Love my emails!

So I'm sitting here drinking beer and cruising the list on the A to Z blog challenge and my phone lets out a little jingle.  Glancing quickly I read the title-Whattup?  It's from fun girl.  Do I know fun girl?  No......not yet anyways.  I mean I know it's spam but curiosity killed the horny middle aged man cat right?  So I click and I get this:

All I have to do is send her an email.  She will then reply with "her best pictures".  Enticing?  uhhhh yep!
Well in a heated debate with my conscience and the left button on the mouse (he is in cahoots with my wife) I did not click.  However my imagination is running rampant right now.  I feel like I'm eighteen again.....for the third time.
Anyways I wonder what it is I clicked on or what I read to have something like this manifest itself on my screen. Soon to be screensaver.  I must say between this one and  THIS ONE I stand a pretty good chance of getting divorced hooking up.
Too bad I'm old and grey.  I can fix the grey ya know.
That's all I got for now just couldn't let it go to waste.  if you need the email....email me....and I will ema....nevermind!

Gearing up and the New Garden

The time is close, the time is near.
Lend me your eyes and not your ear.
Soon I will wow you with a crazy tale
of cute puppies and visits to jail.

Monsters with hives and
Scuba diving with knives.
Nails through feet
and smoking some meat.

Motorcycles and mopeds
signs that say slow peds.
Free puppies in the road
licking the toad

Barrels of toxic waste
Too much wine I did taste
Jack the Ripper
and the charter boat skipper.

The eighties, the ninteys
Green bottles of Heinie
Lawn and Snow
plus many other things you nay not know.

In case you didn't realize April 1st is a mere2 days away and is also the commencement of the A to Z challenge.  Call me a fool because I haven't blogged with any regularity (insert regularity joke here) in months. What do you mean you already call me a fool?  I see how you are.  Regardless.  My attempt will begin Sunday April 1st.  There will be a blog a day for every letter of the alphabet.  The 1st is the only Sunday that is included.  The rest of them are for Church.  (St. Mattress)  I have no set ideas but as you can tell by the above discombobulation of the English word that it may be something about me.

So be sure to check in every day to see what nonsense I come up with.  I can tell you that most posts will be presented in the evening.  This is purely a spontaneous challenge for me.  No pre posting or writing will be done.  Thanks in advance for checking your cruelty and malice at the door when commenting.  I only have one feeling left and I don't need you hurting it.  LOL

Oh hey did I tell you I got a jump on the gardening season?  Yep.  New garden has been born.

 Now all I have to do is build my planter boxes, fence the garden in, amend the soil, plant the corn and other seeded veggies, buy the remaining plants, put down weed mat, collect grass clippings, compost scraps, water, weed, fertilize and harvest.  Sounds simple don't it?

I have some time.  The average frost free date in my area is around May 15th.  The right side of the picture is the small vacant lot next to mine.  It is owned by AT&T.  They have a very small "phone shack" on it.  The lot is unused otherwise and probably will remain that way as long as there are phones.  Anyways I will be using all the firewood I collected over the winter as a "fence" on that side of the garden.  Maybe on the short sides too.  The front will be panels I built a few years back.  Helps keep the small critters out.  The garden will eventually have this look.

Time to get busy.  Gotta go pick up a lawn roller from Mr. Mike so I can smooth the lawn out.

See Ya Later.

Sentimental Sunday

My last post was 20 days ago.  Seems I have found other things to keep me busy.  Oh well!

I spent the morning working on my lawn tractor.  I pulled the engine out of it and replaced the piston and rings and did a valve job on it.  It was burning way too much oil last year and I was fed up with it.  So I did all that but when I put it back together again I had something wired wrong and it took a few hours this morning to track it down.  Copying wiring diagrams off the internet all morning

.  I figured it out.  Took the snow blowing chains off the tires and hauled the mower deck out of hibernation.  Hooked it all up and started mowing.  Worked pretty good I was slightly impressed.  Being the pessimist that I am I kept waiting for it to go boom!  well instead it went snap.  Three passes into my mowing and the belt broke.  Go figure.  get the engine running good and something else breaks.  So I put the tractor back in the garage because I sure as heck aint gonna get a belt on Sunday.  Back to the shed and revived the 22 inch push mower.  One acre, one 22" pusher = 1.5 hours and a modest amount of sweat.  Looks nice.  First cut of the year really gets you in the mood for summer.  Then I reincarnated the fertilizer spreader that hasn't been used in 6 years and fertilized the entire lawn.  2 big bags covering 30,000 sq ft.  When that was done I played with my new chainsaw project.  I was up until 10pm last night putting it back together.  I took a Stihl 044 and put a big bore kit in it (new piston and rings and cylinder) which basically turns it into a Stihl 046.  6.5 horsepower and 78 cubic centimeters of displacement.  (CC) This saw purchased new is worth almost $1000.  I have less than $400 into it.  She screams and I giggle!

