USMB Coffee Shop IV

[saveliberty]

I have a rip just above the right knee on my jeans. While mowing a lawn today a ground hornet bumped into me and fell into the rip. He felt threatened and stung me. This is all complicated by the sting being next to the healing chain saw cut less than an inch away.

No grandson, job offer or dead BIL yet. Hopefully it unfolds in that order with a long delay on the last one.

 

[Foxfyre]

I have a rip just above the right knee on my jeans. While mowing a lawn today a ground hornet bumped into me and fell into the rip. He felt threatened and stung me. This is all complicated by the sting being next to the healing chain saw cut less than an inch away.

No grandson, job offer or dead BIL yet. Hopefully it unfolds in that order with a long delay on the last one.

I still have you on my critical prayer list (meaning you are in the
first group referenced.) The wasp sting is painful I know but is it a serious thing? Do we need to add it?

 

[gallantwarrior]

Meanwhile...@
gallantwarrior
.....I keep missing you when you post.
How the heck are you doing? Been thinking of you lately and I have no clue why except because I like you? Or is something from the universe tapping on my head cuz I'm feeling I need to holler attcha to see how you are just for general purposes?

Anyway....how the heck are you? All ok?

I don't know why the call feature is not calling you?

Hello, Gracie! I've had some time to read through the CS posts but little time to respond. There's so much going on with everyone here and I'd like best to respond to everyone's posts. I have to hurry now, trying to get as much as possible out of my current location and out to my place in Willow before it starts to freeze. Once things freeze up, I have to have my trailer "winter-rized" and start my commute to work four nights a week.
Due to various delays, the barn won't be far along this year, either. Last year, my partner broke his ankle, this year, lots of other stuff has come up. Fortunately, our decision to roof the barn with a gambrel roof will allow us to provide some shelter for the animals this winter. we'll be building 8-foot roof sections that will shelter the goats this winter and next spring, we can use the backhoe to lift the sections on to the walls. My major concern will be water. Our current electric system will not power the heaters needed to keep water ice free 24/7. I talked to some other folks farming off-grid and they assured me that their animals do OK on twice-daily provisions of fresh water. They are provisioning not only goats, but cattle and chickens, as well.
I got a new Pyr puppy, Pipp (named by my granddaughter). She's a couple of months old and cuter than all get-out. I've been looking for a Pyr puppy for over a year and was fortunate to find Pipp. Now Roxie (8 1/2 yr old Pyr) can help train Pipp to do her guardian dog job. So far, she's doing very well. I love my Pyrenees dogs, they do their jobs so very well.
Gracie, I'm glad that you manage to get your doggie "fix". I fully understand about your feeling that your puppy still comes to you. I've heard a cat about the cabin and am convinced that my Sugarfoot still comes around the place. Who knows how life's twists and turns will end up...
To everyone else, I hope for the best outcome for all our recovering friends.

 

[gallantwarrior]

Well, I had to go to your profile, cut and then paste your name and now it works. Just typing it in...nada.
Is the board hiccupping?

Nah, I've just been MIA here for a while.

 

[gallantwarrior]

I have a rip just above the right knee on my jeans. While mowing a lawn today a ground hornet bumped into me and fell into the rip. He felt threatened and stung me. This is all complicated by the sting being next to the healing chain saw cut less than an inch away.

No grandson, job offer or dead BIL yet. Hopefully it unfolds in that order with a long delay on the last one.

Dang! When it rains it pours for you. Hey, what do you think about those fire ant rafts they're warning about in Houston?

 

[gallantwarrior]

I'm baaaccckkkk!!!

 

[Gracie]

And for once, I am here at the same time! Maybe. I was outside and just now got back online.

Kitty is very smart and we finally came to a form of co existing. She no longer bites, but does jump up in my lap long enough to do our cat head bump greeting.

She is here during a portion of the day, and the rest of the time she is either home or night hunting. I sic'd her on a squirrel and the funny thing is, she knows exactly what I am saying when I whisper "dere's a squirrel over dere! Go see!" and point...and she looks to what I am pointing at and actually goes to see, lol.

 

[gallantwarrior]

How are things going for you, Gracie? I got the impression that you have reconciled yourself with your situation.

 

[Gracie]

How are things going for you, Gracie? I got the impression that you have reconciled yourself with your situation.

Not really. I stay buried in my room. Too hot outside. Was 105 today. Will be the same tomorrow. Has been the same for the past week. Next week it will drop to lower 90's. When it gets to 80's, I will go back outside.
I am biding my time, waiting. When "the call" comes...we will leave. I've tried to be a mountain gal. It isn't working. This heat is killing me. I'd rather be cold than suffer this stifling sweaty heat. We can't stay here even if we wanted to. So...we wait.

