This is the money you could be saving....

.....driving a prius.

Make all the jokes you want but I don't enjoy feeding the Arabs.

Current gas cost per mile in Prius is $.06

Current gas cost per mile in Avalanche $.25

Over 9430 miles, I have saved $1886 in fuel costs.

Sweet !

.

Wilson Tree Service

Never tried to download a video to Blogger but I will try with this one.

Here is Adam with Wilson Tree Service in the bucket cutting off 82' of sycamore tree with the wind out of the south at 21 mph and wind gusts up to 31 mph. The owner, Chris Wilson is to the right of the tree base. Also to mention, this was OVER a power line and a phone line.

Directly between the camera and the base of the tree is a can of Coors Light. He was joking that he needed a target to hit. I put one down for him.

Here is a Pic I took from the tripod about 10 min before they dropped the tree.

In being truthful, the can was not hit. A 6" branch kept the can from being crushed but the can was dead center under the main trunk.

Sweet !

You can reach them @

573-406-0032

573-231-1820

217-224-8050

Bayer Advanced - 0 Nutgrass - 2

Well, it's week 5 and all I can say is save your money and don't buy this. I put one treatment on with the hose end applicator as instructed on my front lawn first. 3 days later, I applied it to the back yards. The back yard is very well infested with the nut grass. After a week you could tell it did slow down the growth of the grass. Waited another week (per instructions) and applied the second application with a spot sprayer.







2 weeks after the second application I noticed brown dead areas in the yard. The nut grass was alive and growing like I had just fertilized it. And crabgrass, didn't touch it either. All the turf grass around the nutgrass was dead and brown. Nice.

The green in this picture is the nutgrass and crabgrass, the brown grass is my turf fescue that is now dead

The places where I applied it the second time ( pretty heavy) it had killed the nutgrass...and everything around it.





Did I apply it as directed. Yes. Both times.







At best I would guess that this is diluted Round-up.

Not Watergrass, Nutgrass

I was brought up thinking this was water grass. Damned weed grows like crazy when the weather turns wet so always believed it. Until it started growing in MY yard.

Did some research on the Internet on just exactly this annoying little weed is. Come to find out it is Nutgrass or nutsedge, and it's not too easy to kill.

You can do a search on Google to find plenty of info and pictures if you think this is what you have. It grows at a amazingly fast rate and makes your yard look like it hasn't been mowed in a week 2 days after mowing it.




I am currently trying this Bayer Advanced Lawn Weed and

Crabgrass Killer. Never been a fan of putting chemicals on
the yard since I have had dogs, but this stuff is annoying.


Currently at one week since application and I do not see the nut grass brown and dried up. The crabgrass and clover has turned brown and died, but not the intended target. Although I have noticed that the nutgrass has NOT sprouted right back up for days after a mowing. The instructions say to apply a second application 2 weeks after the first, so I'll see what happens.

Chlorine Generator - Update Week 5

Well, all is well with the salt water generator. Have had no problems with it and seems to be holding quite well. One thing of note, I assumed that you could set the level of chlorine that you wanted and it would maintain that level. Not so with this model. You adjust the level of chlorine generated by adjusting the percentage of output. I have learned that this unit pretty much can be adjusted by the water temp. If it's in the 80's, set it on 80%. 90's set on 90%. 20,000 gallons of water does not heat up or cool down very fast so it is very easy to adjust.

Hot Laptop

After packing my HP back to the service center for the second time, I was forced to drag out my Acer laptop that I ditched for the HP. It was getting real hot and had the BSOD come on at random. Never spent any time fixing it...... until now.

One problem was the tremendous amount of heat that came out the fan exit shortly after starting it. Had taken back cover and blown out the screen and that area before but read about a guy who took it one step further and took off the fan cover.

Tried that with mine and discovered a t-shirt and a pair of socks lodged in mine. Took some canned air and blew it out and the overheating problem disappeared.

Imaging that.