Now that the 2 main projects are done I can turn my attention towards other things.  My garden, my nonexistent flower beds and landscaping and finishing my painting in the house.
I was looking at the yard today trying to figure where I was going to start and I got to thinking about how my pops and I used to always do yard work together.  Raking the yard and I would follow him around with the shovel and wheelbarrow and he would rake the debris onto my shovel and I would wheel it away.  Hours and hours on end we would do this.  He showed me many things that I now just do automatically without even thinking.  I sure miss him being around.  I could let him haul the wheelbarrow now!
I suppose I'm about to hit my midlife crisis.  Kids are either in college/working or high school/sports.  Neither have time for parents right now and Momma doesn't much care for physical labor and what I consider "quality" time in the outdoors so it's just me and the dogs.  Gunner is great at picking up sticks but when he is done there are a hundred sticks from one.  Kinda defeats the purpose.  Remmi loves chainsaws.  They taste just like chicken he says.  Every time I try to start one he either tries to bite me or the saw.  One time I turned away from him to start it so he wouldn't bite it and he bit me in the ass.  Kinda defeats the purpose.
I'm having a real hard time letting go of the not having a child of my own thing.  Now I'm counting how many years until the kids have kids and I have grand kids.  Life's a bitch you know.

I have been busy cleaning up the yard and last weekend I had a bonfire to burn up all the splitter debris from my wood gathering adventures.  It was a pretty good fire.  I also cleaned out some more of the back fence row.  I have a plan for that but it will take some time.

Momma and I went out and bought her a new car this weekend as well.  New/used one that is.

A 2009 Malibu.  A very nice car.  great fuel mileage and a comfortable ride.  Her car was a 2000 and being 12 years old was dying rapidly.  No pics sorry.  I do have this one though!

This is how I haul wood.  

I have the A to Z challenge coming up in a few days so I suppose you'll see more of me now.  I almost cancelled it but in the end I could probably use it.  

Stay tuned!

Sunday Evening Salutations and Cancer in California!

Another Sunday evening has arrived and with it the onset of the 'soon to be at work woes'!
I had a pretty good weekend.  Didn't do much.  Didn't cut any wood to speak of.  A couple practice runs with an old saw I dug out of the shed.
My new project saw arrived on the UPS truck Friday.  I spent most of my time this weekend tinkering with that.
Looks as though it was probably straight gassed or leaned out so bad that the heat caused the piston to fail and little chunks of piston were everywhere.  This is not what a piston is supposed to look like.

I completely disassembled the entire saw right down to the last screw and cleaned it.

It was pretty dirty.
After diagnosing the problem I made out a parts list and began the restoration.  I wanted it to look like new when complete so I have been cleaning, buffing, sanding and painting all the body pieces this weekend.  Not finished but here are a few shots.
This is the flywheel side and the cleanest side on the whole saw.

Bench shot

Inside the cylinder

outside the cylinder

Some before shots

Some after shots

As promised my yard people.

I spent some time cleaning up my work area in the garage on Saturday.  Fixed the air compressor (had a dry rotted pressure gauge line) so I cleaned up my other saw while I had the compressor running.  Made for a good photo opportunity.  All work and no beer make me.....irritable?

One more thing.  They put a warning label on chainsaws in California now.  Looks something like this;

Take care and see you in four days,

-Bushman

Thirsty Thursday and My Top Ten

Hello again!
The work week is over, I am perched over the computer searching the chainsaw forum, checking Facebook, looking for last minute deals on Ebay and oh yeah blogging.  I have turned into a computer nerd! (No Offense Rachel).  Whatever, it will be spring soon and then you won't get me in the house no matter what........well I take that back my wife knows how to get me in the house.  Brown chicken brown cow!

So tonight after a few weeks of micro brews, heavily laden in calories and carbs I have returned to the old faithful Miller Lite.  Missing a few weekends in the woods has caused a glitch in my slimming process.
I shall return tomorrow, weather permitting, and continue my Odyssey of wood acquisition.

Speaking of wood.........I came across a great deal on Ebay for a chainsaw.  It is a Stihl 044 Magnum.
71 CC of wood ripping power. (my current saw is 55CC) A heavy, brute of a powerhouse, chainsaw.  It shall make it's way into my wood world tomorrow via UPS.  It has a blown engine but that is something I can fix.  I will soon be cutting wood with this beast (retail value if bought new $900).

Top Ten of the week you decide good or bad

#1  New saw..........see above explanation.
#2  New shipment of cigars hit my porch as well.........Momma doesn't know yet, you'll probably hear her yell
#3  Getting over being sick.....................I almost died.............well in a really bad cold kinda died.
#4  Painting of the upstairs is looking good......................I love the colors, I hate all the taping and trimming
#5  I have completed my pair of wood protectors.............one male and one female, pics coming.
#6  Trying to figure out what to do for vacation this year..........front yard or back yard??????
#7  If mud were money..............................my dog's feet would be rich!
#8  Going to start the rehab on another saw as well...................this one my little bro left for me a few years back
#9  I can't decide if I should dye my hair and facial hair...............two tone is looking kinda weird
#10 I have nothing else to list.......................Beer Me!

Have a great weekend
I'll be back with some updated photos sometime in the next few days so check back!
-Bushman