socks- 3 pair yet to go. Riveting I know. So not my favorite task. 7 pair is probably a pretty good indicator of that. I haven’t bought socks for years though. Night night all. Back to the grind stone tomorrow.

GOOD NIGHT LADYL.
GOOD NIGHT TO ALL hope tomorrow brings some peace.

 

[zannej]

Checked on the animals at home. Refilled food and water. Then off to big box stores to look for a part for his dryer. No dice. Appliance Parts store was closed for LD. Will try there tomorrow. Went to Sam's Club to get water and food. Heated up their scalloped potatoes and pot roast. Had enough left for my friend's disabled grandfather. Fixed him a plate and he was happy.
Got new batteries in TV remote so mom could watch youtube. She's playing on her tablet now.
Been playing Animal World Mahjong on my phone but it keeps freezing up.

 

[UrbanHunter]

My brother and I will be preparing to pour the concrete floor in the back half of the basement that we dug out if the weather permits. Fall back plan is to continue sorting the 5 garbage bags of Legos I harvested from a dumpster a few years ago. The Princess (my better half) decided a few weeks ago we should turn one living room into a "Lego Lounge" and line the walls with bins to store the blocks. I have a long way to go but it has been a big hit with the g-duaghters. It keeps their noses out of hand held screens and lets them be creative.

Ben

Hey Ben, welcome, glad to see you posting! I hope the summer has been productive for you . You always have so much going on ⚒ it's always fun to see what you have been up to. Do you think you will get the Hobbit Hole finsished this winter? Amish_Heart is here and busy as ever...

 

[UrbanHunter]

Yesterday was not as productive as I would have liked. The son slept in late and had to leave for the big city early... The wife's nurse arrived mid-morning forcing a stop to my work as I didn't want to stir up dust while wife's port was exposed, nurse had a blood accident while drawing samples (clean-up required) By the time I was able to get back into the attic it was 130 degrees, that didn't last long. Had a family council before son left, he will return next Saturday for the last time till Halloween and so he gave me a list of thing that I need to do so he can help me when he comes back.... So at the end of the day it was one step forward and 5 steps back. I know that I control my own attitude, but sometimes I get just a little discouraged...

 

[Amish Heart]

I know that discouragement feeling, Urban. Seemed like it took forever to get packed and moved. I started this pack and move business about two years ago. And it went so slow, that I gave up a few times. So, we arrive and don't have the build on done or even started, and husband was not sure who he wanted to do it. Means that husband has turned our front room into his bedroom and office, and it's continually a disaster; he can't sleep in an actual bed because of his back. So just the daily set up and take down each day is alot of work. Just hired my cousin Dan, so it will maybe be started the first part of November, and finished in a month. Patience. At least we're here where we need to be, so I try to have patience Have no idea what we're up to today yet. Kids just left on the bus, husband is still sleeping. He has a cardiologist appt this afternoon. Maybe sand and paint the spindles on the front porch and the door. I did the prep work around it yesterday. We have house guests coming from Albuquerque sometime tomorrow, so cleaning needs to be done, too.

 

[phideaux]

Got that roundup applied where needed yesterday,
Got that load of groceries home and put away.

Good thing , because we are getting ready to go see the surgeon , for follow-up , that did her 2 back surgeries in August

Hope she's up to stopping somewhere for lunch.

Oh, I also went and looked over a little house in town , for sale by owner.
Not bad , needs some tlc , which he is in process.

3 bd ,2 ba.1350 sq ft., Nice , quiet neighborhood.

We'll see.

Jim

 

[LadyLocust]

Got that roundup applied where needed yesterday,
Got that load of groceries home and put away.

Good thing , because we are getting ready to go see the surgeon , for follow-up , that did her 2 back surgeries in August

Hope she's up to stopping somewhere for lunch.

Oh, I also went and looked over a little house in town , for sale by owner.
Not bad , needs some tlc , which he is in process.
View attachment 49967View attachment 49968View attachment 49969
3 bd ,2 ba.1350 sq ft., Nice , quiet neighborhood.

We'll see.

Jim

Not too shabby Jim! Looks like nice sized lot so at least wouldn’t be able to high-five a neighbor through the kitchen window.
Hope Mrs’s appt goes well and you two enjoy a nice lunch.

 

[Weedygarden]

Got that roundup applied where needed yesterday,
Got that load of groceries home and put away.

Good thing , because we are getting ready to go see the surgeon , for follow-up , that did her 2 back surgeries in August

Hope she's up to stopping somewhere for lunch.

Oh, I also went and looked over a little house in town , for sale by owner.
Not bad , needs some tlc , which he is in process.
View attachment 49967View attachment 49968View attachment 49969
3 bd ,2 ba.1350 sq ft., Nice , quiet neighborhood.

We'll see.

Jim

Looks like a great home. It has great space to build a ramp, if that is ever needed.
One story home is important for older folks, to be able to get around. Learned these things when I took a real estate course one summer.

