My mom and niece (McKenna) did a little prospecting …
… and Kenna put a little hot lead down range. Nice shooting! Girl’s a natural.
FCL :: Day in the Life :: June 22, 2018 (Part One)
We had a pretty powerful thunderstorm pass through late last night, so Hunter didn’t get much sleep, and neither did I (because of her). When I rolled into the kitchen to make some coffee, she was on the couch with ‘that look’ on her face … she knew she was barking, pacing and panting too much last night because of the weather. BUT, at least she was cute about it. 😉
I ran around the perimeter trail to check on things, and found 3 or 4 trees down in one spot, likely because of recent weather. Nothing like starting one’s day with a little chainsaw exercise.
FCL :: Day in the Life :: June 11, 2018
Our day actually started at about midnight, when a huge thunderstorm passed overhead with a few lightening strikes on the property, one that destroyed our internet router/modem.
Spent some time (0:45 min) standing out on a spot on the property known to have the strongest AT&T wireless signal, chatting online with a Century Link CSR. Finally got a technician scheduled … but not for nearly TWO DAYS (without Web, music, TV, phone, …). Aaaarrghhhh.
Used gun maintenance supplies to clean and fix my Rigid finish stapler. Well worth the time and effort. Now I know how a pneumatic nail gun works on the inside.
Had a swarm of bees take up residence in one of many vacant bee hives I have stored in the workshop rafters. I’m used to my bees swarming OUT of my hives and back into Mother Nature … not the other way around
Sans web access, I had a lot of time to just play with the animals.
As the sun started to set, I worked in the garage designing a 3-tiered platform for the wood soil block seed trays I made the other day.
Something … not sure what … deer (I hope) or coyotes (I fear) were tripping motion sensors along the property perimeter all damn day. More than usual. As we wrapped up our day, they went off again, so Hooey and I took off, me on the KTM 990A and her on foot, to do a quick check around the property. Didn’t find anything. Alas.
FCL Daily: Worms, Compost, Rabbit Cages, Chicken Nest Boxes … and a Big Frog
L-o-n-g day.
Probably should have stopped after getting the 3 new rabbit cages finished and deployed into the rabbitry. But NOOOOO, I had to go ahead and launch into the next project — new chicken nest boxes. Sort of messed up my upper back getting a 4′ x 8′ sheet of plywood up on the table saw … but pushed through it to just get-R-done!
For those perhaps interested, I’ve included my Chicken Nest Cut Plan graphic below. You basically take a 4’x8′ piece of plywood (1/2″ or 3/4″) and crosscut two 16.5″ sections, two 13.5″ sections, and a 12″ section. Then cut each section down according to the second dimension shown in the plan.
Tomorrow I have a bunch of errands to run, so looking forward to a “down day’ from the farm projects.
Also, I get my DJI Mavic Pro drone back from depot maintenance (military term). Cost about $400 to have the camera gimbal replaced, which broke when the drone came crashing about 80′ to the ground when I cut down the tree it was stuck up in.
Had a HUGE bowl of my ever-popular spicy tuna pasta for dinner, and still lost two pounds, so … yeah … a very long (but active and successful) day. 😉
Drone Recovery Project
Short and sweet intro … I inadvertently flew my DJI Mavic Pro drone into a tree the other day, and got it stuck about 70-80 feet up.
Thankfully, shortly after it got stuck, I was able to see it’s red LED navigation lights WAY up there, so I had a pretty good idea of where it was (generally). But, that said, it took me about a day and a half to actually spot it with a pair of binoculars.
With the location nailed down, I spent some time this morning trying to get it down. Initially, I planned to use couplers to connect about seven (7) 10-foot long pieces of EMT conduit to reach up and knock the drone down. Nope. The couplers weren’t strong enough.
So, I decided to cut down the tree. Easy enough. NOT!
Took a short break to cool down, then went back out in the rain and finally got the tree down horizontal. Recovered the drone … BUT the damn camera gimbal broke, most likely having gotten whacked pretty good on the final 60+ foot fall to the ground. Alas, it will have to be sent in for repairs.
Lessons learned:
1. The drone doesn’t have rear facing obstacle avoidance sensors, so flying backwards around hazards is risky.
2. All things being equal, the drone is pretty well designed. It took a lot of punishment in this episode, and only the camera gimbal (tiny, delicate instrument) broke.
3. I need a second (backup) drone. It would have been much easier to find the first unit, if I had a backup to fly search and rescue sorties to find it! 😉
Review: Dewalt 18 Gauge Metal Shears
Picked up a DEWALT DWASHRIR Impact Ready Shears Attachment yesterday and have used it to cut a bunch of 1/2″ metal fabric so far.
I’ve been VERY impressed with this tool. Very well designed (adapts to pretty much any impact driver/hammer) and constructed (like a tank!).
I haven’t fully utilized its feature set yet (e.g. heavy gauge sheet metal, rotating the cutting head 360 degrees, …), but I fully expect it will do a great job within the limits of its intended use.
