ray...
The happy Nada Farmer, get ready for a thrilling update, because it turns out, the next surgery, is going to be much sooner than I expected! Still trying to determine if it's going to be a good move? We'll all see together.
The musings of a one armed man...
It's a new sensation, and then again, not.
The meat bag I slump around in, while on this plane of existence, didn't come with a set of instructions. But over the years I have discovered a few truisms. TWO WEEKS, is one. If I get injured, and maybe I'm not totally sure I'm injured, maybe I'm just discomforted or lightly damaged, and the situation doesn't resolve itself in two weeks, well if it lasts past two weeks, I need a surgeon, or at least a bucket of some form of drugs to facilitate my recovery. As a counter to this great system, ( nothing goes unpunished) if something is allowed to go on it's own for two weeks and isn't being corrected, it will most likely heal improperly, in two weeks, and cause double the issues. I've known this for my body for about 40 years. Just try to explain it to a real doctor. (Of course it is pointless to try to explain anything to the "pseudo medicals" that Workers Comp resurrects whenever they want something determined "to a degree of medical certainty" {which real doctors cringe at}, because it is a meaningless catch phrase only used in WC circles..) But, that's off the table now. I took the plunge and had my shoulder replaced, yep, it's a big ol' chunk of titanium now, and the muscles that haven't been able to overcome the blinding pain of trying to move my arm to a vertical position, are slowly being stretched back to a semblance of normal range by a tri and bi weekly torture session (laughingly called PT) by those who think it's fun to be shown that you are a weakling wimp crybaby whiner... and seem to find some perverse pleasure in reminding me it can take up to a year to totally rehab this little surgery. I hate waiting! I do love that when I'm not aggravating the joint, it doesn't hurt! Quite different from the norm of the last 10 years. Yep, ten years of pain! And two weeks after the surgery, only hurts when I try to move it. In reality, a tremendous improvement! I still can't dress myself, or reach behind my head or back, but it is still a tremendous improvement. And I'd do it again, and probably will, as the right shoulder is starting to click and catch, just like the left one did ten years ago. Then the lumbar fusion, and two new knees, and I'll be nearly human again... though almost half machine.. Weird huh?
But now to Nada Farm, the garden, yes, we had a garden this year. Chris had her garden of weird varieties. Cucumbers that were shaped and flavored like lemons? Mini peppers, spiderwort, goats beard, lambs ear, and turtle head, a failed crop of multicolored carrots, and about a million cherry tomatoes. The "pink" blueberries and purple cabbages, (that are still growing, though under a protective layer of straw).
I had tomatoes, and peppers, and watermelons, and spaghetti squash, and butter nut squash. I had at least 400 pounds of tomatoes, unfortunately a hundred and fifty of those pounds were green, and never got chance to ripen, so they are in a decaying pile, that took two trips, with the little Kubota, to move.. the rest were given away, and cooked, and canned, and eaten as the best BLT's on earth. We determined the hard part of BLT's is the B. It is labor intensive and messy, but then I discovered the pre-cooked frozen strips at Sam's Club, the equivalent of four pounds of bacon for 12 dollars. It might seem pricey at first, but price four pounds of bacon, the mess to cook them and the hassle of trying to keep them straight enough to make an edible sandwich, and it isn't that much, about a minute in the microwave, instead of 15 minutes of dodging splatter. And another 15 cleaning up the mess on the stove. And if you just want one sandwich, just heat up three or four strips and have at it. A very civilized way to make a bacon sandwich.
It's been two months since my surgery, well almost, and it seems the USA is going to hell in a hand basket even faster than usual. Granted, I have been living in front of a computer monitor almost exclusively, and realized how out of shape I've gotten from just sitting around. But really, what's with the Morons in charge? Talk about a situation ripe for a series of rants, but I said that was over, so I can't here. But WOW!
Back to the Garden, I attribute the massive load of tomatoes ( this is a one day haul) to my high jacking of Chris's ideas and 
stored equipment. Due to the incredibly wet spring, I didn't get the plants "in" until late, but I did use a piece of plastic to entirely cover the garden area, and under it, I put soaker hoses, (that's the part of Chris's equipment I snagged, I know, I'm a bad boy..) This was the first season that I had the time to lay out the system, to see how it would work. In the past I spent nearly an hour a day watering with buckets, and trying to keep ahead of the weeds, which really loved the watering. I had tried to keep the aisles between the plants wide enough to clear them with a mower when needed, but as soon as vegetables began to show up, I had to quit that, and the weeds just took over. Well this year, my major failing was, I waited just a little too long to get the cages in place, and the plants got so big and heavy that they knocked the cages over anyway. So I ended up adding hickory stakes to the cages, to try to support the monster plants. Which, I attribute to the mechanized watering system. Yep, I set up an automatic system for watering, and it worked almost too well.
The first issue I had with it, the watering system, was the fence we put up for the horses. I did mention the four horses of the apoplectics right? Anyway, the very last post, the very last thump of the post machine, crushed the water line to the little house. So I added a yard hydrant and repaired the line, made watering the horses a little easier as well. Of course, the two gates promised in the heat of the summer haven't been installed yet, so the horses might be moving along soon. But that's another issue.
The parts required to install the soaker hoses were purchased at the local Orme's hardware store, the selection was limited, basically, plastic or aluminum four outlet manifold, and a timer, with one outlet or two.
