2022 5/11/22—11/27/23

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This was my hired hand yesterday doing annual irrigation system maintenance. Among other things, that meant checking each head for proper spray and rotation but in any case, multiple twists of the center portion seems to clear out any debris and the head starts rotating again. Each rotating head got that treatment and I think I did about forty or a bit more.

As it was, I stayed wet for about four hours and with our wind, that got old so I called it a day.

12MAY22 - A pretty good handful of images today.

Here's a pano of the far side after I finished mowing it. Sure wish the fence guys would show up.

The latest "mod" to my girl, Sarah. These are custom CNC caps, covers, and pulls from Shelby American in brushed aluminum. They came yesterday and I installed them today. NBD at all EXCEPT the damn dipstick pull. The OEM (plastic) pull has a steel pin to hold the quantity blade but the Shelby version uses THE smallest machine screw and Torx size I've ever seen.

FORTUNATELY, either because of a rifle optic (lots of small screws always,) or it came with a Kershaw pocket knife, I dunno but I found a tiny Torx that fit. Man was I ever happy to find that little chingasso! Tucked it away safely for the next "oh shit, do I have one of those," moments. :-)

I think they look much better than factory but of course, I am a bit biased. Next thing will be to replace that ugly, plastic, coolant overflow tank with a matching Shelby one.

After talking with the owner for a good while and letting him look over my kites, I asked him what would be another type kite to try. He suggested a "foil" as I mention. This is the model and it is 1.8 meters wide.

I was hoping to fly her for the first time today but out of the blue, thunderstorms and some serious wind. Maybe later..

Last but not least, here is a "stacked Starship" down in Boca Chica, Texas at Starbase. It's just north of Brownsville, about two and a half hour drive from here.

They are hoping to make the first orbital flight of Starship in June or July and I hope a group of us can get down to see it.

This is the latest purchase, a Revolution 1.5 NYM. (New York Minute) ;-)

It's a FOUR-line kite while the others are only two lines. Completely different and more difficult to learn to fly. I haven't tried yet thanks to multiple rainy days.

Here's a clip of two experts flying Rev's.

Finished that and started to roll up the hose when I realized that I still needed to replace the old Rubbermaid hose hangar with one of the S/S rigs I purchased AWHILE ago.

Bit the bullet, took the cart back to Shed 1, loaded up a cordless drill and ratchet, the new hangar, and drove back to the far side. Fortunately, this was, for once, a .25X job. The new one was on in about five minutes and it took me longer to roll up a hundred feet of hose than to switch hangars. :-)

Buddy and I walk by this spectacular Live Oak tree every morning and today, I decided to get a shot.

To me, it looks right out of "The Lord of the Rings" or "The Hobbit" with its knurled branches.

Finally, here's the whole shebang.
Yeah, the "1" could have been a bit straighter but it's tough to drill accurate holes in brick or concrete.
Here's the finale and after pealing the protective film, I quickly realized that they captured the reflected color of the bricks. A bonus.

All but the "1" had three welded nuts on the back into which you screwed short sections of all thread and then stainless washers to get about a quarter inch of standoff.

When the holes were marked and drilled, you pushed plastic anchors into the holes and then pushed the all thread into the anchors. It went quicker and smoother than any similar project I've ever done despite my reservations on what appeared to be some Rube Goldberg engineering. :-) I got that wrong for sure.

At least the person who put these butt ugly things up went the easy route and used silicone. A bit of a pain to get it all off the brick but removing the tiles was easy.

While the guys were finishing up the chain link, I got after a mini project that has been bugging me for years.

To wit..getting RID of these original tile numbers and replacing them with some stainless steel numbers. Took me a few days to find what i wanted and another month for them to get here but they came the other day.

Therefive, I figured I might as well have a go thinkin that for SURE it would be at LEAST a 2X job.

Nope...once I knew the hammer drill would handle the brick and, after careful measurements and test runs with paper templates that came with the letters, it turned out to be a solid 1X job. I was most pleased and here are the few images.

It's been SO hot and dry that I've had to run the irrigation in the daytime but when the sun makes them stand out like this, I usually have to get a photo. :-) I think it looks way kewel and much cooler than the single stream rotors.
This whole patch was killed two winters back during the hard freeze. Mother Nature is amazing.
12JUN22 - Sunrise today as Buddy and I began our morning walk.
The darn coffee machine was acting up again, this time it seemed to have a flakey power switch as it would cycle On and Off every few seconds. The seller told me to check the connections so I popped the top earlier this afternoon then pulled and reset them. Fired the machine up and whaddaya know, the problem appeared to be solved. I hope it stays solved.
The Wedelia just a few weeks later but now in bloom. These were completely brown and apparently dead after the big freeze two years ago.