 

[gallantwarrior]

ak..akkk..akaakkk! That's to hot for me and mine! At least cold lets me put on more stuff and look like a Goodyear tire man, or the biscuit guy! I'd much rather live near the coast, too. Gasp!...
It has cooled off here, though. We're down to the 40s now, but still nicely warm during the day. I'll be out of here by the end of the month, I suspect. I managed to sell five of my surplus goats yesterday, and the "customers" want at least 20 next year. I doubt that will happen, but it's encouraging to know I have an active market. I still have loads of critters to feed.

 

[Gracie]

Yeah...its hot here. And unfortunately, not only is housemate a hoarder..he also does not have air conditioning. Not even a fucking fan. Talk about out of the fry pan and into the fire!! We sure pick 'em, don't we?

I figured it out today. There is 5 months winter, 5 months horrible summer, 1 month spring and 1 month fall. At home, it usually stays around 65 year round. And I hope I can get back there while I am still breathing.

 

[Gracie]

At least cold lets me put on more stuff and look like a Goodyear tire man, or the biscuit guy!

Pillsbury Doughboy? lol. I am visualizing that and laughing...as long as you are not the doughboy in Ghostbusters . He wasn't so fluffy and puffy and cute

Its easier to get warm than it is to cool off. I don't like extremes, so...back home is where we want to wind up.

 

[Ringel05]

At least cold lets me put on more stuff and look like a Goodyear tire man, or the biscuit guy!

Pillsbury Doughboy? lol. I am visualizing that and laughing...as long as you are not the doughboy in Ghostbusters . He wasn't so fluffy and puffy and cute

Its easier to get warm than it is to cool off. I don't like extremes, so...back home is where we want to wind up.

That was the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.........

 

[Gracie]

At least cold lets me put on more stuff and look like a Goodyear tire man, or the biscuit guy!

Pillsbury Doughboy? lol. I am visualizing that and laughing...as long as you are not the doughboy in Ghostbusters . He wasn't so fluffy and puffy and cute

Its easier to get warm than it is to cool off. I don't like extremes, so...back home is where we want to wind up.

That was the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.........

They look the same to me, lol. But I am trying to visualize GW as either or and

 

[saveliberty]

I have a rip just above the right knee on my jeans. While mowing a lawn today a ground hornet bumped into me and fell into the rip. He felt threatened and stung me. This is all complicated by the sting being next to the healing chain saw cut less than an inch away.

No grandson, job offer or dead BIL yet. Hopefully it unfolds in that order with a long delay on the last one.

I still have you on my critical prayer list (meaning you are in the
first group referenced.) The wasp sting is painful I know but is it a serious thing? Do we need to add it?

I am afraid it was fatal to the wasp.

 

[saveliberty]

I have a rip just above the right knee on my jeans. While mowing a lawn today a ground hornet bumped into me and fell into the rip. He felt threatened and stung me. This is all complicated by the sting being next to the healing chain saw cut less than an inch away.

No grandson, job offer or dead BIL yet. Hopefully it unfolds in that order with a long delay on the last one.

Dang! When it rains it pours for you. Hey, what do you think about those fire ant rafts they're warning about in Houston?

Worry about them when they rob hardware stores for little electric motors?

 

[Foxfyre]

I have a rip just above the right knee on my jeans. While mowing a lawn today a ground hornet bumped into me and fell into the rip. He felt threatened and stung me. This is all complicated by the sting being next to the healing chain saw cut less than an inch away.

No grandson, job offer or dead BIL yet. Hopefully it unfolds in that order with a long delay on the last one.

Dang! When it rains it pours for you. Hey, what do you think about those fire ant rafts they're warning about in Houston?

The warnings are real and they are very dangerous. The fire ants are unique in that they lock themselves together to form a large 'raft' as you put it of thousands of floating ants. And if they bump into something solid--like a person or a boat--they are all over it. Like killer bees, if one stings they all do. I have seen the phenomenon only once during some flooding in Arkansas but apparently in the Houston area there are lots of them and they hurt like the dickens when they bite--with enough bites they can be fatal. They look like this and if people are not aware they may not know what they are approaching and just think it is debris in the water. They will either float free or anchor themselves to the shore by latching onto something to keep themselves from floating away.

 

[Montrovant]

I have a rip just above the right knee on my jeans. While mowing a lawn today a ground hornet bumped into me and fell into the rip. He felt threatened and stung me. This is all complicated by the sting being next to the healing chain saw cut less than an inch away.

No grandson, job offer or dead BIL yet. Hopefully it unfolds in that order with a long delay on the last one.

I still have you on my critical prayer list (meaning you are in the
first group referenced.) The wasp sting is painful I know but is it a serious thing? Do we need to add it?

I am afraid it was fatal to the wasp.

Good! I hate those stinging bugs that come up out of the ground when you mow.

Kill em all!

