How To Subscribe To A Blog

Yesterday was a fun day for us, but nothing you'd want to read about.  We drove to Stillwater to Riverfest to watch a band that used to play at our bookstore's music night, 4ever1.   They were great.  We then went to a family graduation party.

Since this isn't really related to life on Bleecker Mountain, I'm going to repost an entry from our Drift Away blog on how to subscribe, since I know that many of you do not want to miss anything here.

You're welcome.

Many people follow blogs by clicking on the "follow" button. This is fine for blogs you want to follow when you have free time to do so, but what of blogs you don't want to miss? Perhaps a family member or friend out cruising the Great Loop? For these, consider subscribing.

The process for subscribing is pretty easy. Some blogs, like Drift Away, have a prominent subscribe button someplace on the page. Ours is on the right.

Other blogs have a small link at the bottom of the page that might say something like "Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)". Click the subscribe button and you'll be brought to a page that states...

"You are viewing a feed that contains frequently updated content. When you subscribe to a feed, it is added to the Common Feed List. Updated information from the feed is automatically downloaded to your computer and can be viewed in Internet Explorer and other programs."

Below that will be a link that says "subscribe to this feed". Click it. A pop-up window appears with the blog name and feed location. Leave these be. Check the box that says "Add to favorites bar".

If you use Internet Explorer, you'll notice a new icon with the blog name next to it.

When you click on the button, a list of blog postings will appear. Ones you haven't read will be bold, and ones you have read will be grey. Now here's the cool thing. The feed will automatically look at the blog and if a new posting is made, the name of the blog will be bold, so you'll know that there's something new to read. You can change the title of the button by right clicking on it and clicking on the rename function.

Friends and Family

Yesterday, Pam and I played golf with our friends from the Mayfield Yacht Club.

????   What does this have to do with Bleecker Mountain Life, you ask?  

Well, everything, actually.  Those of you who followed our cruising blog, Drift Away, know that Pam and I were having a ball traveling down the eastern seaboard on our 46' trawler.  When we returned to upstate New York for a visit in the summer of 2012, we realized not only how much we missed the scenic beauty of the Adirondacks, but also our friends and family.  We wound up buying ten acres of land in Bleecker (halfway between Bleeck and Bleeckest) to build a little homestead onto it.

Hmmm... there's that phrase popping into my vocabulary more and more.   It's a regional thing.

That deer had one heck of a rack onto it.   Anyway...

While we haven't decided to give up the cruising/liveaboard life, we have decided to return to our roots.

Most all of us have friends and family.  Probably most of us take them for granted, or perhaps we barely tolerate them.  Like Uncle Luther, who refuses to wear his teeth and hasn't bathed since May.

Uncle Luther don't abide by commies, wimmens libbers, and them funny fellers.

One thing that Pam and I came to understand about the cruising community is that friends come and go.  By definition, cruisers travel.   We made many fine friends while traveling, and then they, or we, would up and leave.  To be honest, this was one of the few things we disliked about cruising.

One of our major reasons for leaving the hot, steamy summers of Georgia for the frozen tundra of Bleecker was to reconnect with our more stable family of friends and relations, even Uncle Luther.  And part was also to rejoin the things we loved to do, like horseback riding with Kim, or sitting on James' porch on a nearby lake enjoying gin and tonics, or attending a grandkid's birthday party, or playing golf with our old friends from the Mayfield Yacht Club.

Please note that the Mayfield Yacht Club is NOT a hoity-toity snooty yacht club.  Except for three people, they are all normal, friendly, down to earth folks.

So Pam and I had a great time slashing around the golf course yesterday with our friends, laughing at our ineptness and being thankful that we don't earn our living from golf.  I chatted with people I hadn't seen in many years, and we picked up right where we left off like it was yesterday.

So what's in store today?  Smoothing our land?  Moving stuff from our storage unit to TODD?  Trying to get Bessie the Tractor to start?   Nope.  We're going to Riverfest in Stillwater to see 4ever1,  a band that played at our Friday Night Music Night at our bookstore, and then to a family graduation party.