Highly recommended.
Pond Draining: Cyclonic Trash Pump
Kinda hard to excavate a pond when the damn thing keeps filling up with water! I guess it’s eventually going to be a good thing that a single day of heavy thunderstorms fills the pond. But NOT NOW!!! 😉
I was using a small 12V water pump to drain the pond, but it took too long (e.g. more than one fully charged car battery).
Did some research and designed a PVC siphon system, but it didn’t work because there is insufficient “head space” between the water intake (pond bottom) and water output.
So, I sucked it up and bought a Tsurumi Cast Iron Submersible Trash Water Pump — 3000 GPH, 1/2 HP, 2in., Model# HS2.4S-62.
Took about 1.5 hours to drain the pond. NICE.
Since we have the first hurricane of the season expected to work its way up from FL this weekend, and therefore another week of rain in the wx forecast, I expect to be putting the new pump to good use again, and again, and again …
Barn Mouse Interdiction Update
After a week of daily purging via snap and walk-the-plank traps, I think Hunter and I finally got the last of the mouse population out of the barn.
Only had two in the traps this AM … which I suspect trickled in from outside the barn.
All said and done … I think we pulled about 30-40 mice out of the barn. I think even Hooey is tired of mouse munching. I heard her mumbling about skunks and coyotes last night, so I think she’s ready to move on to bigger prey. 😉
The electronic mouse traps were a TOTAL BUST. Can’t stand them. Waste of money. Still need to write a 2-star product review on Amzn.
Remote Motion Sensors: Guardline “Long Range”
Historically, I’ve relied upon Dakota Alert sensors to detect and monitor motion around the property. I really like the MURS band sensors, because I can not only monitor activity from the Dakota Alert base station, but also with off-the-shelf MURS radios (e.g. handheld, mobile). For that reason, I still use the DA gear.
However … I recently started evaluating the 1/4 mile “long range” gear offered by Guardline. Each base station supports up to 16 motion sensors, which have proven to be very effective.
My only issue with the Guardline system vs. the Dakota Alert is in how the alarms annunciate. The DA alarms with a synthetic voice that says “Alert! Zone [#]” where # is zone number. The Guardline system associates what amounts to a ring-tone like on your cellphone with each sensor. I prefer the DA method, but am getting used to the Guardline tones. Oddly enough, so is my dog! I swear to God … when a tone goes off, her head snaps to where that sensor is on the property and she looks for ANYTHING there to bark at (e.g. deer, UPS truck, coyote, …). Smart dog.
2018.05.08 UPDATE … Guardline Sensor Range Test (Success!)
To test the new Guardline remote sensors, I recorded the base station while driving a tractor around a section of the perimeter path that took me through three discrete sensor zones, as you can determine by the three different “ring tones” heard on the video.
The senors are said to have a 1/4 mile range. In my case, they are 607 feet (0.12 miles) from the base station, which is well within published range. But, they are lower in elevation (down hill) from the base station, with a rather large stand of trees between them, so I was quite impressed they worked at that range, in those conditions.
Damn! Look at all the yellow pollen on the surface of the two base stations (BTW, that’s the Dakota Alert base on the right, which monitors other motion sensors). I just wiped them down last week. Jeeze.
GSD Mouse Disposal
Not entirely sure why, but we’ve experienced a serious mouse overpopulation problem in the barn this spring. A few mice, I don’t mind, but they are everywhere. I planned to stuff as many 5+ foot black snakes as I could find on the property into all the dark recesses of the barn, but I haven’t found any snakes (yet!) this season.
Soooo, I did a little research. Some people swear by the high(er) technology electronic traps that zap and immediately dispatch the mice, so I found a higher rated model on Amazon and ordered two at about $40 a pop. Just for grins, I also bought one of those “walk the plank” traps.
After about 2 days of evaluation, I pulled the two electronic traps out of the barn and put them in the basement. If they catch one mouse each per month, I’ll be happy. As demonstrated in this video, I don’t really like their design, and will be writing a critical product review on Amazon soon.
Now, the WTP trap is simply amazing in terms of effectiveness. The single plank trap in the barn caught 16 mice in one day! I think poor Hunter is getting tired of dispatching mice. That might be a good thing, because she’s been hunting mice in and around the barn all day, every day, for about 2 months now. Drives me nuts. She’s constantly under foot … chasing some prick mouse. Knocked me off my feet once. Tripped over her twice. THAT’s why the mice have to GO!
We’re dispatching the mice in the same general spot, and the local hawks, ravens, and turkey vultures have seemingly locked in a GPS waypoint, because they’re cleaning up all the mice out of the field.
I call that a win-win-win-win-win. Everybody (chickens, Hunter, me, local birds of prey, …) wins, except the mice. But, that’s what they get for being such vermin. 😉
2018.05.08 UPDATE …
See … I try to give the mice a sporting chance to survive.