Big Fish

And the prize fish for the campout goes to Paige Corray!!!!

Cub Scouts

He's 6 and likes camping.  Looks like it is time to start scouting.....

   

Trip to Florida

After 5 years living a few hours from the beach we finally made it.  We went down and stayed in Panama City which worked out really well.  It's 1/2 way between Mexico City Beach and Panama City Beach.

 We spent Saturday afternoon on Mexico City Beach

 On Sunday we went to Gulf World, which actually turned out pretty nice.  Logan and Paige got to have their pictures taken with a dolphin.

Latin Conjunctions

Danielle is teaching Latin in her Classical Conversations course to a group of six and seven year olds.  Last week they had conjunctions.  Before class we didn't even think about it but picture this.... The latin conjunction "sed" is "but" in english.  Now try and say "but" to a room full of six and seven year olds.  What does sed mean class.... BUTT ha ha ha.......

Almost walking...

I can stand on my own, bit WILL NOT take a step!!!

Flat tires

Like most Mondays the battery was dead on the Stratus this Monday.  The alternator has been replaced and the battery was replaced twice under warranty.  I could take more time off and have him replace the battery again, or jump it Monday mornings.  It only dies if I don't drive it for 2 days.  So it's good all week.  I just couldn't be bothered right now to take it back to the mechanic.  On top of the battery this week I had 2 flat tires.  I filled them back up while the battery was charging.  By Wednesday the left rear was low again.  One of the joys of working in a Logistics Depot is that they use a lot of nails in the shipping crates.  While they have a magnet truck that drives around the base, it still doesn't get everything.  Usually it's non-ferrous materials, but one was a nail this time.

Found one!  

Pulled the first one out with the pliers.

When I was in High School I worked at a full service gas station for a while.  It was really more of a mechanics shop that happened to sell gas though.  It was Ron's 66.  It since has closed, moved across the street to a new building and is just a mechanic's shop now.  One good skill learned there was how to plug a tire.  

Step one:  Put a little lube on the reamer and insert it into the hole of whatever you just pulled out of the tire.  Make sure you're going at the same angle that the FOD came out at. This cleans out the hole and makes sure it's big enough for the plug.

Peel a plug off the paper.

Fight with the sticky rubber plug untill you get it into the needle and pull 1/2 way through.

Push the plug in, again at the same angle.

Push it almost all the way down, leaving just a bit of the ends sticking out.  Then pull the tool out and the plug will remain in the hole.

Cut off most of the excess.

The rest will wear off on the road.

On to the next one.

 The culprits....

The other tire has some slow leaks in the sidewall.  Looks like it's a monitor and top off for a while.  Those are soap bubbles.  I kinda wish the tires were bald, then I wouldn't care so much, but they have quite a bit of tread left on them.

Happy Birthday to me....

Danielle got me an awesome fermenting crock to make sauerkraut this winter and pickles next summer.  I tried kraut once before and it was banned from the house.  I was making it in a bucket and scraping the scum off the top.  The fermenting crock has a water seal that keeps bacteria and mold spores out so you don't have the scum problem.  It was a bit bigger than I was expecting.  See the jar for reference.  It came with weights on the left that hold the cabbage down and surprisingly had 2 lids in the box.  I'm not sure if it was supposed to have 2 lids or if it was mis-packed.  Nowhere in the webpage does it say it comes with 2 lids.  I guess they think you will break one.  To top it all off, it's made in Ohio by the Ohio stoneware company.

You fill the ring with the water and put the lid into the water.  The fermenting gasses can escape but nothing can get in.  For the brewers out there, it's the same concept as a glass airlock.

With lid down.

Dead fall garden

There will be no winter garden this year.  They don't do that well without water.  Better luck next year.  I think I need to use this winter to clean up the misc. project I have anyways.

"Black Jar" Honey competition

We had a "Black Jar" honey competition today at the SOWEGA Beekeepers Club meeting.  It's interesting to see all the different colors of honey that the bees in the local area produce

A black jar competition is basically a taste test.  Normal honey competitions include a lot of other factors.  We did decide that tasting 28 types of honey was a bit much.  We may have to stretch it out over a few meetings next month.

Wax melting

I lost 2 hives this year and am finally melting down the wax.  I had an old crock pot that was in the attic that I thought would work well

I ended up with 2 crockpots full of wax that made nice blocks of wax.  Now we'll have to make something out of all this wax.