Good Monday morning!

Good Monday morning Patriot Woodworkers! What did you get done over the weekend, and what have you planned for the week ahead! Inquiring minds want to know. Please tell us what's happening in your shops, your life, and any events going on with you. Thank you for being here folks!

 

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The Annual Warrior Family Christmas Project

Our Christmas project will be fired up this week! We are waiting for our family to be assigned by our friends at Soldiers Angels! Stay tuned to find out how you can help us raise funds and provide a wonderful Christmas for a warrior family that may need a hand up. To find out more about Soldiers Angels and how we are going to help a warrior family click on their logo below. 

 

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@MrRick kerf maker, ol Rick just keeps pluggin along and sharing his wonderful work, thanks Rick!

 

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Christmas is coming folks!

 

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How to turn snowmen on a Shopsmith is the title of the video, but it's for any lathe, what a fun project. 🙂 

 

The frantic house cleaning for unappreciative guests/relatives has begun. 

A very busy upcoming week for us. We have medical appointments (including a hospital visit in Cincy for a procedure) 4 of the 5 days. Somewhere in there I need to take the dog to the groomer, and Marie may have to add another medical appointment for a different procedure next week. The cold/snowy weather today and tomorrow isn't helping, either. On to other stuff. Last Saturday I drove up to the hardware to rent a tool. As I was exiting the highway, I passed an accident where a semi drove off the road into a pond. It was an Amazon Trailer and was intact with some tow trucks, the highway patrol, and some local police o the scene. I rented my tool, used it, and then took it back...this time with my camera. They had started trying to pull it out of the pond and the trailer split open. 

@Fred W. Hargis Jr so much for Prime one day shipping!

3 hours ago, Fred W. Hargis Jr said:

A very busy upcoming week for us. We have medical appointments (including a hospital visit in Cincy for a procedure) 4 of the 5 days. Somewhere in there I need to take the dog to the groomer, and Marie may have to add another medical appointment for a different procedure next week. The cold/snowy weather today and tomorrow isn't helping, either. On to other stuff. Last Saturday I drove up to the hardware to rent a tool. As I was exiting the highway, I passed an accident where a semi drove off the road into a pond. It was an Amazon Trailer and was intact with some tow trucks, the highway patrol, and some local police o the scene. I rented my tool, used it, and then took it back...this time with my camera. They had started trying to pull it out of the pond and the trailer split open. 

You have heard of the Amazon River............now there is an Amazon Pond. 

Busy morning. Had to do new hire orientation for new tech they hired.  Always fun stuff.

I spent much of the weekend doing yard work like shredding and bagging leaves from the two oak trees in my front yard and gathering acorns. I have already bagged (30 gal) 5 bags of shredded leaves and after the winds blew Sunday you can't tell I even touched the leaves.

I also scooped up 5-6 5-gallon buckets of golf ball sized acorns that probably added 40-50 lbs of weight to my trash can. Thank goodness they have machines the pick the cans up now days. One man would get a hernia trying to pick that trash can up by himself.

 

 

Sunday I did a little reorganizing in the shop. In the corner of the garage I had a large wooden whiskey barrel I stored long pieces of wood in but it was big and bulky and I couldn't move it when I need to get to stuff on the wall behind it so I replaced the barrel with an old trashcan I have had in the backyard ever since the city gave us those large cans that the trucks pick up mechanically.

I also use a piece of 4"scrap, thin wall, PVC to make a small holder for smaller pieces of wood. 

 

 

The only plans I have for this week is more leaf and acorn removal. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

46 minutes ago, Bubba said:

 

I also scooped up 5-6 5-gallon buckets of golf ball sized acorns that probably added 40-50 lbs of weight to my trash can. 

 

Here in the northern 1/2 of the nation we (or at least I) have never see acorns that big....that is amazing (to me).

15 minutes ago, Fred W. Hargis Jr said:

 

 

 

 

 

Here in the northern 1/2 of the nation we (or at least I) have never see acorns that big....that is amazing (to me).

I kid you not when they are on the ground it is like walking on golf balls. 

8 hours ago, Fred W. Hargis Jr said:

A very busy upcoming week for us. We have medical appointments (including a hospital visit in Cincy for a procedure) 4 of the 5 days. Somewhere in there I need to take the dog to the groomer, and Marie may have to add another medical appointment for a different procedure next week. The cold/snowy weather today and tomorrow isn't helping, either. On to other stuff. Last Saturday I drove up to the hardware to rent a tool. As I was exiting the highway, I passed an accident where a semi drove off the road into a pond. It was an Amazon Trailer and was intact with some tow trucks, the highway patrol, and some local police o the scene. I rented my tool, used it, and then took it back...this time with my camera. They had started trying to pull it out of the pond and the trailer split open. 

Is it just me or does that look like bales of recycled aluminum in the truck?

 

Except those wouldn't float....

 

I was expecting to see a whole bunch of soggy boxes!

