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What are you doing today, II

Some good northern lights tonight while we're combining.
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I trimmed the trunks on two Redbud trees. Two main trunks, about 6" in diameter some 20' above the ground.
Then I pulverized the branches from the huge Braddford Pear I cut down earlier this week. That was about three hours work.

Squirrels dug up one of my cantaloupe plants. Fortunately, they missed the one with fruits hanging.
They managed to tear up some pepper plants as well.
Let us not speak about squirrels and tomatoes.

I have everything growing in pots this year so moving them inside the greenhouse will prevent the vandalism. But, I'm just not yet ready for that. At least one more month of good growing weather outside.

Perhaps tomorrow, I will begin prepping the greenhouse?
 
Back to back fencing.

I had to do a 'fill in' for my Olympian friend, he is in Salt Lake City refereeing a national tournament. So I had his youth class today. Scheduled for 45 minutes to end at 5:30. But I had a new class start tonight at 6:30pm so I kept the afternoon class until 6:15pm today. People started showing up at 4:30 for that class and I ended my 2nd class at 8:45pm with a 15 minute break between the 2 classes. I have no voice left.

Today I built one of the raised bed planters. Actually built the major components of it. It's an 8' x 4' x 2' bed. But it is all 2' panels. And hundreds of nuts and bolts. Good thing it was cheap. I built the 4' ends, with their corner pieces. And the 8' lengths. OF JUST ONE of the 6 planters I purchased. It will take days to do these. SIMPLE ASSEMBLY REQUIRED. Well that is true. But it is tedious. Thank goodness they were 1/2 price. Now that I know what to do, the next 5 should assemble much quicker.

Decided to build them at the living room patio where I could find dropped nuts and bolts. Figured if I tried to do this out in the yard I'd need to lay down a tarp to catch the dropped bits. I'll just take the large panels down to the garden (45 foot elevation drop and through a wooded path) and attach them together in place. Pretty much minimizes the number of lost bits I would potentially encounter.
 
A friend of mine grows beef (and that's where I get mine).
The mill delivered 3500# of corn into his gravity wagon. They ground it wrong (way too fine) and added some protein pellets which is not what he ordered. The cows wouldn't touch it. He told the mill of the issue and they agreed that he won't be charged for the corn or the delivery then brought him 2 ton of what he wanted.
He has 3500# of corn to get rid of. We loaded my truck with 50# bags and I'll just dump it in the fields to get rid of it.
 
I'm sick of Tucker freezing to the ground, so I'm making four concrete pads for the tracks to sit on. (I'm too cheap to pour a complete slab..... or poor... whatever).

I don't plan on living in this house for very long after the mortgage is paid off in three or four years..... the next owner might want to tear these up and I just assume make it easy on them, so I'm making them "just big enough".

I had a little welding to do on one of the pontoons, so he's a bit "limpy" at the moment.



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I half-expected to find a family of rabbits, in there..... but it was empty.

(That last pic doesn't do justice to my repair..... it looks better in person).

Next years project will be to repair and repaint all four pontoons. They're good for this winter, pretty solid. (Just not shiny and clean). I am SOOOooo looking forward to some big snow. Tucker has a fresh engine, brand new clutch and I finally got all the vibration out of the drivetrain. (It was the universal joint on the emergency bake drum).

..... I'm ready!!!

(Well....... after I get this pontoon back on, that is..... and I gotta finish putting the screws back in all the body panels).

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Getting ready for out apple butter next weekend.
We 4 kettles of apple butter cooked down and we got 340 pints of apple butter today.
They started at 2:30 this morning I went over at 7ish and we just got done cleaning up for tomorrow 4 more kettles
 
I half-expected to find a family of rabbits, in there..... but it was empty.

(That last pic doesn't do justice to my repair..... it looks better in person).

Next years project will be to repair and repaint all four pontoons. They're good for this winter, pretty solid. (Just not shiny and clean). I am SOOOooo looking forward to some big snow. Tucker has a fresh engine, brand new clutch and I finally got all the vibration out of the drivetrain. (It was the universal joint on the emergency bake drum).

..... I'm ready!!!

(Well....... after I get this pontoon back on, that is..... and I gotta finish putting the screws back in all the body panels).

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Snow is coming soon. You got a lot to do there. Get busy!
 
Getting ready for out apple butter next weekend.
We 4 kettles of apple butter cooked down and we got 340 pints of apple butter today.
They started at 2:30 this morning I went over at 7ish and we just got done cleaning up for tomorrow 4 more kettles
8 kettle's done about 600 pints done for next weekend
Next weekend we'll do about 250-300 pints over the 2 day festival
 
Spent the day remodeling a small brick shelf in the greenhouse from 6" deep to 16" deep so my big pots of tomato plants would fit.

