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FCL :: Day in the Life :: Thursday October 11, 2018 (Tropical Storm Michael)

Welp … we survived Tropical Storm (Hurricane) Michael.

Rained pretty heavy most of the morning and into the afternoon. I was watching the center of the storm (the ‘eye’) heading right at us on the weather app on my phone. The NWS posted severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings for my county.

At just before 4PM, the ‘back side’ of the eye hit us with heavy rains and VERY strong and gusty winds. A tree of about 14+ inches in diameter, just off our front porch, snapped in half about 10 feet off the ground and fell onto our barn. Thankfully, it looks like it fell at a sufficiently oblique angle to glance off the barn without doing too much damage.

We (and about 23,000 other households) lost commercial power. I have a whole-home propane generator that automatically started with power dropped. We’ve been running on backup power for almost 30 hours now. The power utility company estimates having power back up sometime over the weekend.

The backup generator powers all of our critical infrastructure (well pumps, septic systems, hot water heater, refrigerators and freezers, etc.) and about 30% of the wall plugs. Interestingly enough, no lights. So, we have kerosene hurricane lamps, battery powered lanterns, and tactical flashlights to get around at night.

When the winds were at their highest, for about 5 minutes there, I thought *maybe* a tornado was in the vicinity. Pretty scary there for a few min. Poor Hunter short-circuited for a bit … making crazy eyes and looking like she was going to crawl into my back pocket or something.

When the sun came up this morning (next day), we had blue skies, very cool weather, a few trees down, quite a bit of water runoff, but everyone (animals) was okay.

From my perspective, the Michael storm was more intimidating than the Florence storm a few weeks ago. Less water dropped, but the Michael winds were pretty fierce.

All is well … that ends well. 😉

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FCL :: Day in the Life :: Monday 09/17/18 (Florence Update, Surface Water Runoff)

Hooey and I walked the property line this morning after getting the animals up and out for the day, to survey the current surface water runoff situation.

Most of my drainage systems are working as designed, moving water over and off the property into feeder creeks that flow into the Eno River, then into the Neuse River. (Note: In the last few videos, I mistakenly said our creek flows into the Haw river. Not so.)

I did, however, discover that a LOT of ground water is flowing out of the big-ass cow pasture to our West, across my woodlot, into our duck pond, then on down the line. However, the flow isn’t efficient, and a large body of water is ‘standing’ in the woodlot, creating an unintentional pond out there. I’ll need to intervene once all this water sheds, so the unintentional pond is more intentional in the future. 😉

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FCL :: Day in the Life :: Sunday 09/16/18 (Cabin Fever Day)

Rained pretty steady most of the day, so Hunter (aka Hooey) and I pretty much stayed indoors. I read a book (Yellowstone: Hellfire) and Hooey just clowned around most of the day. By about 5P, she could no longer self-entertain, and started driving me nuts. So, I broke out a laser and put her in ‘cat mode.’

Never a dull moment around here … lemme tell you.

We got about an inch (0.93 measured) of rain today and a max wind of 14.1 MPH. Not bad considering what the folks a bit closer to the Atlantic have experienced. No complaints here!

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FCL :: Day in the Life :: Friday 09/14/18 (Hurricane Florence … meh!)

So, I guess Florence slowed, grew, jinked South, and sputtered along Westbound at 6 MPH. What I can tell you is this … in Efland NC (~ 183.65 miles from the NC coastline) we received 0.11 inches of rain (measured) and a maximum wind of 17.4 MPH (measured). Nothing to write home about (figuratively).

It was overcast, drizzly and gusty winds all day. In other words … boring. 😉

Took the opportunity to assemble and test the County Line 3-point hitch mounted post hole digger and 9″ auger. Works pretty well. I need to figure out why it got out of balance and shimmied so much when removing the bit from the hole under PTO power.

Counted between 10 and 12 new baby bunnies (kits) in the litter big mamma (aka ‘Smudge’) dropped yesterday. They all look good, viable and healthy.