I know a woman with MS whose bedroom is on the second floor of her home. Husband has to carry her upstairs every night, because she doesn't have the strength to climb stairs.

 

[WVDragonlady]

Did the metal scraping yesterday. Loaded it up this morning and took into the center. Got 4 digits from it. Good haul.
Hubby is taking a second load of stainless in right now. Has another load of aluminum to do but he's waiting until thursday to take it in. Price isn't very high on it but it needs to go in order to get the area cleaned up for the winter and make room for more.
I have his laundry to do and dishes
Getting hot outside. Supposed to get to 86 today and the humidity is supposed to start today too. Looking at thursday for some rain hopefully
Made a chocolate wacky cake. Turned out really well. Not real sweet. Just the way I like cakes. I always peel the frosting off any cakes I get with it on lol
Have some clean up to do in the containers this week some time
Odd seeing the school buses in people's driveways ( since they're drivers). Haven't see that since about March

 

[UrbanHunter]

Did the metal scraping yesterday. Loaded it up this morning and took into the center. Got 4 digits from it. Good haul.
Hubby is taking a second load of stainless in right now. Has another load of aluminum to do but he's waiting until thursday to take it in. Price isn't very high on it but it needs to go in order to get the area cleaned up for the winter and make room for more.
I have his laundry to do and dishes
Getting hot outside. Supposed to get to 86 today and the humidity is supposed to start today too. Looking at thursday for some rain hopefully
Made a chocolate wacky cake. Turned out really well. Not real sweet. Just the way I like cakes. I always peel the frosting off any cakes I get with it on lol
Have some clean up to do in the containers this week some time
Odd seeing the school buses in people's driveways ( since they're drivers). Haven't see that since about March

Wacky cake, wife makes them, It is one of her favorite cakes.

 

[MoBookworm1957]

Not too shabby Jim! Looks like nice sized lot so at least wouldn’t be able to high-five a neighbor through the kitchen window.
Hope Mrs’s appt goes well and you two enjoy a nice lunch.

Hope everything went well Jim.
Nice looking little house.

 

[Amish Heart]

I haven't made wacky cake in a long time. But I like buttercream frosting, so I throw that on it.
Too cold and misty out to paint today, so I'm cleaning out the upstairs in preparation for houseguests tomorrow. They will have to make do with a twin bed in a small room and a fold out twin bed in the family room. Hope they will fit, both over 6 feet, but that's what we have. Went to the bulk store deli for lunch, and also bought another 50 lbs of red wheat, so I'll need to bucket it today.

 

[The Lazy L]

Drove an hour to a small country Amish shop. They converted my RV refrigerator from LP absorption to 12 VDC compressor. Two hours they had it done and for considerably less money then their worst case qoute. I'm SMILING. Home, parked the RV and connected it to shore power. Leaving the refrigerator on and checking it in the morning to se if amperage draw is as expected.

Cold turkey sandwich for late lunch was washed down with a rare (for me) Mountain Dew.

Typing on the Internet thinking about taking a nap before the wife gets home.

 

[MoBookworm1957]

Strawberry has been walked this morning at 0330.
Had muscle cramp like in labor pain from right hip to toes at 0300 this am.
Strawberry was walked at 0435 this morning.
Strawberry was walked at 0530 this morning.
Strawberry was walked at 0615 with the dog walker.
Went and looked at 2 apartments; 1 on the third floor(not happening), 1 on first floor.
The one on the first floor has the laundry room exactly 10 feet from the front door.
Laundry room is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week no door on laundry room either.
Noisy neighbors above me.
Probably not that one either.
Went talked to bank, to see if they would help me get a house.
Have VA certificate for VA loan.
Probably will be paying off last of small big bill and starting paperwork for VA loan for small house.
Bank said they had 15 foreclosures being processed at homeowners requests.
Most of the homeowners have been out of work during this virus crap.
One lady has paid most of her loan off owes less than $10000 but with no income thinks she will lose it anyway.
I went by and looked at several of the homes.
If approved by VA maybe I will become a homeowner.

 

[Weedygarden]

End of house/pet sitting gig and start of new house/dog sitting gig. Next one left this morning, knowing I was going to be at this one until later this afternoon. They are going to Yellowstone. They are from the northeast and have lived out in this area for a few years, so they are trying to see what they haven't seen before. I hope the snow storm doesn't impede their travels too much. They used to live next door to the current gig, but moved a couple months ago to a larger home, about a block away. These two sets of couples are friends. The current one, which ends today, moved in, in the spring. The former owners of this house had a restraining order against the nasty neighbor, as do the people who live across the street.

I went home last evening to cover some of the garden, take in several pots of herbs, and to cut a bunch of zinnia's I started from seed in the spring. A friend had a birthday yesterday and I tried to deliver a vase of them to her but was not able to until this morning. Neighbor at home got a vase of flowers, and a friend of daughter's is getting some today for her birthday. I did all of that last night and then remembered I had some windows open upstairs at home, so drove home to close them. The swamp cooler is still like a wide open window, but the air has no outlet now and the fan is turned off.