This whole thing sounds pretty dull and uninteresting.

No, not dull at all.  Spend a few years away from friends and family, only connected by email and Facebook, and I guarantee you'll understand.  After some time and distance, not even Uncle Elmer seems that bad.

Uncle Elmer loves everyone and everything, but he especially loves his Busch beer.  It helps him cope with Aunt Sophie.

But while we're enjoying life north, we miss our cruising friends.  In no particular order.  Dick and Deb, Gene, Miro, Bill and Patty, Ben and Joe, Jim and Sharon, Diane, Sammy, Geoff and Linda, Dan and Pat, Neil, Robert and Carolyn, Joe Green, Tony and Sandy, Jackie and Paul, Nancy and Judy, Kermit and Chris, Bob and Janet, Pat and Lorrie, John and Beth, John and Jeri, Ron and Jan, Bob and Lynda, Renee' and Jon, Parker and friends, all of our Pirate Friends too numerous to mention.  Also marina owners and dockmasters including Rick and Patty of Isle of Hope, Sheri and Cindy at Brunswick Landing Marina, and Shawn and Mark at Seaview House, and many many more.

I can't get into details of the Navi-Nut (patent pending) team at the Black Duck R&D Center.  According to Kent Boatguy, the head of operations, it's something about the statute of limitations.

That's more friends and fond memories in such a short period of time than most people deserve to have.

But one door closes...

and another door opens...

Bleecker Mountain Life is good.

TODD Goes Down!

Yesterday was another frustrating day.  Nothing seemed to be going right.  As usual.

Oh c'mon Dave.  Cut the pity me crap , you're thinking.

No, seriously.  First off, Bessie the Tractor wouldn't start.  Bessie always starts cold.  Always.  Not yesterday.  She just sluggishly turned over.   Wah... wah... wah... wah.   Her little six volt starter never spins her up quickly, but she always starts.  Not yesterday.

Earl hadn't arrived yet.  So what to do?  Well, I needed to fill those big ruts we made with the backhoe the day before with rocks.  With Bessie not cooperating, I decided to do it the old fashioned way.  I'd pick them up by hand and drop them in.  Only what to carry them in?  I didn't have a bucket or anything.   But necessity being the mother of invention, I invented the Pebble And Boulder Stowage Tote, or PABST (patent pending).

PABST worked well.  It is rugged and durable, and disposable.  After use, it can be used to start a campfire.  There's a photo of it in the first photo, below.

It took many, many trips.  First, large rocks went into the ruts, and then gradually smaller and smaller ones.  After a couple of hours of fetching rocks, I collapsed into the site's lawn chair.  That's where I was when Earl came by on his ATV.

"What's this shit?" he asked.

What?

"You're not gonna get nuthin' done sittin' on your ass like that!"

Then I showed him the rock filled ruts.  He wasn't impressed.

"Those little rocks aren't enough."

"That's only the top layer.  Underneath are many large rocks.  Those ruts go down two feet."

Earl puffed on his pipe and nodded approval.   He then walked over to the backhoe.

"Well, we don't need this shit!"

What?   I walked over.  The big rear starboard tire was as flat as a pancake.

"It's only flat on the bottom", I offered.

Earl puffed on his pipe and gave me the look.

It was decided that the little portable air tank was too small to inflate a backhoe tire, so we took the ATV to Earl's to fetch the air compressor and 4000 watt generator to run it.  The generator hadn't been run in ten years and it took some doing, but after a couple of hours we had it running.

Earl fired up the backhoe (no, it doesn't have a name yet.  It will soon.  Be patient.) and put down the starboard outrigger and lifted the tire off the ground.

