Sunday, October 2, 2016

September 16-30 More Life on the Funny Farm

The days keep rolling on and so do we.  Here's a sample of our life in the last half of September.

Can you say, "barbecue?"  We cook our kabobs by separating the different ingredients because I haven't mastered how to get them cooked at the same rate.  They still taste pretty good.

Been having problems with my 4 wheeler having a dead battery.  I finally traced it down to a wire that had burned through against the exhaust pipe so it wasn't charging the battery and had a draw on it at all times.  I spliced in some new wire and re-routed the harness.  Works good now.

I was getting low on ammo for my .338 Win. Mag. so I reloaded about 150 rounds.   That should last me about 20 years or so.

We've been doing a lot of things to the van lately.  I replaced the flexible lines for both front brakes.  One had been twisted badly by some moron when he replaced the front brake pads.

They were reasonably priced and fit perfectly.

We've had problems with the rear sagging on the van.  There's a lot of weight back there so I ordered a set of air bag overloads for it.

The kit is pretty simple and the directions said it took about 2 1/2 hours to install them.

They went on pretty easily.  Then I had to fix some leaks and now they seem to be doing great.  The lift capacity on them is incredible and now the van rides level (or higher if I want) no matter how much weight is on it.

Susan bought a new clothes washer.  It's small but simple.  You wash the clothes on the left side and rinse them on the right side.  It takes longer than an automatic but it's great for life in the mountains.

She sets it up wherever she wants.  On this beautiful fall day she washed clothes out by the rainwater collection tank. It is small enough to run on our inverter so we don't need the generator to use it.

The Aspens are turning their golden yellow and look fantastic.  This is the road we live on.

We've been doing some improvements on our ATV's. They are both now street legal.  That involved putting a lighted license plate bracket on them, two mirrors, and a horn.   We stopped to take a ride awhile back and explored some old logging roads in our neighborhood.  Scott loves his "throne."  We put some handles on the back to give him something to hold onto when riding.

Scott playing with the heavy bag before his Karate class.  The assistant instructor stands nearby.

Lots of fun to beat up a big bag!

He was given his first "promotion" a couple of days ago.

Helping our SIL and daughter put a new front door in their rental unit.  They had to custom order the door and the fit was nearly perfect. The old door had been ruined by some previous tenants.  This one is a solid wood, pre-hung door.

I've been wanting to get this cut up for firewood since it fell last spring and finally got the chance.

I went out with three saws but could only keep one running.  Turned out that the fuel was bad.  I dumped the old stuff out and put in new gas and they work great now.

I winched it out of the draw with the electric winch on the truck.  It's a 12,000 pound winch and it worked pretty hard to drag it up.  Once I got it near the road I pulled it the rest of the way with the truck.

It was about 60 feet long and will make for some nice, warm winter days.

This is the butt end of it.

I also took some small stuff down near my generator/work shed.  The yellow jackets were thick and whenever you walked under it they would drop down on your head.  It didn't take much of that to decide that the trees had to go.  They were also getting tall enough to interfere with the solar power.

My ATV and trailer out in the woods on our place.  I had 4 smallish trees to cut for firewood.

Scott on top of the pickup supervising his dad and I while we put the boat in the water.

Scott playing with one of the fish I caught.  He was laughing hard one time and said, "Papa look, it's ticklish."  When he rubbed under it's chin it would wiggle it's tail. 

Okay, back to fishing again.

This is a mess of perch from one of our recent trips to the lake about a mile from our cabin.  Scott caught the biggest one and I caught the second largest. 

Scott's dad with a pike he caught.

This is a Triangulate Cobweb spider.

I found it in my bed. It's about 1/4 inch wide.  It's now sealed in scotch tape.

It bit me around 5:30 am. one morning. According to Wikipedia I'm the only person in the world ever bitten by one.  Even though I doubt that claim, getting bitten by one and actually receiving the venom is extremely rare.  It felt like a bee sting. The swelling and rash lasted about 18 hours.

Got some new tires for the van so we sent the old ones we took off of the van by UPS to a daughter who needed them for their truck.  They were still pretty decent tires but the side walls are not stiff enough for our van. It had a tendency to wander on the highway.

I ordered some Yokohamas for the van.  They are real truck tires and can take the weight with ease.  They vastly improved the handling of the van on the highway.

The van with the new tires on it.

Ah!  A trip to the dentist.  Scott was good but the real test is coming when we get the cavities fixed.

I was fooling around with my phone at the park.  This is a small (about 1/4 inch) rock on a picnic table.  Not a bad close-up for a cell phone!