5feet wide it will hold at least three big tomato plants for winter production. I already have them growing and they are about 8 feet high. So far, some 20 beefsteak fruits have already put on.

I also have cantaloupe growing vertical with 7 fruits on the vine. Three producing pepper plants will also be housed. All plants will be on the south window wall with a grow light, working from the north side, on a timer. Crumpy has a hydroponic set that will provide grow light as well. It will be for growing Lettuce and Kale.

Seven feet off the floor we have 12" wide wire shelving where I am going to try Cucumbers and more Cantaloupe plants. Just put a seeded pot of soil there and let the vines go where they may.
 
What's apple butter?
It's like apple sauce but cooked down thicker dark brown add sugar, cinnamon, and a dash of cloves.
It's great on pancake's or bread like a jam
it's Pennsylvania Dutch thing I think., way ahead of Scrapple which is an acquired taste and i love it too!

We do it in 34 gallon copper kettle's we start with a kettle of cider and cook under a wood fire down to about 3/4 kettle that takes about 3 hours, then start putting in cored and peeled and crushed apples and cooking them down for about another 7-8 hours
It's one of a major fund raiser, the other is a sawdust (chainsaw carving) festival in early may.

here's the link to our festival

waterville fire co apple butter festival
 
It's like apple sauce but cooked down thicker dark brown add sugar, cinnamon, and a dash of cloves.
It's great on pancake's or bread like a jam
it's Pennsylvania Dutch thing I think., way ahead of Scrapple which is an acquired taste and i love it too!

We do it in 34 gallon copper kettle's we start with a kettle of cider and cook under a wood fire down to about 3/4 kettle that takes about 3 hours, then start putting in cored and peeled and crushed apples and cooking them down for about another 7-8 hours
It's one of a major fund raiser, the other is a sawdust (chainsaw carving) festival in early may.

here's the link to our festival

waterville fire co apple butter festival
I'm thinking it might be Amish or Mennonite?

But I'm honestly not sure.

We have Apple Butter commonly found in the northern part of Indiana too. We've even made our own, but it is not a staple in our house. We will occasionally buy a jar.




Going out this morning to pick up 1/2 ton of corn for the deer.


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I did some chores today and just got home from a city council meeting. A told a dirty joke to the sheriff and police chief. They love my dirty jokes.
 
I'm thinking it might be Amish or Mennonite?

But I'm honestly not sure.

We have Apple Butter commonly found in the northern part of Indiana too. We've even made our own, but it is not a staple in our house. We will occasionally buy a jar.







My Pa Amish friend told me they are descendants of the the Pennsylvania German (Dutch), German speaking immigrant's in early america when we were discussing our family's origins
 
I have a couple of phone appointments today and it's garbage day. Nothing too exciting. I did list a set of tires and rims for sale that were on the sxs. I reinstalled the stock tires yesterday as the old ones were getting badly weather cracked and barely hold air anymore.
 
Alternating between drizzle and heavy rain here.

During one of the drizzle periods I put the dogs out and then drove to the workshop to load up some 22lr and 5.56. One of the guys in my shooting group wants to buy it, but I'm not sure if we will meet up today? Figure it's better to put it in the truck and have it ready just in case we can coordinate schedules. About 5,000 total rounds. I am saving back a lot, but damn, I didn't realize how much I actually have.

Tonight I'm picking up a fencer who lives south of me, then continuing south to Purdure university. Practice tonight from 9pm to Midnight (Eastern). She is 19, fences Epee, I trained her in Saber, but she switched to Epee. I still coach her younger sister. With her work schedule, Tuesday nights at Purdue seem to work for her, I actually appreciate having someone along for the late night drive. The fact that she is Catholic curious is often a topic for conversation, she has a lot of Catholic relatives but the family sort of drifted toward the local Baptist church and is semi-religious. She's been asking, so I've been chatting. Sometimes we talk politics, she is a big fan of Charlie Kirk and is very pro-MAGA.

We leave campus at midnight (eastern time), drop her off at her house at midnight (central time). I get home a few minutes later.
 
Haven't done a lot today.
The weather sucks.
I did go shopping then stopped at Arby's for lunch.

These things are all the rage now.
Steak bites.
I tried the bowl with the bites, mac and cheese and crispy onion strings.

Not fantastic, but good.
The steak has a smoked flavour, but was actually kinda dry.
Live and learn lol

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Still on my last job in the field, all the old equipment is out, the new equipment is back in and I’m not going in for the next couple days to allow the electricians to get the elevated work done before we box them out with the conveyors, when they are out of the way there is about 70’ of conveyor to install, after that a little air piping and some loose ends and I’m done done done.
 
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