Mark A

We've harvested our first round of leaf lettuce from our fall garden. I didn't plant nearly enough. I also have cabbage and spinach growing. Just started some Swiss chard, kale, more lettuce and spinach. Also bought some greenhouse tomato seeds just to see what happens. We bought a little pop up greenhouse for one of our raised beds. Going go see what it and a light bulb can do if it ever gets really cold. We will also have power at our greenhouse on our property in a couple of weeks. I have some meyer lemon trees that will over winter in it and we hope to start a very small aquaponics system in there as a learning tool. I'm really hoping we will be able to build our little retirement cottage up there next year and start living there full time. Mark

Most modern electronics are much tougher than they used to be. In general they will run with any decent generator. They will also run just fine on decent inventors. If you get a good inverter (whistler ((my personal choice)) or cobra) an 800 watt will run just about any relatively modern fridge or freezer. You only need to run them about 20 minutes every couple of hours to keep them cool. If it is really hot pack blankets around your freezer for extra insulation. I have a 14 year old regular 3500 watt Honda generator that ran electronics in my house anytime we had an outage. We bought it to use with our camper and everyone said if I didn't get an inverter model I would fry everything. Nope...Don't get me wrong, I think the Honda inverter generators are great, I just couldn't afford one large enough to power the a.c. on our camper. On to well pumps. For the last few months the Honda has been running our well pump at our property on weekends while we are up there working on the land. Our well is a bit over 300'. The motor is rated for 5.4 amps @ 240 volts. When it kicks on the generator barely blinks. Maroon and White, I would be curious to know what your pump is rated to pull. It would then be interesting to put an amp meter on and see what it actually pulls. If you have a regular electric meter it would be good to also see what the voltage drop is on startup. Might be a bad or failing motor or maybe the generator is not putting out what it should. Mark.

Big explosion. Unknown number hurt. Several severely burned. Please keep the injured and their families in your thoughts and prayers. Explosion

Voted Tuesday at 3:00 pm in Franklin. Walked in, got my little card, walked over to an empty booth and voted. Total time from car door to car door was maybe 6 minutes. They said it had been very steady and heavier than usual...

^^^^^^ Andrew, he's cut and he's also threaded barrels for me. His work has been perfect, Mark

I was really close to building a 338 spectre. Now I'm really glad I didn't. I have adjustable gas valves on all 3 AR-10 variants. I would love to play with this, especially in my 308 "pistol" Mark And lookie... Columbia is just a few minutes south of me...

I like the gun but I'm really envious of the cleanliness of the bench... I'm so pressed for time it always looks like a pig sty...

Hipower, it is weird... I HATE shooting the 40 cal pistols but love 357 sig and 10mm. The only thing I've shot 10mm out of is my G29. Mostly I shoot range stuff out of it but before we went to Alaska I shot several boxes of Buffalo Bore and other full tilt boogie stuff and it was noticeably different but not uncomfortable. But people react differently to recoil. I've got a buddy that has a 308 bolt gun that he shoots all day and I refuse to shoot it at all after one time. Something about the stock doesn't work for me and it kicks like a mule... Mark

Musicman, that is a nice looking gun but I've never been much of a single action guy. Also I've been buying full size glock magazines for a while. Mark

It is time to add another 10mm to the stable. I was pretty sure I wanted a g40 but lately the g 20 has been also calling my name. So before any of you say it, DUH... I know the answer is to get both. But, that is just not in the cards right now. The 20 would be a bit easier to carry and having a g29 as a bug makes me giggle just a bit. But, the extra barrel length helps the 40 be all it can be. What say ye. Don't tell she who must not be mentioned as she will tell me a real man would get both and then ask for my man card Thanks, Mark

Well, I liked that a whole lot. You can call it countrypop or lollipop, it was still a great song and I will bet the various artists got a kick out of the collaboration. The thing I thought was really cool was the Randy Travis cameo. Speaking of collaboration, that video led me to a pentatonix/ dolly rendition of Jolene. In like pentatonix a whole lot and Dolly can still belt it out

It only took one day to make a liar out of myself. I knew I was feeling itchy. Today I was talking to a co-worker about buying another 10mm glock. I got to thinking: self, do you have enough reloading supplies to support multiple 10mm pistols? I decided I didn't so off to powder valley for a couple of jugs of longshot and a bunch of large pistol primers. To ease my conscious I ordered a pound of leverevolution and some 160 gr ftx. I've got a buddy who recently got into a 30-30 and I thought I might entice him into learning to reload. We will see if my evil plan works...