No updates on the 20 duck eggs I stuck in the incubator the other day. In about a week, I’ll pull them out and ‘candle’ them to see how many of them are developing inside.

Took an afternoon nap, got up, went out, and damn near killed myself pulling down a ‘widow-maker’ tree that had succumbed to the gusty winds today. Caught the episode on video, for your viewing pleasure. Lesson Learned: NEVER spontaneously intervene in a widow-maker without planning and safety gear. Stupid mistake … dodged a bullet … wiser for the faux pax.

Another day … another learning opportunity.

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FCL :: Day in the Life :: Thursday 09/13/18 (Part 2, PM Hours)

First few ‘bands’ of Hurricane Florence passed through. Not much rain, just fast moving, dark clouds and moderate, variable and gusting winds.

Watch the black duck segment closely. Watch how she keeps tilting her head up to watch the high speed clouds passing overhead. Interesting.

Used the Mavic Pro drone to monitor storm conditions from about 300 to 400 feet AGL (above ground level). Always impressed with not just the 4K video shot by the drone, but almost more so its onboard flight management computer. That damn thing will hold a perfect GPS-based position fix (aka ‘hover’), even in high, gusty winds. Truly amazing piece of consumer technology.

Had to arm wrestle (wing wrestle?) the young chickens into their coop tonight. The bone-heads wanted to stay out in the approaching storm. Young and dumb … just like human kids. 😉

Found mamma hen’s (not the best of names, but she answers to it!) pirate nest, which made my day. She’s the hen that hatched about 14 chicks in a compost pile earlier in the Spring. She’s a natural!

Got 550 gallons (2000 liters) of fresh drinking water stored in the two IBC totes.

After Hooey and I got all the animals bedded down for the night, we sat on the patio with a bottle of wine and watched the storm clouds race by … without dropping much rain.

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FCL :: Day in the Life :: Thursday 09/13/18 (Final Hurricane Florence Preps)

Woke up to ominously dark skies, but no heavy rains or winds yet.
Worked with Hooey a bit on her search/seek skills. Always fun to watch her ‘work’ a scent. That dog is a natural born (rodent) killer.
Ground a few more tree stumps down before breakfast.
I heard some reporting about possible water contamination risks associated with all the Hurricane Florence rain water flowing through things you wouldn’t want your drinking water to flow through (e.g. agricultural manure aggregation depots) … so I made a last minute decision to clean and fill two of my 1000 liter IBC totes with well water, as an addition strategic water reserve.
Reconfigured the tractor front and back to do a bit more water drainage excavation work around the property. This video got long enough by noon. 😉
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FCL :: Day in the Life :: Wednesday 09/12/18

Didn’t do all that much today in contrast to the last few days. Made my last (planned, voluntary) trip off prop today to run to Lowes and the local grocery store.

Contrary to a few early AM reports of chaos in the local stores (e.g. Walmart in Durham), I found both stores to be busy, but not chaotic. I heard the other day that Tractor Supply sold out of generators in all local stores about 3 days ago. I was VERY impressed to find that Lowes had just received two semi trucks full of generators. They have them piled to the ceiling in the store on pallets. I saw people buying 2 and 3 units at a time. But, it wasn’t frenzied.

At the grocery store (Food Lion), they had quite a bit of food on the selves, but not much in the way of fruit, veggies, water, drinks, milk, bread and other staples. The cashier said as soon as a new truck load arrives, they stock the shelves and … poof … it all sells out in a few hours. Again, mostly calm.

I heard a few elderly ladies commenting how they hadn’t seen this volume of stockpile buying in MANY years.

Did a few test runs with my new Caravaggi stump grinder implement for the BCS 853 walk-behind tractor. Eats stumps for lunch! That this is BAD ASS. When you watch the video, think about the movie Fargo. LOL!

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FCL :: Day in the Life :: Tuesday 09/11/18 (Hurricane Florence Prep, Day 2)

Long day … long video. Sorry.

Decided to move the badonkadonks back into the barn pasture to provide them with more shelter during the upcoming hurricane. Had to clean up the barn pasture, fix a section of fence that I crushed with a felled tree earlier in the summer, and move the winter hay bales into a different pasture.

