Wondering how she does it all.

Sometimes I wonder how my wife does it all. Earlier, I posted two blogs showing my wife’s projects where she painted everything she could get her hands on and crocheted up some throw rugs and such. If you forgot here are links to my-wife's projects-part-1 and my-wife’s projects-part-2.

Now you are in for another treat. She heard that The Flying Tortoise was making a quilt, so she said that she wants to see it, and in the mean time she will show him hers. You know, I’ll show you mine if you show me yours. . .

This first picture is of a crazy quilt (actually it is a yo yo quilt) she came up with;

And some old unfinished quilts that she found at a flea market:

Turned one end over to see bottom and hand stitching:

My wife also makes hand bags by quilting, like these:

Here is a close up showing the stitching:

And a pattern cut from an old phone book:

And you don’t want to waste even the smallest piece of cloth, so:

Getting tired of quilting? How about a crocheted hand bag:

This one I think is really nice:

And of course, cold weather is coming so you may need a hat:

Enough for today. OK, The Flying Tortoise, let’s see yours….

Pig and Sky Updates

Yep, you probably guessed it, the way my luck goes, didn’t ya? I spent all that time cutting my yard and the resident wild pig (feral hog) decided to give it a manicure. In this first picture, you can see where she is in relationship to my deck where my telescope is now sitting:

This next picture is a closer shot of her trying to make up her mind just what she wants to do next. Eat something or dig some more?

She decided to pose broadside since someone was taking her picture:

“Oh the heck with it” she says as she pretends to be a bull dozer:

Later that evening after dark, she broke down the dogs’ fence. My dogs try to call her in, to my dismay. My wife is afraid that the pig will kill our little dogs, so when she (the pig not my wife) comes around, I got to gather them up and get them in the house. Not an easy chore when they are barking and nipping at the pig’s nose on the other side of a fence that she can easily come through. In fact, my wife worries that the pig will knock down the deck.

Update on the viewing with the telescope. Being old and tired (me, not the scope) I don’t stay up very late, so miss out on some good viewing throughout the night. If I don’t post a blog some morning, I may have stayed up all night.

First, since I told you about Jupiter’s moon movement, let me update Jupiter for you. Last night there were only three of her moons visible, two on one side and one on the other with a big gap between Jupiter and the two moons. I guess one was hiding behind Jupiter, since I didn’t see any new spot on her face. Of course, I didn’t spend any time looking for it.

I found M15, a beautiful globular cluster and then just started scanning the sky overhead. It just amazes me to see how many stars are really up there, all the ones that you can’t see with the naked eye (especially from this area). There is not an empty spot anywhere. While just randomly scanning I came across a beautiful “Diffuse Nebula”. Not sure its name; will have to do some research. But it was fairly good sized and bright enough to see clearly. It was not symmetrical but had a jagged uneven shape. Smother edge on one side and uneven “fingers” on the other.

It was probably close to where M27 is supposed to be, but M27 is a planetary nebula and the one I saw was not. I just love to look into the night sky!

Just Some Wonderings

I have been wondering why in the world I fixed my lawn mower. Now I have no excuse not to cut the grass. I mowed for the last four days and finally got the grass cut around the house. Wow, dusty hard work, pushing that thing through that tall grass. Just don’t understand how green grass can be so very, very dusty. I thought that I had a sun tan but it washed off.

The wonder of the universe. . . Wow!! I didn’t go out and look last night, but did the preceding two nights. I told you what I saw the first night. One thing interesting is Jupiter and its moons. Because of their great distances, most things seem very slow to change, except for the apparent movement caused by the Earth’s rotation. The phases of solar system bodies do change fairly quickly but it, too, takes time. So, I was a little surprised to see the changes in Jupiter’s four largest moons. The first night, there were three moons on one side and one on the other. The next night all four moons were on the same side. Jupiter’s inner moon’s rotation is very fast.

Remember your Mother telling you that you should drink at least eight glasses of water every day? That statement is not true but got started by a misunderstanding of the facts. The fact was a statement made that a typical person takes in about eight glasses worth of water per day. This amount includes all the moisture in the foods that we consume. So, don’t over hydrate unless you live in the desert. . .

Take time today to go outside, sit down, and be in wonder over the beauty and awe of Nature.

Rail Road Lanterns

Did you ever wonder what it was like to work on the railroad back in the steam locomotive days? Well, both of my Grandfathers did. Told you that back on my blog titled Along the River. I will probably have more old railroad stories to tell you in future blogs.



Anyway, I have some old kerosene railroad lanterns from three different railroads. I thought that you may enjoy seeing them. When I look at them, my mind goes a wondering back in time and tries to imagine what it was like during the time they were in use.




I will start with the B&O. My Father’s Dad was a conductor on the B&O. In this first picture, if you look real close, you can see “B&O RR” in black on the lower part of the glass. It is hard to see:
This is a picture of the top of the B&O lantern. The B. & O. R.R. is shown in raised letters on the top of the lantern:


The next two pictures are from the old Pennsylvania Rail Road (PRR) on which my Mother’s Dad worked as an engineer. The first one shows the red glass:


And this one shows the top with the keystone logo with the PRR inside:


And the next two pictures are P&LE (Pittsburgh and Lake Erie) railroad lanterns. This is of the side:


And this is looking at the top:


OK, to end today’s blog, how about a picture of all three:








Don't forget, you can click on the pictures to enlarge them.