I'm going to place an order in a bit and have a little room before I get bumped up to the next level of shipping fees. Anyone in the Franklin/ Brentwood area need something small that you didn't want to pay all the fees on? I will give it an hour or so before I place the order. Thanks, Mark OK, order was placed. Next time I will try to give a little more notice... This is what happens when I stop by the fun store and they don't have what I want in stock... The money goes to a different section of fun at that point...

Ammo... lots and lots of ammo. More on the way. Finally got to a comfortable supply on reloading supplies so I've been pounding away on back up ammo. I was at a conference at Gaylord this weekend. I had a break for a couple of hours so I wandered in to Bass Pro to see if they had a G40 crying my name. They did not. Was also thinking hard about a single stack 9 pocket gun. None of those either so I just left...

Congrats on your retirement. Go have some fun... Even those of us that didn't serve know that Sergeant Majors run the place... I'm sure you're proud of your achievements as you should be. Mark

I've been to several Gander Mtn locations but not that one. In general the chain feels like the K-mart of stores with Rolls Royce pricing...

I see your German Shepard and raise you a guard bear... It would be cool to be the first person on the block with a guard bear...

we reheat smoked chicken the same way we do pulled pork except it is mostly chicken stock and just s splash of apple juice. Steam in a sealed pan in the oven. Every now and then we do small amounts of pulled pork in the same juice in a pan with a lid on the stove top.

To be a little more clear, he didn't have the guts to directly confront and kill people. Like the coward he was he shot at cars, not people, and yes, some of them were hurt but it is not like he walked up to random people and engaged them directly. Maybe I missed part of the story but what I got was he shot from his car. He had to know the result of that was going to be a confrontation with police so in my mind he is a coward twice...

So basically suicide by cop by someone who didn't have to guts to actually hurt other people (That's a good thing, just saying he was a coward...)?

So I should have mentioned, when I 'm on smoke setting (which actually de-tunes from optimal burn to get a smolder...) I burn about a pound of pellets per hour. Cook time goes up a bit when I really load it up but I add maybe 2 hours to do 4 shoulders instead of one. So, for about $10 I can smoke one butt and for $12 I can do 4. Yes it gets a little old pulling all of that at one time but it is nice to have 3 months worth of pulled pork in the freezer and we can throw a get together in about 30 minutes. I put a bunch of pulled pork in a roasting pan, equal amounts of chicken stock and apple juice and seal it up to reheat... I almost always cook only on smoke setting. It takes a little longer but I like the amount of smoke I get. If I'm in a hurry and need to get a bunch of stuff done I smoke for 1/2 the time and finish in the oven while something else goes on the smoker. When I'm cooking burgers for the gang on a holiday I can put about 15- 20 on the smoker for 10 minutes or so and finish them on the gas grill while another round is on the smoker. That way I can turn out a fairly decent amount of burgers that have a little character from grill that aren't huge. While I'm rambling I might as well put in my nickles worth on vacuum sealers. After burning out 2 food savers I stepped up and bought a Cabelas professional model (made by Weston). this one is similar. Mine is a few years old and this has an updated interface I bought it as it was much heavier duty but more importantly I bought repairs parts for it. Tired of buying cheaper crap that has to be tossed when only 1 minor part is broken. It is a stud and works great. Mark

Rec Tec and Yoder are very solid choices. I bought the smallest Traeger about 8 years ago (not the portable one). Usually I jump in with both feet but this time I wanted to make sure I liked it. I've used the fool out of it. By adding a second shelf and buying rib racks that let me stand the ribs up I've been able to pack a lot of punch into a small package. On that smoker I can do 3-4 pork butts/ shoulders or 4 beer can chickens, 6 racks of baby backs, or a whole turkey. I'm a freak and when I cook I cook a whole bunch at once, vacuum pack and freeze different portion sizes. Makes lunch and dinner during the week much easier, more healthy, and much cheaper. I've upgraded the controller once and will probably do it again soon by adding a savannah stoked. The relight function is very nice Just a couple months away from able to cold smoke cheese. We also smoke ground turkey that we then turn into taco meat All kinds of fun things to smoke out there Mark

We got a call from Raleigh tonight. My BIL and 2 SIL's live there. Really nice folks whose day to day situational awareness runs between 0&.1 All 3 are stuck at home with no gas. Apparently Raleigh went through their panic moment today. They had no clue there was a problem. 50% of our employees this morning had no idea there was an issue. A good reminder that otherwise nice people really have no clue.

Ahh... the irony of having to drive some distance during a gas crunch to buy fuel that should be available everywhere. This moment of insanity brought to you by the federal government. Don't forget, they know way better than we do what's best for us.

If it takes a while to add them up is that a disqualification? Also, if you have 17 small arms and 17 long guns do you get a gold star? Trying to decide how hard I need to push...