After all that work making room for a 18-wheeler to deliver a shipment, the truck driver chickened out, so I had to meet him down on the paved road and tractor the pallet myself. Same driver that delivered a shipment about 9 months ago … and he pussed out then too. I should have known when he called me from an I-40 offramp about 10 miles away and said … “I need you to give me directions to your place.” I replied, “don’t you have a GPS?” No. “Do you have a map book?” No. “Think maybe you should have researched your route before you left the warehouse?” Lemme call my dispatcher, maybe he has a GPS.

Then I get a second call from him … “I’m looking at a dirt road.” Me: “Yup, I told your dispatcher I live on a rural farm, dirt roads, long gravel driveway, tight turn or two.” Him: uuuummmmm…

Whatever. No harm, no foul. Got the shipment (new Caravaggi stump grinder for the BCS 853 walk-behind tractor). Good sized thunderstorm moved in late in the PM. Got a few good shots with the Mavic Pro drone. Heavy late PM rain showers, but not Florence. Not yet. 😉

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FCL :: Day in the Life :: Saturday 09/08/18

Another long day working outside.

We mowed the ‘park’ next door, then I decided that with Hurricane Florence forecast to dump about 50″ of rain on us later in the week, it might be a good idea to plow the field under to allow it to absorb more water and shed less water into our neighborhood drainage ditches, which tend to flood my neighbor’s property.

Bought Hooey a whole roasted chicken for being such a good ‘helper’ while I was running the tractor. She’s good about chasing the chickens away from in front of the tractor, cuz those dummies are prone to letting the front wheels get about 3 inches away from them before flittering way. I guess you could say they like to ‘play chicken’ with the tractor.

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FCL :: Day in the Life :: 1 September 2018

We tried to lift 225 gallons of water in an IBC tote with the Mahindra 1526 tractor … but NO JOY. Too heavy! I’ll have to develop a strategy for filling and transporting half-filled totes, or some such.

Picked up a new CZ Scorpion Evo 3 S1 9mm carbine and zero’d it with a Holosun 503 red dot. VERY happy with the Scorpion. Great little shooter.

Also picked up a new County Line 4′ 3-point hitch, PTO-powered tiller. We’re going to start renovating the “big pasture” tomorrow, if the weather holds, and the tiller will enable me to get the work done quicker than if I relied solely on the 30″ BCS walk-behind tiller.

So here’s the trailer story I alluded to in the video. At the local (Burlington NC) Tractor Supply Company store, I came out of the store and found two guys standing next to my trailer, obviously looking at and talking about it. I walked up and said “I’ve only had it for a day, but what questions can I answer for you?” One guy replied: “what color red is that?” I said: “dunno, but it matches my tractor perfectly, so I’ll call it Mahindra red.” He laughed, and said “well, it’s a PJ trailer, so I know it’s a great trailer.” THAT made my day, because anybody that knows me knows I don’t buy anything without doing a LOT of research first. But, in this rare case, I bought the PJ trailer spur of the moment, without any research, on intuition only. Whew.

When I pulled the trailer around the back of the story to the loading dock, three employees came out to load the tiller. An older guy said: “new trailer huh? like a day old?” Now how the hell did he know that? Then, he said “I’m not going to be able to drive the forklift up onto the tractor ramps (to load the tiller). Against policy, and I’m not going to be the guy that puts the first scratch on that baby.”

We used the forklift to get the tiller up on the ‘tail’ of the trailer, then used a pallet jack to drag it the rest of the way. Before I left, the old timer said: “next time, don’t bring such a nice trailer.” To me, it’s just a trailer, but it was funny to have the damn thing draw so much attention. ONLY IN THE COUNTRY. 😉

We’ve got some nasty thunderstorm cells building up overhead, with NWS alerts going up for severe local weather. Love it. Just PLEEEEEESE to blow up my cable modem again! We when about 4+ days without internet access that last time (few weeks ago), and that just SUCKS.