For durability I choose the aluminum manifold, figuring it would not be as prone to breakage as the plastic 
might be, I neglected to account for the PLASTIC female hose coupling, which of course broke entirely off the manifold. So after I picked it up, and stored away all the materials to clean up the garden area for winter, I passed the broken manifold laying on a table in the garage near a couple pipe fittings. Soon after, I realized it was bored out to a size similar to some of the pipe fittings lying near it, on the bench top. When I finally checked, I discovered it was in fact, nearly a perfect size for a half inch pipe tap. And, as I happen to have one of those, I tapped the inside of the broken part for a close 
pipe nipple and a brass swivel female hose fitting. And knowing the the other manifold would, of course, fail at the least opportune moment next season. I broke it's female coupling off and tapped and replaced it as well. If the plastic valves don't fail, it should be a much better unit.
Now for those of you who care, here are the pictures of the watering parts. I had to go to a Home Depot to find them of course, no such thing exists out here. In fact I got a really skeptical look from the local hardware guy when I inquired as to where I might find such parts. The nasty old tap, and (blue roll) of teflon tape, I already had, the part numbers of the plastic bags are there in case you want to do the same thing..... IT COULD HAPPEN! 
The timer with the two upgraded manifolds is now ready for next year, If I can manage not to loose it 
before the garden goes in next year, it should make a pretty slick system for the watering of the garden. I had it set to water for 20 minutes twice a day, alternating between the two manifolds, so each one watered half the garden. Under the black plastic. One manifold had four soaker hoses attached to it and the other had two, the valves are still set for that in this picture. And just for scale, it is sitting on top of a five gallon plastic bucket. The timer is an "Orbit" brand. Uses two AA batteries and worked all summer laying in the grass at the south end of the garden. I never did understand what the screen told me, after I had it programmed. But it did what I wanted, without complaint, so I guess that didn't matter. And yes, I removed the batteries after this picture. Like I said, finding it next spring will be the tricky part.
I also have another crazy project in mind, not for gardening, I mean it's winter. So I can work on a couple not emergency tools, that might make the emergency jobs a little easier, or might just be handy to have. I got this circular in the mail, about a three day sale at Auto Zone. So I went, and I bought a couple cheapy 
hydraulic jacks. I have the I beams to drive the cars out on, to work under them, but no way to jack the car up, in case I would need to remove a tire. So I thought these little jacks might just fit in the I beam and allow me to accomplish that, should I need to. They were on sale for $15.00 rather than the usual $40.00. So I bought a couple. Then I checked the consumer comments about them, not good, I know kind of backwards, should have thought of that before hand, but anyway, I already had them so I got them out and checked them over. So far they seem pretty nice, and while I was looking at them, I thought, you know, for $15.00, this is a pretty slick little hydraulic unit! It has a built in pump, and ram, and mounts on a solid bar, and pushes out about 4 inches with the pressure of about 8000 pounds! I don't think I could buy that anywhere 
else for twice that amount. So I went to buy a couple more. Now, of course, the sale was over, but the units were selling at a special price of $20.00, still a good deal.
I took one apart, and this is the self contained hydraulic unit. Sitting on a six inch wide mill vise.
I have in mind making a hydraulic bead breaker, like the orange one shown below, but with it's own hydraulic pump to operate it, rather than the screw system, driven by a power wrench, which I don't own. And surely couldn't
buy
for $20.00. And anything like this, hydraulic or electric powered, is in the $500.00 realm. An area I don't frequent. I have had a number of bead breakers, for go kart tires, and motorcycles and cars, and even used a sledge hammer to get the tires changed on my big tractor. But this looks like the future to me, with my new shoulder, I don't anticipate much sledge work in my future. I hope I'm wrong but, we'll see. And, it's a good excuse to build something to use. I also intend to make the hydraulic unit easy to remove and use in another device, because I'm not going to need to break down big tires that often, I hope. I'm thinking of a small press, or maybe a vice type unit with a sliding jaw to press pins in and out with. And give my big vice a break, because the screw in it, is showing signs of wear.
On that same note, as I was spending more time in Akron than usual, with the doctor updates and checkups. I slid into Abbey Ann's a couple times. And somebody up there, is clearing out an old man's garage. I hope it's family, and authorized. But in any event, I have purchased a few really nice tools for less than half price, and look forward to mounting them so they can be used soon. A couple vises, not as heavy duty as the ones I currently have, but different in that they are mainly for pipe work, and holding round pieces, which seem to dominate my operations down here.
I am still trying to decide how best to build a rotary holder for welding, as so many times I am welding up shafts and axles. If I could slowly spin the item being welded, it would be much more consistent, and easier to return to it's original condition. Round in most cases.
I have also given fleeting thought to the spray welding systems that I have seen, as they were just starting into use in the late 70's, I am pretty sure they must have evolved into something a little more sophisticated than they were at that time. They used to be, a gas welding torch with a little cup that sprayed a powdered steel additive into the flame. I would imagine lasers are involved today. Highly unlikely I'll have the laser system anytime soon. But the gas systems should be available on the used market. Much more likely to end up in my garage.
Man, are we happy out here!
The Chores, Fresh Air, Green Acres is for ME.
8 years of bliss....
