Good Wednesday morning Ford Tinkerer's.

 

Good morning Oregon and everyone everywhere else. Started out at 26 under clear blue sky. Geese cackling on the pond and a couple of ducks down on the river. They were none too happy the dogs and I were taking a walk.
With the sun above the trees, we are up to 37 now.
Made a call to the Safe/Heavy Item mover this morning. Had to leave a message on his voice mail. Got an email and text last night saying the trucking company was moving the safe delivery from the 23 to this afternoon. Great the safe is going to be here early. Too darn bad they couldn't have told me that on Monday when they were still confirming the 23rd and that being the date I used to have the people here who will move it from the driveway to the Storage/Rec house. Hoping the delivery truck has a fork lift or a power lift on the back of the truck. If they do they can back right up to the deck and leave the safe on the deck.

 

Morning all. Done with Chemo and just doing immunotherapy. No more pump and steroids to keep me up at night and hungry all of the time...at least for the time being. CT scan tomorrow and echocardiogram on the 3rd. Love all of the doc appointments.

Pretty nice weather around here. Was 74 on monday so I mowed the place and sprayed. 62 yesterday. Looking forward to warmer weather. Now if the rain will slow down a little so the river can get into boating shape so I can burn some of that expensive E0 fuel. No idea what that costs right now. Wouldn't be surprised if it was $6/gal or more. Boats or SxS all lead to the same place...broke but happy with the memories made.

 

Yep....boat takes 50 gallons. Add 15 gallons extra tank to that if we're going out in the ocean or two / three weeks camping at a lake.
Fortunate on my Kawasaki SxS 4 cyl inline, it is fuel injected and the book actually says it best to run in on regular 87 unleaded.

 

Good afternoon Rich, Jim and..
Another fine drizzly day on the North Coast.

 

Goodnight Ford Tinkerer's.

 

Good Thursday morning Ford Tinkerer's.

 

Morning all.

Yeah I'd run 87 if it was E0. I've had enough issues with mowers, quads, saws that I don't put anything other than E0 if it sits for any amount of time. I know some people claim E10 is fine but I will beg to differ. Been there done that. My tank is 70 gal and usually have put 25-45 gal in it. My current fishing spots are only a few miles from the ramp vs the 10-15 when I lived in mac. Boat ramps are closer too so better all around. Told the wife when we move, we need to be no more than 30min to a lake...or we live on the lake.

 

Good morning Oregon and everyone everywhere else. Dogs once again insisted on their walk in 26 degree temps this morning. 99% clear skies though. Suns up and we're up to 31 now.

I usually dose my gas with Star Bright and then make sure the boat is at or below 1/8 tank with a can Sea Foam in it before it gets put away for the winter. Lawn mowers, chain saws, the two gas generators and all else except the Ridge have premium no alcohol EO used in them. I drain those tanks for storage. Cost me $27.50 to fill a 5-gallon gas can the last time I got gas, but that was before the gas prices went this month.

Gun safe got here yesterday. Showed up on a day run Semi Tractor with a 40 foot trailer. That was interesting! He took it to the pole barn and dropped it off in front of it, but wouldn't back into the porch of the Rec/Storage House. It would have made life so much simpler (and cheaper I suspect). He had a hydraulic drop gate on the trailer that could very easily set the safe on the deck instead of the ground. He didn't want to back up to the deck. What's funny is that instead of backing up onto the access drive to turn around and pull straight out, he backed up about 200 yards to the power line road and then turned around.
Anyway, I talked to Brad from the Safe and Heavy Item movers, sent some pictures and he said it won't be a problem.

Had to gas up and fire up the Toro Zero Turn yesterday and move it so I could get the Ridge with the snowplow to where the snowplow comes off and is stored for the off season. Since I had it running and out of the barn, I spent some of the day doing some mostly optional mowing. Last year at this time we had two feet of snow on the ground, this year I'm mowing? Go figure. Lawn area hasn't had any growth and didn't need it but I was able to open the paths through the wet land grasses in the river bottom and along the river. Some of the overflow channels still had a little water in them so I couldn't get those but I did get the path to the old burn pile opened up. Only buried it in a mud hole hidden under grass once. The winch on the SxS Ridge pulled it out without a problem. Had some of the wood brush starting to grow so knocked down a lot of that. Still have some of that to get to. I don't want our side of the river looking like upstream on the Forest company property or across the river on the neighboring place. It was really dry and very dusty. Took quite a hose down on the mower when I was done. I was covered with so much dirt and chaff you'd have thought I spent a 10 hour day on an open cab tractor chopping and plowing on the old ranch.

 

Good afternoon Rich, Jim and....
I got up way to early this morning and I'm feeling it.

 

Me too Chris. CT scan was at 0745 and I had to drink 32oz of water an hour before. Up way too early for a guy that stays up way too late (or early?) these days.

I have a zero turn mower too Jim.


It's a little over 3 miles of walking to mow the back yard.

 

Goodnight Ford Tinkerer's.

 

Good evening Oregon and everyone everywhere else. Wind started blowing so the stump didn't get burned.

I have a mower almost Identical to that in the shed in Sheridan.

When we were looking at Bravo Compound I mentioned that it was a lot of grass to mow. The PO's wife told me that when they bought the place, there was no lawn. During the remodel a bunch of trees were cut down and ground cleared for a lawn. She said her husband measured correctly but miscalculated how much sod he needed to order. When several trucks showed up they about had a heat attack. They invited all of Gilchrist and their sons Football team and FFA out for a BBQ and lawn party. They got the sod laid and extra ground worked up for the all of the extra sod.
She told him he was going to have to buy a riding lawn mower for all of that grass. He said nonsense he would mow it with his walk behind. Well, time came for the first mowing. He got his mower out and started mowing. She said it was self-propelled. After 7 hours, he was not even halfway done. They got up early the next morning, drove into Bend with a trailer, bought a John Deere riding mower and brought it home. He finished the lawn the next mowing with the riding mower took about 4 hours. He said he only got a 36 in cut. It didn't take long for him to decide he needed a mower with a bigger cut, but since he had the new riding mower, he didn't mind the time since he had the kids cutting after that.
His oldest son went into professional landscaping and would come over and mow for him. I had him come over and cut a couple of times for us with his 60" Boss and it took him about 3 hours of mowing along with weed eating around the buildings.
I've never measured how many miles I cover mowing. I should take the GPS our with me and do that next time I mow the lawn. With the 54" riding mower, deck set for a 3-1/2 inch cut it takes about 3 to 3 1/2 hours to mow just the lawn part, not including any weed eating. I can spend 6 to 7 hours on the lawn and first cutting in the old horse pasture. I was surprised yesterday when I got the trails cut open and cut around the pond and lone pine in about 90 minutes. On some of the old pasture, especially on the south end around lone pine and the pond, nice pasture grass is growing back instead of the swamp or wet land grass. That goes really quick now. The rest of the old river bottom has gone back to wild growth. Once I get the initial cutbacks and the trails mowed the first time, it doesn't take long at all. In fact, with no water, it only needs touched up a time or two a summer.

 

Good Friday morning Ford Tinkerer's.

 

Good morning Oregon and everyone everywhere else. Just got the dogs back in. They did extra 'exploring' along the river this morning. 30 when we left, 35 when we got back. Blue skies with just a couple of contrails.

Deck contractor will be here at 1030 and the Safe Movers will be here at 1330.

RIP Chuck Norris!