We pumped up the tire and spun it around, looking for a puncture.   We didn't see one.  We decided we should move quickly because it wasn't raining yet and we didn't know how long the tire would last.   We fetched a bucket full of coarse sand from my "gravel pit" and dropped that on top of the stones and smoothed it out.   Earl drove the backhoe up to the trailer.  I attached the chain from the trailer's gooseneck to the bucket's frame.  Earl picked TODD up (Trailer of Doom and Death), stuck the backhoe in reverse, and pulled TODD down to where it needed to go.

No, it wasn't quite that easy.  The backhoe's big tires spun, looking for traction, and kept on wanting to bury themselves, but the rocks and sand held while the tires spun.  The rig stalled a few times and Earl had to rock TODD and the backhoe, but down TODD went.

TODD's final resting place.  In front of TODD's back doors will be the barn, and so TODD won't be visible when the place is complete.  But in the meantime, he'll be a great storage unit for our stuff and building materials.

I walked back past TODD to congratulate Earl, and he was already out of the backhoe, surveying the situation.  The backhoe was pinned in front of TODD and buried in the woods and needed to come out.  

"We need to move the trailer about six inches to the left", I told Earl.  I won't print here what he told me, but it was short (two words) and to the point.

"We need to get the backhoe out of here now, before that tire goes flat again," he stated.   He took his pipe and gestured to the right.   "I'm going that way."

If you don't know, a backhoe is heavy.  Over 7,000 pounds.  Two Buick's worth.  It not only sinks in mud, it sinks in dirt.  A backhoe is also not a four wheeler.  But this is Earl we're talking about, and he didn't need this shit.

It took about an hour, but Earl got the backhoe out.  He used the front bucket to knock down small saplings, and when he got stuck in soft soil, he'd push himself with the rear bucket.   He had one problem when he hung up on a stump.   He managed to pull himself off with the rear bucket, and I took a chainsaw to the stump.   After that, Earl just four wheeled it out of the pricker patch.

So that's it.  The backhoe is safe, and TODD is positioned where we want him.  I only need to level  him up a bit and put cinder blocks under the frame for when when the tires disintegrate.  He's an 8 x 48 foot storage building.   Next week, Pam and I will rent a truck and empty out our Johnstown storage unit into TODD.  That will eliminate a $110 a month bill.  And we'll have a safe and secure place to store building materials and tools.  Once our building project is done, TODD will be used to store hay and such, connected to the aft end of the barn.

Enjoying our victory beers, I told Earl that maybe we could go into business moving trailers for people.  Again, I can't tell you what he told me, but it's not even physically possible.

This was a community effort.   Thanks to Dave at Schoolhouse Transport for selling me the trailer.  To my buddy Gary in Connecticut, in CDL school, for steering me as to how to release TODD's air brakes.  To the loggers from years ago who left that old logging road that TODD now sits on.   And to Earl, to whom which no job is too big, and for which he has all the tools.

I think TODD will be pretty much out of sight once the barn is built.  If not, I'll paint daisies on it or something to camouflage it.  I don't know, and I don't care at this point.   TODD is moved.   It is done.    On to the next project.    The foundation of the house.

I feel like Sisyphus has pushed the rock to the top of the mountain.

Al Gore's Climate Change Wins. Again.

Yesterday, Earl and I decided to tackle TODD (Trailer of Doom and Death) again.   We'd moved it previously about three feet before the backhoe sunk in the dirt.   The day before, I had filled the ruts we made with stones and gravel, and "caged the brakes" on the trailer.

This is TODD.  He's 48 feet long, 8 feet wide, and weighs over 13,000 pounds.  It kind of dwarfs the backhoe, doesn't it?

Previously, Earl and I ran back and forth between his place and the trailer, filling an air tank with compressed air, and then running back to the trailer to pump up the air pressure in the brakes.   After several hours, we finally got the pressure up to 110 pounds and the brakes released.   Then we promptly buried the backhoe in the dirt, made ruts, etc.

The pic below is after I "caged the brakes".

