Rain Day-2

Rain today (as of 2:25PM) – 0.67 inches.
As of 2:50PM – 0.72 inches.
That was quick.
Rain yesterday – 0.75 inches.

Steady as she goes. Hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving! And thank God for the rain. Meanwhile the Redding press is up and mounted, and built like a tank.

UPDATE Day-3:
Rain Yesterday – 1.05 in
Rainfall to Date – 3.05 in

UPDATE Day-5 – we’re short a bit in our day-to day “normal”:
Rainfall to Date – 3.53 in
Normal to Date – 7.96 in
Last Year to Date – 13.38 in

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Rain

So far just an occasional spattering, but more is expected to come tonight – perhaps not the media-threatened deluge they have been advertising. But more interesting and highly anticipated was the arrival from Brownell’s that I decided would help me on the reloading path:

It’s a departure from the big red progressive Hornady AP press that I kept crumpling .44WCF necks. I hope this will provide a bit more accuracy and finesse in brass handling and I’m going to donate that other on to the Club’s Holiday Banquet raffle as a prize.

UPDATE: A consistent on-and-off rain, not a torrent – so that’s good. Got the press mounted to the bench. Coming next some dies and a powder thrower, and a measure. Then load it t up with Trail Boss and start loading ’em up. Yee-haw, the original chambering, .44-40 on the trail.

Preemergent

Eleven bags does about a third of an acre, so that’s what I spread in the middle-section of the field. Three bags filled the hopper. It’s what I need to kill the pastureland thorny weeds.

There’s every kind of thistle, thorn, burr, and nettle out here – and as you can see it’s as dry as a bone. Weed prevention is an important aspect of fire suppression and keeping a defensive perimeter.
I had to pump-up the little tires on the spreader, and also the wagon that was holding the (rather expensive) material – some stuff called “Concern” that should not prove dangerous to my neighbor’s cattle. Rain forecast for Wednesday should be a great benefit to the fire-fighters, and this needs to get watered-in, so I had to do it now.

Armistice 100 Years Ago


Thank-you Veterans for your service and sacrifice. Dad’s step-father Leo was there, not sure in what capacity. Among Dad’s things there is a bronze medal and ribbon showing a train-car with horses that reads “40 Hommes 8 Chevaux”, an Oklahoma National Guard medal, a very worn “Great War For Civilization” commemorative medal with no ribbon or hanger, and a signal-corps neck-insignia…

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Log Rack Fail

What’s wrong with this picture? The log-rack is in position and I spent Friday afternoon moving the fresh-cut logs from the two trees onto the rack, plus some kindling sized sticks from the birches and wrist-sized pine branches. Also the rack bolted up easily and without requiring any instructions. The bolt were all there and the same size, and it was clear what to do.

So the next day (yesterday), I pushed the wagon around and began loading more logs from behind the shed to out-front where they are more easily accessible. I noticed one end of the old planter bed was damp from the irrigation that I thought was turned-off at that site, and as I loaded the rack with heavy dried oak it began to list to starboard until it was about ready to go under. Whooops!! Torpedoeed by the soggy U-boat!

I had a few terrace blocks out where the water tank used to be, and I plagiarized another two from the spillway-dam that I intend to re-rebuild with larger block (and in a more harmonious crescent-shape instead of the lumpy “D” shape it currently configures). When I laid the level on it, the length and with, the bubble landed near perfectly! Damn! How did I do that? Anyhow it’s not tipping over anymore.

Chips Are In

Sunday the guy came to take down the messy silk-tree and one other unidentified tree along the top of the embankment. He had a F-550 with a dumper box and his own chipper – YAY! for entrepreneurship!
Both trees were about 12-inches across and some 20-odd feet tall. They blocked the afternoon sunlight and my neighbors’ view of the far hillside, and make a general cleanup mess while not providing useful shade or much else, and at the same time growing into each other. Time for them to go. Now I got an extra hour of daylight.

He was pretty quick and effective, first with the pole saw then the chainsaw, and left us with a bunch of logs and a giant pile of chips – like a yard-and-a-half or more.
This morning, in the cold morning air, we started raking and shoveling the chips into my yard-wagon. He had dumped the chips on the far side of the driveway that was covered in weeds, so this should kill those weeds – and there was enough to load wagon after wagon and create a thick layer of chip-stuff all the way down to and around the propane tank. Yay!

Meanwhile Saturday was Gunsmithing-day. I swapped-out the stock mainspring and trigger springs in both Vaqueros with Wolff replacement springs – which took a bit of learning. The first one took about an hour as I read the Kuhnenhausen manual and tried to figure out the things to be careful-of, like the pawl spring/plunger assembly and the trigger spring plunger assembly…and then getting that put back correctly. The gun doesn’t work right until the cylinder is back in, so you don’t really know if you got it right, and twice I had to flip-around the hammer-strut. Oh well.
Then it was the turn of the 10/22 for a Nordic Components extended mag latch(for my big fingers), and a Volquartsen extractor and the Volquartsen automatic bolt-release. The gun comes apart easily enough and the pins practically drifted themselves out, but I struggled a bit with the bolt-handle guide-rod/recoil-spring assembly and the way it fits onto the bolt in the receiver race. Eventually it went in correctly.

Change in the Weather

I went outside this morning to put a load of trash in the can and was surprised to notice water falling from the sky. What?!? Ok, so it was a bit of overcast, but actual rain?? On and off all day today, so far.

Meanwhile yesterday I got the KTM up the ramp and into the back of the Ford, and “went around the corner” to Performance Cycle for a brake flush and new fluids, plus the transmission oil (Type-F ATF), and some other moto love. This would have been a perfect riding day with the weather like this but it will come again, and without brakes much of the utility of an off-road motorcycle is lost. Besides that I need to find some other decrepit ageing senior riders with whom to spend some trail-time.

The Beast Lives

About 8:00 tonight I sparked her up. It took a few kicks. The smoke was tremendous but cleared out. The neighbors’ dogs barked with excitement and the brring-dingg-ding was fun. With a kick, in gear we rolled out into darkness – with NO brakes, not good, gotta fix that. The evidence is in, the silencer works – the old can was a megaphone. Not so much now. Gotta fix the brake fluids and stuff.

The Weather Broke

Wednesday the high-pressure ridge moved away to the north and a low swept in with temperatures a good 20-degrees cooler, and with clouds.

Yesterday dawned bright with a few clouds that cleared out during the day with a high of just 78. Positively balmy. We stretched out on the deck in the afternoon wearing bathing-suits with the misters on and a light coating of sunscreen. In the evening the high clouds returned and the A/C hasn’t kicked on once since then.

Shooting Cowboy practice this morning we could feel Fall in the air, and the air in the canyon was clear, blue, and un-smokey. Quite a relief, though fire=-season isn’t yet over by a long shot. Also the new front-sight on the Winchester ’73 is bright and shoots to point of aim – dead-on.

Meanwhile the Silverado got an oil change, and to establish a baseline we will be returning for a total fluid make-over, from coolant to transfer-case to transmission. And I got a Tuffy metal security box for underneath the backseat.