As far as the BSOD, it would never run chkdsk, never Virus scan and randomly slow down or lock up. Once you canceled the chkdsk at start-up it would run for a undetermined amount of time before you would have to restart it.

Again, found a guy who removed his hard drive and hooked it up to his desktop and ran the dskchk off of his desktop. Since it was not the primary hard drive it worked. Ran that and then ran defrag after that and this thing is haulin' ass now.

CompuPool Salt Chlorine Generator Part IIII

Ok !!!

All installed and hooked up and generating Chlorine (I think) When the unit is on, you can see bubbles coming off the plates in the chamber. Looks a little like a battery when it's hooked up to a charger.

Through the process of electrolysis, water passing over the chlorine generator cell produces chlorine that is instantaneously transformed into Hypochlorous acid. When any type of chlorine is added to water it ALL makes the SAME thing: Hypochlorous acid. It does not matter if it is Sodium Hypochlorite (liquid chlorine), Tri-chlor and Di-chlor or Lithium based, Cal-hypo or even gas chlorine--it all makes Hypochlorous acid. Hypochlorous acid is the active sanitizer; this is what kills algae and other harmful stuff in the water. Its effectiveness is totally predicated on balanced water conditions and, more importantly, proper pH. So, with a salt water system or chlorine generator, you still must maintain your water balance (pool chemistry) properly.

The last of my chlorine tablets has just run out today and the chlorine level is up around 9 ppm, A little high but I will update as the summer goes on.

Happy Swimming!

CompuPool Salt Chlorine Generator Part III

OK...after getting the staples out, I was ready to add the salt to the pool. Getting info off the Internet about dissolving salt in the pool was confusing. It's now going to be salt water but several site suggested NOT to just dump it in as it would hurt the liner. ???? WTF? So I decided to use this 30 gallon barrel and dump the salt into it under the pool return nozzle.

I added the salt until it was about 3/4 the way full and did some other house keeping around the pool to waste time. The whole 600 lbs took about 2 1/2 hrs to dissolve like this.

After it was dissolved, I recirculated the pool water for about a hour before trying to start the salt generator.

Whoopsie Daisy

A little set back during the installation of the salt water generator. Had to cut some hoses to install the generator in line and forgot the first rule of using a knife.

ALWAYS CUT AWAY FROM YOU !

This little accident included 8 internal stitches and 11 staples outside.

Think I'll have to add the bill to the pool project.

On a good note, the Dr. who stitched me up and the nurses were super. They did a fantastic job and I am really thankful of the job they did ! It did suck parking my car and walking a block to GET to the emergency room which was no fault of the ER personal. I did express my feelings to the person who called and asked for my opinion of the service and facilities on the stroll to get there.

CompuPool Salt Chlorine Generator Part II

From the instructions, it calculates at .03 lbs of salt to each gallon of water. Since the pool is 20,000 gallons that works out to 600 lbs of salt. Pool salt at Wally World is about $6 for 40lbs. I needed 15 bags and who wants to pack 15 - 40lbs bags thu WalMart? Went to Farm & Home Supply and got water softener salt that met the 99.8% purity that was required. It was on sale for $3.99 a bag. They loaded it up with a forklift and I was off.

This is what 600 lbs of salt looks like in the garage.

One footnote about the Salt generator since last post is that noticed that the box it came in said "for in ground pool". Emailed Compupool and they had a quick reply that the above ground and below ground had the same physical makeup but the above ground had a timer and the in ground did not. Since I run mine off a timer they said it would be fine and wire it up to the timer.

Next was the adding of the salt to the pool.

CompuPool Salt Chlorine Generator Part I

Did about a year and a half researching the salt water chlorine generaters and decided to go with Compu Pool. They seemed to have the best reviews on the internet.

Ordered it through PoolnPatio since they had the best price. Total was a little over $500 shipped. Arrived in about 10 days. Was a little cold at the time to install at the time.

Next up is buying the salt.