See that threaded rod sticking out of the spring loaded canister?  It came from that vertical holder on the left side of the canister with the slots on the ends.  You simply unbolt it, remove it from the holder, pop off the canister's plug, insert the rod and turn it 90 degrees, and crank down on the bolt, compressing a big honkin' spring and releasing the brakes.

Earl and I used the backhoe to dig out a load of stone and gravel, and we filled everything in nicely.   It was going to work perfectly, and we'd have TODD moved in no time.  Well, we would have, if it didn't rain.   Not only rain, but pour.  The light brown soil is the gravel.  The dark brown evil soil is slipprey, clammy clay.  Being guys, we decided that going for it was much more fun than waiting for a sunny day.

This is after our attempt.  The backhoe dug down through the gravel and right into the clay, instantly burying itself up to its axles.

So today, if it doesn't rain (HAH!) I'll use Bessie the Tractor to fill the ruts with gravel and then smooth it with the back blade.

Seriously, what is wrong with Al Gore?  His internets is fine, but his climate change is for the birds.  Ducks, specifically.

The Hazards of Backyard Hens

I stumbled on this the other day.  Somehow, for some reason, it struck a nerve.

Thankfully, we're nothing like that.  See more at OneGirlsRant.com.

It rained yesterday, but just a sprinkle.  Today Earl and I will try to move the trailer (tractor-trailer trailer).  We tried a couple of days ago, but it was tough.   The brakes on a trailer are air brakes.  The truck default with no air pressure is BRAKES ON.   We needed to pump 110 pounds pressure of air into the lines to release them.  It took all afternoon of running between Earl's compressor and the trailer with an air tank that had a maximum pressure of 120 pounds.  Without going into all the details, we got it moved.  Three feet.  That's when the backhoe sunk into the dirt and spun it's tires.  We declared it time for a victory beer and quit.

Back home, I figured that there must be a way to release the brakes on a trailer without doing the compressed air thing, so I searched online and came up with this-

I love Al Gore's interwebs, and Google, and Youtube, and the guy that made that video.  Yesterday, I released the brakes on all four pair of wheels.  Then I scraped rocks off our land with Bessie's back blade and plowed them into one long furrow, scooped it up with the manure bucket, dropped them in the ruts, smoothed it with the back blade, and then packed it down by driving over it with the tractor.   All we need now is no rain.   That's asking a lot thanks to Al Gore's Climate Change.

The Newest Addition To Our Critter Crew

Pamela rode on the tractor with me from our rental cabin to our land.  She wanted to ride Jeremiah.  Along the way, she remarked how the Tiger Lilies were blooming and how she'd like some for her garden.  I was making trips between our rental property and our land to get stone fill for the driveway, and on one trip I stopped to dig some up.

Our first planting.  Since you can eat Tiger Lilies, you might say it's our first crop.

I later caught up with Pam on Barlow Road.

The sign says it all.

I think Jeremiah is making fun of me.

Pam says that Jeremiah LOVES to trail ride.  He was eager to go.  When Pam turned him around to return home, he stopped in protest.  According to his paperwork, he was originally used to pull wagons and buggies and such.  At age four, he was broken to a saddle.

From what I learned from our dogs, I'm a firm believer in traits of breeds.  Animals have been bred for specific tasks, like race horses and draft horses.   Morgans were bred to be all around horses, used for a variety of tasks.  They will do anything you ask them to do, which is why they are desirable,  but they don't excel at any particular task.  Pam can use Jeremiah to trail ride, or to haul rocks with a light harness.

He certainly is a beautiful animal.  I can see why so many people are into horses.

Cool Clear Water

One of my favorite songs growing up as a kid was Cool Clear Water by Sons of the Pioneers.  My mom loved country and western music, and so did I.  Not that I had much choice, mind you.  Mom played her 45s while she did housework.  Sons of the Pioneers, Johnny Cash, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Jim Reeves, Rusty Draper, and a dash of Elvis tossed in.  I loved it.

