Damn - that's right; skunks prowl about my place quite a bit. Well, that's life and death and the aftermath.

Had to protect my own cat, also. She is a great hunter and has rid the place of mice, rats, and moles. The strays wander in and just yowl and fight and spread disease.

two cats are twice as good as one and only four times the work.

Getting my shop on its own electrical system drop, right from the power pole - no longer will it be okie style hooked up out of the house system and run underground through 150 ft with substandard wire. Will cost a bit but safer, smarter (insurance wise also) and I will have more power access.

Will also upgrade the lighting system on my own. Searching for lights at Lowe's etc. Will get the LED kind, the style that hang by chain, they will be attached to support heads/rafters that are about 12 ft high. Plan on 3 lighting fixtures each on three separate rafters. Shop never had good lighting, only in one corner where my father used to do all his wood carving.

Anyway been planning this for awhile, got a good company to install the meter and circuit box/panel, inspection, and permit etc and the COOP electrical will be out the same day to do the power pole hook up to the electrical drop, that shoots up out of the top of the roof. Will also have 220 in the shop finally. Now I can safely run all my fun power tools and other goodies that I will buy.

That post needs to contain the word juice somewhere.

costco has the best led shop lights right now and the cheapest. also you can get led replacement bulbs for old florescent fixtures and even leave the ballast in ., they are about 8 bucks a bulb. and work fine as ive used them in lots of fixtures t-8 andt-12.

led puts out more light than the old ones as the old flouro gives less light as it ages. and the led is brighter at the start and stays the same. make sure you get at least 4000k bulbs in whatever you get.

also wire in one or two dedicated 20 amp plugins. this way you have a spot for a freezer or something like a space heater with a bigger draw.
a motion light when you enter the shop is great. in my airplane hanger i had all motion lights and never had to touch a switch.
same in my shop and boat garage. with a few switched lights as well.

Thanks Ray, good advice. I looked at a friends shop upriver and he had some motion activated lights outside and also inside his shop. It was a great setup. I already have one set up for outside that I will install. The guy up river also mentioned LED lights from Costco, so with two recommendations; I need to check it out.

Costco has the right Juice. How's that Lastcard?

only when the guy with the vitamix machine is there giving free samples.

zeno when figuring how many lights to put in just use this. put in about 20 lumens per square foot of floor space. more if there is no white inside for reflectivity( no such word).

50 lumens for the areas where you need plenty of light for working small tasks.

so for say a 1000 foot garage/shop you need 30,000 lumens. each of those led shop light bulbs are about 1700. so about twenty bulbs, or ten fixtures. you can place them overhead needed areas more so as to get more light where you need it and less where you dont need as much.

my boat garage is 25 by 36 and i have 10,000 lumens that go on in motion lights when i open the garage door and enter. i have no windows in that one. then i have to use switched light over workbenches. which have one fixture over each. a couple are on pull chains. i guess about 30,000 lumens with all on but i rarely need all.

I think my shop is 26 X 40. I have two windows in the back wall and one side window on one wall. And doing the lumens as you pointed out is way to go for calculating lighting needs, I was already on that one. And I'm getting lights that have an individual pull chain on each fixture. One phase was finished today as the electrical contractor got the inside stuff installed and the stick up through the roof, etc - the inspector has to come out tomorrow and green tag the meter box (on the outside) and then the electrical COOP can go ahead and do the hook up to the power pole. I don't need to be there for that which is good. I'm taking a break and visiting someone down in looney land Southern California but at least I can get some sun and warmer weather. It's raining cats and dogs again here.

I'll finish up when I return. That's the good thing about being retired - I'm on my own schedule, mostly. The rest of the world can just piss off.

hook all the lights you want on at once to the same switch. that can be one of those remote plugins or to one with lots of plug ins and one going to the wall. like those power switches. as it will get old real fast walking around pull8ing chains for coming and going.

basically you want as many as you can wired to one breaker and that is controlled by a wall switch. then you can leave those you want switched on on, and those off that you use the pull chain for.

Having fun helping a friend. Doing small fixit jobs in her townhouse down here in Orange County. Repaired a hole in the patio, replaced bad molding by stairs, repairing lose tiles in shower and re-grouting. This also helps me learn about things that will be useful about my own home.

Made it home safely after a great trip. Had good to excellent food and coffee. Stopped in Ukiah, Ca and at Half Moon Bay and Sausalito, to hang out with the beautiful people.

Now home and working up a storm: mowing and weed whacking, grubbing out ivy and other noxious plants and weeds. But place is looking so much better and once in good shape is easier to take care of and control.