Getting Telescope Out – at last.

Well, I hate to say it, but it has been a long, long time since I have had the big old telescope out. Maybe I will set up some of my smaller ones, since the weather is supposed to be nice for the whole week. Then again, I may not. Who knows?

I am going to take you through the set-up, except for getting the parts outside. Wow!!! That dang thing picked up a couple hundred more pounds than the last time I set it up. Guess it has been a couple of years. Where does the time go?? And so fast…

It seems to me that I used to carry that tube with the mirror in it. Yep, sure did. Now, I could hardly handle the tube by itself. I tied a rope around it in two places to act like a sling. That gave me something to hold on to. Even so, it wasn’t a pretty sight, getting it out through a couple of doors, but managed somehow and was still able to walk back in the house and then try to get that base out. Just as much trouble; now I know why it has been so long since I had it out (grin).

OK, I got it out. Now, this first picture is the three main parts, tube, base, and mirror (in the box).

I put the tube on the base. This next picture is looking down the tube.

I opened the box that holds the mirror safely in Styrofoam. I put a tape measure across the mirror support plate to give you an idea of the size of the tube it fits to.

To make it easier to get the mirror in the same way each time, I put a mark on the tube at one of the three bolts.

Got it bolted on. See, I even got the marks on the mirror plate and the tube to match up. So far so good, see next picture.

This next picture was taken after the mirror was mounted, looking at it from the side. You can see that the mirror is spring mounted and also adjustable.

Ok, how about a picture looking down the tube with the mirror in place:

OK, all together. Guess that calls for a victory picture:

And the last picture is looking down the tube with the mirror in place, but without my ugly face showing up in it as it did in the ones above:

The viewing was the best it gets for this area. Other than a few billion stars, here is a short list of what I viewed:

Jupiter and her moons. Beautiful colored stripes.
Uranus – a fuzzy bluish ball
M31 – The bright Andromeda spiral galaxyM32 – Andromeda’s companion along with M110

I am limited to a small patch of sky because of the house on one side and trees tall trees on all sides. Could see a lot more from a wide open field somewhere, but the deck is more convenient.

Wondering why I am so stupid

Last night and this morning, I am wondering why I am so stupid. Yesterday I was so proud of getting my mower back up and running after a long down time. So, then I had no excuse but to cut some grass. Now my back and legs are hurting. Just how stupid can I get? I had it made when I couldn’t cut the grass, now I will be cutting all weekend and maybe into next week.

No, I don’t cut my entire place anymore. Not since the old Farmall 200 tractor quit running a few years ago. 12 acres minus the 5 acre swamp is still a lot of cutting. So it all went back to nature. Well, most of it anyway. I sure miss that five foot brush hog.

I guess I have been stupid since I was young. I remember way back when I was small, my Dad slapped my rear for something bad I had done, only one light swat. I was stupid enough to tell him that it didn’t hurt. . .

I have done a lot of stupid things; remember my blog “Fishing for. . . . What?”

I have done a lot of other stupid things in my life, remembering some makes me wonder why I made it this far in life. Will not go into anymore of them, I am getting embarrassed.

Went to Wal-Mart yesterday to get stocked up, which reminded me of this. Quite often, they have people giving out samples, passing out information, and taking surveys. This one guy was taking a survey in the toilet paper section. He had a package of White Cloud in one hand and Northern in the other and was asking this older gentleman which he preferred. The older gentleman answered, “Depends”.

Mower Resurrection

A week or so ago my lawn mower died. The signs of its illness started gradually the last time it ran. It started right up on the first pull and I started to cut the fenced in yard (the dogs’ yard). It started to die down and then it quit. Pulled the starter cord again and it started right up but then started to run slower and slower until it quit again. I pulled the cord many more times and it would try to start but would die. Then it wouldn’t fire at all.



I am not a mechanic of any kind. My Father-in-law used to say that it was dangerous to let me pick up a tool. That wasn’t altogether true, I did know how to remove the valve covers on my 57 Chevy Convertible and adjust the solid lifters every couple of thousand miles, you know, with every oil change.



Anyway, I was brave and tried to find the most comfortable place to work. I found a shady spot at the bottom of the deck steps and went to work. Using my head for once, I laid everything down in the order that I removed it, screws and bolts and springs included. (See, I do learn from bad experiences.)



I managed to get it all apart. Well, at least as far as I was going to go. Here is a picture after it got it apart:



Took a short break for lunch and went back out to get at it again. Of course there was no more shade, so had to work in the bright sun. In the above picture, I was starting to loose the shade when I stopped for lunch. In the picture below, you can see the difference, all bright and sunny:

I couldn’t detect anything wrong or out of the ordinary until I took the carburetor apart. Inside were funny green crystallized deposits that crumbled into green sand like granules when I touched them.

I cleaned it all out, used an old tooth brush and paperclip, and sprayed WD40 through all the holes and the jet to clean them out. Here are a couple of pictures of the culprit:

I almost got it together and dropped a screw down inside and had to take part of it apart again to reclaim the screw. A minor setback that seemed worse than it was (grin). OK, got it together, filled it with gas and oil, and pulled the starter cord. I couldn’t believe it; it started on the first pull and ran like it was new. My Father-in-Law would have been proud of me, I am. . .