File Under Things That Should Be Outlawed

I want to know the communist infiltrator who thought it was a good idea to put finger jointed brick molding on exterior doors. 

Like I don't have better things to do than to have to change this every 7 years. 

Then you go to the lumber yard and all you can find is the same crap and plastic stuff that doesn't match the existing surround. 

Solution: get a 2 x 4 of treated clear southern yellow pine and make my molding. It just takes a couple of passes on the table saw and some light sanding. 

Now all I have to do is get the crappy stuff off without wrecking the jamb.

Note To Self

Don't use sub-standard bottles...

Or it will make you sad.

Trail Magic

We live close enough to the Appalachian Trail so we set out to make some hikers' day. 

So Lee, Tess, and I headed to a spot on the Blue Ridge Parkway to do some trail magic. 

Wifey posted the menu items over here.

We set up camp in a nice shady spot.

Here is view from our spot.

Now all we need are some customers. 

This is Indy, take 1, notice the folks in the background. they were out for a stroll with their cat Precious.

 

This is take 2 of Indy and I didn't want to delete the pic. still working on my phone app blog-fu.

 

We had a nice chat with David Horton. He set the record on the AT and the PCT for time. He is an ultra runner and was out on the trail for the day after having a knee replacement just two weeks ago.

A mother and son couple passed thru heading south. I had a hunch they were Korean so I asked and they were. I confessed to them that I am big K drama fan. It gave us something to chat about as they enjoyed a Mountain Dew. Wifey got a big kick out of it. To bad I didn't get their pic.

Here are Wings from Indiana and Gofar from Fargo, ND. Talk about high energy, these guys are ripping up the trail but we managed to slow them down for an hour or so. 

This is Just Smiling Bob from northern Virginia.He was stressing about re-suppling, so we extended his time by one meal.

This is Stark from Columbus Ohio.Stark is an English major, just back from being abroad. I didn't tell him this on the trail, but if I saw him again I would say to him 'those who can't do, teach, those who can't teach, hike the A.T.'. I'm sure he woulda got a kick out of it.

We'll this sums up our day. It was a beautiful weather and we made some hikers very happy and very full. 

Checking on the bees

Theme music by Muddy Waters

This is an eight-frame hive.

The first super was full so we added a second super.

Here is a frame with pre-laid foundation

The bees are making natural comb.

Looking for a queen. We quickly found her on frame #4.

Here they are making their "Bee Wear" fashion statement.

Think Mead.

Well Issues

It never fails that when I am away, things happen. When I arrived at home wifey told me of losing water pressure on the second floor when the garden sprinkler was running. after mulling over the possibilities I was panic stricken for a moment as I watched the sprinkler stop sprinkling.

Saturday I went in the basement to check the pressure switch and gage. The switch seemed fine but the gage was stuck on 30. It had dirt plugging up the Bourdon tube, which seems to happen every 5 to 6 years.

I placed my hand on the copper pipe and I could feel surging and when water was flowing the pipe would get cold. The well was slug flowing so there are two possibilities: 1. the well is going dry or 2. there is a pump problem.

So I called the well driller whose number I got from the well cap and was referred to the pump guy. I called the pump guy and he said he could be right over, on a Saturday, on a holiday week end.

The problem turned out to be a seized pump which was determined in the basement by taking a clamp-on ammeter readings. Normal current flow is around 6 amps and the failing pump was pulling locked rotor amps of 22.

While he was changing the gage I asked him if he observed holidays and he said not usually and that he went where the business would takes him. 

Here is the contraption to pull the 400 foot of black poly pipe out of the well case. I paced off the diameter of the circle on the ground to be 20 foot and counted 4 loops and told the pump guy you probably have about another 100 feet to go. He said you must be an engineer. I said guilty even though my math was way off. Then He stopped the puller and looked at the foot markers on the wire and said yup.

 You can see the old pump is in the lower left corner and the new pump is on the end of the pipe.

While I was receiving my tutorial on pump pulling he gave me a word of advice. Don't drop pebbles down the well the see how long it take to reach water. This is the first thing I did to determine if I had problem #1 or #2. He said if a well case has a liner it can cause a jam when pulling the pump. Use ice or chlorine tablets instead.

When the pump was pulled I went in the house and got a few ice cubes. When I dropped them in, it took around 3 second to hear the splash. It was later confirmed the water table was at the 60 foot mark using the wire footage markers.

So our well is back in business which means the clear cold mountain spring waters of Virginia will be perpetually flowing into my mash tun.

Mixing Business with Pleasure

I spent time in Pembroke Florida earlier in the week so I stopped in at my favorite place, Aficionados. After hanging out she said to me 'What do you know about electricity?' I said 'We'll what do got?' Then he came over and said a couple of dead smoke eaters.

This is an electrostatic precipitator for cleaning smoke out of a room where you want to clean the air but without introducing outside air. 

Here is the problem, or at least one of them. Burned off electrical connections. 

If you were to make the analogy to miles on a car, then these two units have a million miles on them. But fear not, with some work under the hood, we can make them go a couple of hundred thousand more. 

We got the fan running on unit #2 by connecting the neutral wire. It appears these units were menaced by an unqualified person who masquerades as an appliance technician. He or she removed the molex connector, thereby rendering the unit inoperable. 

The next time I am in Florida we will take the unit down so we can work on it on the bench. 

Then, we can all burn one, and still breathe air like it came in on the breeze, from a mountain, in Virginia. 

Side By Side Comparison

#30 next to the commonly available variety.

Early indications are that this batch will not last long and that recipe #30 is a keeper. I am in the habit of under charging the stouts in order to keep the head down. There is nothing worse than opening a bottle, only to have half of it end on the counter because it bubbled up like champagne. Adding a 1/2 cup of sugar to 5 gallons works out about just right so the last bottle will have the perfect head. The other benefit to under charging is that it allows you to aggressively pour the beer into the glass. This is what I had to do in order to coax the tiny bit of head for the one on the left. This also 'provides a smoothness and a drinkability that you will find in no other beer...', you know the drill.