There's no city provided water in Bleecker.  We get our water from wells.  Our rental cabin's well is a shallow dug well.  We use it for bathing and washing dishes, but that's it.  You don't drink this stuff.  Beavers could be pooping just upstream.  Our drinking water comes from a spring down the mountain that we collect in jugs.  This all works out fine by us, unless the pump stops working and there's no water for bathing, washing dishes, or flushing the toilet.. Which it did.  The pump quit.  No water.

Then you only have stream water from a pail, which you fetch, and toss in the toilet tank to flush.  You can't shower from a pail.  Not comfortably.

One of my classmates in elementary school had no running water.  No indoor plumbing, no electricity. When I went to visit him once (in Slate's Hallow, for my Waterford friends), he had to fetch a pail of water from a spring before leaving the house.   Some people lived like that, not that long ago.  Maybe some still do.

Yep.  The jet pump providing the cabin with water stopped jet pumping.  It just sat there and hummed.  It did that when we first moved in, but I disassembled it and spun it by hand and got it going.  It worked fine for two months, but no more.  I took it apart and spun it by hand again, twice, yesterday to no avail.  It wasn't gonna pump no more.  So I called the landlord, got his blessing, and hied myself to Tractor Supply and fetched a new 1/2 HP jet pump.

After buying and living aboard Drift Away, I'm confident that I can do anything.   Yes, anything.  Lack of knowledge or abilities doesn't stop me.  Lack of skills or intelligence doesn't deter me.  Nor should it stop you.  Give me a set of wrenches and Google and I'm ready to tackle any project.  Perhaps it was the inspiration of Wally Bruner on Wally's Workshop that inspired me.

If you don't remember Wally, he had one of the first do-it-yourself TV shows.  He was always messing up, like putting his foot through the ceiling while installing a drop down attic stairway.  His ending catch line was "You can do it, if you try!".

Wally's Workshop is a self-help show which aired for a single season in 1972. Wally Bruner is the show's main handyman and host. Together with his wife Natalie he demonstrates how to tackle a number of projects including bookcases, bed frames and more. The real key to the shows success and entertainment value, however, is in the couple's chemistry, and Wally's lack of coordination, which often leads Wally to drop tools, splatter paint and commit other follies and foibles that create a comic atmosphere.
Wally is my guiding light.  Tearing apart a jet pump is nothing compared to tearing apart a diesel generator's raw water cooling system on a boat, which I did recently.  It's not that boaters are particularly skilled at this stuff, but at $125 an hour for incompetent service, we learn to be independent.  I can screw it up myself.  I don't need to pay someone else to screw it up for me.

So after ripping the Gould pump apart and determining that it had seen better days, I hied myself off the mountain to Tractor Supply and bought a new County Line 1/2 HP jet pump.  Back on the mountain, it took some doing to persuade the old fittings off the old pump so I could get them on the new one, but between my perseverance and Earl's workshop, I got it done.  I connected everything back at the rental Unabomber cabin, primed the pump, flipped the switch, and got HUMMM CLICK.  HUMMM CLICK.  HUMMM CLICK.  HUMMM CLICK.

Hmmm... hummm click doesn't seem right.  The pump was supposed to be calibrated at the factory to 30 lbs cut in pressure, 50 lbs cut out.  It seems to me like they're both set to the same pressure.  So after an hour of backing the cut in pressure adjustment waaaaay off and the cut out waaaaay in, it is working.  The pump operates normally, and we no longer have to fetch buckets of water from the creek to flush the toilet.

Please note the cast in the beginning of the above video.  The guy at the beginning on the far right in 1934 is Roy Rogers.  Look closely at the video and you'll see his sidekick, Pat.

That's what I need.  A sidekick.  A bumbling idiot who provides comic relief.  For now, I guess, I have to do it on my own.

And background music.  Usually, the theme from Mission Impossible would be appropriate, but yesterday Cool Clear Water would have worked.