Today I was again troubleshooting the problems of integrating 1960's communications with 2020's networks.... Having me working on this is roughly like having the bus boy cook the meals at a four star restaurant.... but there is no one else so I limp along.

 

We may have hit it today, using the tried and true method of parts bingo.... we'll see.  If the problem doesn't come back in the next two weeks I will declare victory.

Never see acorns THAT big around here....because there are a LOT of FAT Squirrels running around...

 

2-1/2 Hours in the shop, today...Got a wee bit done..

Dry fit, for now..will see how tomorrow goes...

I picked these up last week on a trip to friends deer stand. Ground under oaks here is covered in acorns. By the way what kind of oak is it. Would like to have a handful.

 

Finished Harvest Fest Saturday and Thursday starts Chimneyville. Do trying to at least partially restock. Not fun turning in a hurry. 

8 hours ago, Gerald said:

I picked these up last week on a trip to friends deer stand. Ground under oaks here is covered in acorns. By the way what kind of oak is it. Would like to have a handful.

 

Finished Harvest Fest Saturday and Thursday starts Chimneyville. Do trying to at least partially restock. Not fun turning in a hurry. 

I think it is called a burr oak.

A few years ago I took a 5-gal bucket full of those acorns to my deer lease thinking the deer or hogs would eat them. They laid on the ground for weeks and nothing touched them.

Edited November 11, 2025Nov 11 by Bubba

Late outta the gate this week. Catching up on loose ends, "honey dews", a nap or two and adjusting to winter and snow. No donuts though.

 

So Sunday, amid near blizzard conditions at times, wind roaring and the temperature dropping in the early afternoon, decided it was time to check the furnace before firing it up. About two minutes in with the small shop vac going, it (shop vac) quit. Thinking I tripped a breaker, went to the panel, but all was good. "Hollered" at my wife, "is power off in the house?" "Yes it is." crap, hmmm...

 

So I called our electric cooperative outage number to report the outage; about 2:15P, EDT. No other reported outages...hmmm...well take out the trash, move the trash container for Monday AM pick-up, fill the bird feeders. Happen to glance up and noticed the power lines seem oddly lower. A  quick scan down the lines to one end of the property where the power comes across the field to the power line down our road; hmmm, that's not right, pole cross bar is no longer attached to the pole. It's laying across some of the lines, sparks jumping and a couple small fires at the top of pole where the cross bar once was.

 

Immediately called the outage line again (remote site, but English speaking and bless their hearts, possibly a retirement home or long term care center). Anyways, gave all the same info again, plus pole ID numbers and stated this was urgent as a power line was drooping precariously low into the roadway. I didnt get the warm and fuzzy she grasped the urgency.

 

Decided I best call 9-1-1 for a quicker response. That got immediate attention; local volunteer fire department had folks on the scene while I was still on hold with dispatch. A Deputy sheriff arrived shortly thereafter to close the road until first wave of electric cooperative trucks arrived about an hour later.

 

Really long story  a bit shorter, the cooperative was able to isolate the pole and power feed, switch directions of power feed since dozens of others were without power down our road and beyond. We got temporary power back about 6:30P. Power company brought additional crews in to replace the pole. That work wrapped up about 11:45P. We lost power again briefly as they made the reroute back to the original flow. Kudos to our cooperative for working on a Sunday in some nasty and miserable conditions. I got to bed around midnight once I reset all the clocks again and made sure everything else was functioning OK.

 

Other than this, pretty quiet weekend. BTW, took less than 30 minutes to get the furnace going after power was restored at 6:30P.

 

I'll add a couple pictures from my phone in a few minutes.

 

 

Edited November 12, 2025Nov 12 by Grandpadave52

On 11/10/2025 at 7:35 PM, JWD said:

Is it just me or does that look like bales of recycled aluminum in the truck?

 

 

 OK, I just now found out (in our local paper) that the Amazon truck was hauling.....shredded paper (what?!). This may be part of their "zero carbon footprint" program or something.( I'm not throwing rocks here, but the driver/truck was from Indianapolis.) I suppose it's possible someone ordered a load of shredded paper from them, but I think that to be very unlikely.

Edited November 12, 2025Nov 12 by Fred W. Hargis Jr

15 minutes ago, Fred W. Hargis Jr said:

 OK, I just now found out (in our local paper) that the Amazon truck was hauling.....shredded paper (what?!). This may be part of their "zero carbon footprint" program or something.( I'm not throwing rocks here, but the driver/truck was from Indianapolis.) I suppose it's possible someone ordered a load of shredded paper from them, but I think that to be very unlikely.

 

That explains why it floats!

 

I was buying big bags of vermiculite once around 2006 (for mixing into lime stucco), and the place that sold it was next to a paper recycling transfer station.  They had a big board out front stating the current price for both white paper and mixed.  At the time, white paper was $0.04 per ton and I think mixed was half that or less.  So a full semi-load was worth about $1.60 - for the white paper.  Not worth it to start up the truck and drive a mile!