Forgot to get another warmer coat at home, so will go back and get one tonight or tomorrow. It has been lightly raining off and on, but has yet to start snowing. It is currently 37 degrees. Snow is predicted to start at any time and to go until morning.

 

[Neb]

Weather had me sorting Leogs for the G-daughter's Lego lounge yesterday. I got to the point where I have most of the common "types" of bricks defined and storage bins assigned AND can estimate that I do not have enough bins to finish the task.

Returned to the basement project to put in part of the concrete floor. Leveled the floor and put in insulation and expansion joints.

The ship hoist was used to move the concrete down into the hole.

My brother ran the cement mixer and loaded buckets onto the skip-hoist.

The rest of the work was my job.

After my brother declared "good enough!"

Look at the far wall in the image below to get an idea of where the ground level was when we started this project.

Tomorrow I go to Lowe's and order up anther two palettes of concrete. It will be needed to complete the floor and cap off the knee walls. It takes Lowe's a while to get around to delivering the concrete so that means I can once again work on the last of the excavation of the crawl space.

Aside...
The Princess ( my better half) asked the question what we should call ourselves in retirement since we should not be known by what we used to do. I said "Shovel Operator" would be good for me.

Behave!

Ben

 

[Neb]

Hey Ben, welcome, glad to see you posting! I hope the summer has been productive for you . You always have so much going on ⚒ it's always fun to see what you have been up to. Do you think you will get the Hobbit Hole finsished this winter? Amish_Heart is here and busy as ever...

I do not think so for a number of reasons.

1) The LLC (dig out the basement and remodel project)is top priority since it is a liability that I need to convert into an asset with rental income.
2) The Hobbit Hole may never be completely done since our dreams and plans, like most projects keep growing.
3) There is support work required before the Hobbit Hole can be called done. (Need to enhance cold air returns for the AC, and possibly move the hot water heater to the other basement and tie both systems together via valves so that when a hot water heater goes out, I just have to throw some valves to switch over the the back-up heater).

Further more;
The work last year on the LLC was impacted by weather since the ground was frozen or water logged. If I can get the basement work completed, I can move out of the basement and work on the carpentry, plumbing and electrical work using a propane space heater.

So The Hobbit Hole is still a pipe dream errr dream about pipes.

These images show the current state of that project.

Please note that in the last image I have re-worked the support for the stairs and started to (wait for it) excavated under the stairs to make room for the flod out bookcase and access to the furnace.

Ben

 

[viking]

Ben, I like the name "Shovel Operator", I consider myself a "Human Backhoe" due to all the earth I've moved over the years and all the shovels I've worn into fork shapes. I tell people that I don't have to go to a gym to get a workout, I do that on our property. Years ago I had to lower all my spring collection lines and collector box and when I got through the area looked like it had been done with a backhoe, now that I'm coming on 78 years, I look at the things I've done and wonder how I had the strength to do it all, especially after handling twelve 90 pound sacks of ready mix for our solar array frame I built last year. Oh, on top of everything else going on, there is supposed to be a level one fire warning for our county, not good, all the batteries in our motorhome are dead, so we are praying for rain.

 

[Neb]

Ben, I like the name "Shovel Operator", I consider myself a "Human Backhoe" due to all the earth I've moved over the years and all the shovels I've worn into fork shapes. I tell people that I don't have to go to a gym to get a workout, I do that on our property. Years ago I had to lower all my spring collection lines and collector box and when I got through the area looked like it had been done with a backhoe, now that I'm coming on 78 years, I look at the things I've done and wonder how I had the strength to do it all, especially after handling twelve 90 pound sacks of ready mix for our solar array frame I built last year. Oh, on top of everything else going on, there is supposed to be a level one fire warning for our county, not good, all the batteries in our motorhome are dead, so we are praying for rain.

Did you talk to my father before he passed?
He used to say "Rayners do not pump iron, we shovel dirt!"

I put in 9 12X3' hueggalculture (sp?) Garden boxes in our orchard about 6 years ago that were 3' deep. The Princess quipped "You are getting good at digging graves." I replied "Let's hope I don't need to use that skill".

Re: 90lbs bags
I opt for the 60 lbs bags and you have 15 years on me. I bow to you sir!

Re:springs
I developed 2 spring a few years ago and loved that work. This link(if it works) is my play list on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyZW2YFIrtPAfMKteW_sEGk_7e97UJFd7
I have a few more springs I hope to develop. Do you have any advice?

Ben

 

[snappy1]

Walked this morning, fed dogs, wrapped eBay items, walked dogs, took eBay photos for DH, did laundry, got haircut, came home and grilled chicken, ribs and bratwurst. Done!

 

[Patchouli]

@Neb It worked, your link to youtube. Looks like your spring worked too. That is impressive. Is that also in PA?