 

[Nosmo King]

Saturday was a cool and rainy day. The remnants of what is now mercifully called 'the Harvey System' drifted through the upper Ohio River valley giving us a gentle but steady all day rain. Thus began our Labor Day weekend. Today was sunnier, but still cool. Sweatshirt weather. The Potters took one on the chin Friday night losing to nearby rival Indian Creek 29-0. So the football team and the weatherman stumbled out of the gate for the last summer holiday weekend.

I was reminded through the early part of my Labor Day weekend of another Labor Day weekend years ago. It was my first big visit to New York City, a place I have since fallen deeply in love with. The noise, the motion, the aromas of dirty water hot dog carts and urine filled subway stations have spun their grotesque spell on me and I have become a convert.

My first jobs out of college and into engineering firms was as a land surveyor. I chose that career path because I truly love surveying. And what's not to love? You're outside, using your head more than your back. You have to have knowledge of botany, meteorology, mathematics, geography, entomology, and public relations.

My firm gave me a project in early September in the Bronx. We stayed at a hotel in Queens which was tough enough because the U.S Tennis Open Championships happens there at this time of year. My project took me over the Tri-Borough Bridge to the notorious borough of the Bronx. My team had to locate all the utilities at a five point intersection in the south Bronx.

I parked the 1979 Chevy Suburban on the island in the middle of the intersection. After mounting the $24,000 total station instrument on the tripod, I set everything up over a known control point on the traffic island. I mention the price of the total station because it was mentioned to me six or seven times before we left the office in Pittsburgh.

I was no more than twenty feet from the Suburban and amazed that not once, but twice, someone tried the back door even as I stood there surveying. We got maybe 80% of the shots done when I saw someone stagger from what I thought was an abandoned building across the street. The building was a five story walkup. All the windows were sealed shut with concrete blocks from the basement level to the third floor. Above that, the windows were missing and filthy sheets blew from where the windows once were.

This person, and I'll be magnanimous and call her a woman, stooped at a fire hydrant where the valve was not fully shut. She moistened a dirty rag in the flow and mopped the back of her neck, then her brow. She indignantly marched across Jerome Avenue and announced, "He ain't gonna sell us shit until youse get outta here!"

I glanced at my watch and noted the time as 2:45 pm. Not one to block commerce or interfere with the enterprises of someone potentially far more trigger happy than I would feel comfortable with, I complied and called the other two surveyors to say we were calling it a day.

I made my way done through Queens to the Ravenswood power plant on the East River right across the river from the United Nations building in mid town Manhattan. I took that day's notes to my contact at ConEd.

"Scotty! What are you doing here?"

"Hi ya, Pat! I'm dropping off the notes from today's work. We've got maybe another thirty shots to make tomorrow." I answered.

"No. You don't understand." said Pat "It's 4:00 in the afternoon. Why are you here now?"

"Well, we were doing fine until a quarter to three..." and I told him the story of the damsel in distress in the south Bronx.

"That's what I'm talking about" Pat said "The bad guys get up at the crack of noon! I want you and your crew to wrap it up at lunchtime, then bring the notes in! Don't be up there any later in the day!"

As luck would have it, we were able to get our last shots finished around 10:30 the next day and we bade a fond farewell to the charms of city living in the Bronx.

The next day we had to set panels for arial photography. Panels are large square or V shaped pieces of white Mylar or places painted on pavement that have been precisely located by distance, angle and elevation. A pass or three from an airplane taking stereo photographs pick up on the panels. Engineers can then examine the photographs through stereo glasses to determine the best routes for, in our case, a 10" natural gas pipeline.

We were on Northern Blvd. in Queens within sight of both the Steinway Brothers piano factory and the infamous Ricker's Island prison. This was a relatively easy day and I anticipated no problems. But two days later, I was called into the ConEd engineering department to explain the presence of an undocumented panel.

I studied the picture and racked my brain. We extrapolated the location of the mystery panel and I drove out to north Queens the next morning. I walked up and down the sidewalk where the panel had appeared in the photos. I could see nothing! On concrete and asphalt we painted the targets. In open fields, which are lacking in Queens, we set out Mylar panels secured with spikes and long staples. But there was no sign of a panel on this sidewalk.

Then, in an act of serendipity, a delivery truck stopped in front of me. The truck was carrying four foot by four foot square crates of live chickens. The address on Northern Blvd. the mystery panel was found turned out to be a poultry processing plant. Our pilots shot a crate of chicken on the sidewalk and confused us all. I measured the distance from the corners of the processing plant to the chicken crate on the sidewalk. I took a snapshot of it from my vantage point on the street.

The ConEd guys, jaded, cynical, urbane and witty all cracked up at the coincidence.

And so I was baptized in the faith of the Big Apple. We spent,the better half of our Labor Day holiday sucking the marrow from the bone of urban culture before heading west on I-80 and home. As I recall, it was really chilly on Labor Day that year too.

 

[Lumpy 1]

Doughboys dilemma ..