Road Trip

Alabama and back for $83.00

Averaged 47.3 mpg
Cost $.064 per mile

Avalanche would have co$t me around $180.

Sweet !!!

What Happened?

Went from this 2004 H2 Hummer I had 4 years ago which got at best MPG around town at 9.8.....

To this: 2008 Toyota Prius. It gets 49 MPG in town and 45 on HWY.

Tired of paying out the a** for gas I guess.

Rocking Illinois

One a little closer to home.

Rocking Old Faithful

Researchers Report More Earthquakes at Yellowstone




A swarm of minor earthquakes continues to shake the southwest part of Yellowstone National Park.
The Yellowstone Volcano Observatory reports that the strongest quake recorded during the current swarm was a 3.7-magnitude at about 2:30 p.m. Tuesday.
Earthquake swarms are a common occurrence in Yellowstone. They generally last from a few days to weeks.
The latest swarm began on Sunday and was centered about 10 miles northwest of Old Faithful.
So far, geologists have counted 469 earthquakes with magnitudes ranging from 0.5 to 3.7.
There have been five quakes measuring larger than a 3 magnitude.

Yellowstone Earthquake Map

Yellowstone Webicorder

Kubota Cab Progress....

Finally got most of the cab finished. Here is a pic with all the windows in, doors on, latched and painted. The rear windows got tinted Plexiglas, why I don't know, just thought it would look better. BTW, I HATE WINDOW TRIM !

Here's the hinges I made because I didn't like the ones I bought and needed the doors to swing out further than that. Took me about 2 hours to make but allows the doors to be lifted off the hinges to be removed.

Door latches I also made out of some scrap plastic. Have installed a screw in framing and made the other end longer for weight. Have ran it about 12 hrs with the doors NOT flying open, so I guess it works!

Here's the gaps in the doors that I may work on later, but for right now, I left them open. There is a lot more open spots that I thought might need closed up to keep the heat in until........

HEAT !!!

Had bought a electric fan off of ebay that was 12VDC and only 2" thick. Roughly guessed on the distance and thought that would work. Had planned to run it pulling air from motor to cab in winter and reverse it during the summer. A....yeah. That didn't work. Anybody need a fan?

After disassembling the entire radiator section, fan, belts etc etc. found out that it is less than 2" clearance between radiator and water pump. Looked at moving radiator forward a tad because it was just so close, but still wouldn't work. I figured there had so be a better solution so I walked away from it for a few days.

The thought of pushing snow without any heat led me to one last attempt. Acquired a 10" Alum fan off a old AC unit that had the reverse blades of the OEM one. Drilled out the center hole for the water pump and drilled the four holes that would mount it to the pump. The whole time I was reassembling this I was wondering how warm it would be and if so, how hot it would be in summer, because I sure wasn't gonna switch this out every 6 months!

Filled the fluids back up and let it warm up to see the results. Have to say, it seems to work well in a 70 degree garage.

Took it out for it's 1st trial run pushing snow in 20 degree weather and I will have to say, It was pretty damned toasty in there. Even with all the gaps in the door, under the seat and levers slots, it forced me to take my coat off while I was in there. Will have to rate this as a success! The only drawback is there is no control over how much heat comes in the cab. You can increase the throttle and seems like it gets hotter and slow it down and get less. Snow plowing doesn't require too much HP so that works for me. (until summer, still wondering about heat stroke in the cab!)

* Two concerns I do have for the few people who have contacted me about interest in this: First, the alum blade I used was rated for 1700 rpm. Don't know if running this above that will cause much problems but have kept my eye on it and looking for any cracks or any other signs of failure. Second, the battery sits right behind the radiator on the inside of cab. I'm sure blowing hot air on it might not be the best thing for it and have frequently checked it for water but so far so good.

Had a lot of fun doing this and spent a great deal of time on it and as before, If you would like any more pics or like any info on anything you see here, feel free to email me and I will try to send any info I can.

I'm pretty sure I'm not quite done with it yet........