My other big job was tilling the garden area, took most of a day. I rented this beast of a tiller but needed it, the area had not be tilled for at least a decade. Took six passes to get it all lose and tilled up nicely. Set the till depth in increments so gradually worked my way deeper. Soil is good but somewhat dense with a bit a clay and sticky in places. Got a few sore muscles and bruised my leg from working the self-propelled tilling machine but it was worth it.

Now just have to lay out what I want to plant - and get a fence up. It will be a big job, along with upgrading the lighting/electrical in my shop, I will be plenty busy this spring.

maybe if you stayed off the internet then you might get something done.

I also burned up my large pile of wood debris from all my clearing work. Made a nice fire even if a bit wet. Fixed/replace a bracket on my small tractor/mower, so now the deck stays in place better for mowing. On to paperwork as I need to do my taxes.

Then middle of next week I head down to the Florida Keys for two weeks to help a friend house sit a beautiful home on Sugarloaf Key, so I will be lounging about, fishing, smoking cigars, and swilling beer and making fun of all the work a day people that still must slave away to make a living.

Back from the Keys a week ago. I had a great time and may give a bit of a trip report and a few pics.

Working on my garden. Purchased a tiller so I don't need to rent one. Will update on progress when my manic schedule settles in smooth mode.

Towards end of May will be my next excursion, that I'm willing to talk about.

Weather today is grand and the views beautiful. Living near the ocean is great.

bout time you returned to duty

My brother is up from Arizona for the summer. He is a great help about the place and an excellent handy man/worker. Plus I have a few two-man jobs that we can get done over the summer. Foundation work on the house and some large replacing siding on my shop. And I did a wise thing - after pondering a bit I decided to clean my shop out entirely and rearrange everything as I want it. Work benches moved against the wall, new shelves under and etc, etc. without boring you with details. Wood rack will be shorted and narrowed and moved so that my two-bay shop will be a two-bay shop. I can park/work on two vehicles at once or have my boat in the shop and a vehicle etc. Options just doubled. Once all that is done and everything in its place - then I rewire and install my new lighting and plugs. Savvy.

Every once in awhile I do things in the proper order.

Trout fishing opened end of May - haven't been yet but will soon. Walked on the beach on Memorial day (perfectly beautiful day it was) and I saw a family surf fishing for perch. They caught two large ones while I was watching. Happy times for the kids and parents and good to see. I'll be trying my hand at this soon myself.

Then went to a friends home, right on a lake, and had ribs and beans and potato salad and watermelon. Then we went down by the lake and built a fire and sat about and told lies and roasted marshmallows.

Good wholesome fun and times. I never report on my decadent activities.

gulp sand worms for the perch. fish in close, and walk the beach at low tide and find where the holes will be and the rips and under tows are. then fish at high tide.
use about an once of weight and cast inside the second breakers. like within 40 yards or less of the beach. you can try flies but its tough to deal with the line.

i went out today and caught about 30 or so of the stocker rainbows on flies.

I need a gun rack for my Toyota pick up - extend cab. I see cabelas sells many and even have ones that mount on the inside roof. But I like the two -three rack kind, mounted behind. Trouble in getting the right fit because of sliding window etc. Also good for carrying fly rods.

think twice, ive had them many times and hardly use them. people steal guns out of cars in sight. best behind the seat.
good thinking about having guns though. cant have too many. easy to get a cc permit in oregon as well.

Good points. I have reconsidered and decided not to splash the pot with extra money. I'll be signing up for the cc class soon. Went for a great back roads trip yesterday with my brother. Beautiful. Ended up coming out at Gold Beach about dinner time and had a beer and burger at a local watering hole. Perfect day. Did a small hike to see the coquille river falls. Amongst other beautiful scenery. Feels like summer, finally. Had a cool and very wet spring.

Got my lighting fixtures and did a test - the LED lights I purchase are fabulous. Have eight that will be plenty to light up my whole shop. Have the wiring all figured out including the new wiring for all my plugins.

Years ago my father saved two power poles that were replaced on the property. I just cut them up and will use 10 ft segments as the corner posts for my garden area. Works out great - I had to skid them up to the garden using my tractor/mower. By the way I was smart and removed my good chain from the chainsaw and put on a "ratty old chain" to cut up the old power poles - they have much old cresol and had been in dirt for years. So that saved my good chain. The ratty chain was good enough to cut but did so on a curve. No matter for using old poles as large posts.

Have removed access panels on bottom of house to allow a good airflow to dry out the foundation. Have some repair work to do. Those are three big projects for the summer. Plus little ones and the general maintenance. Never ending story in owning a home and shop and property.

Weather is finally feeling like summer. Still windy, mostly. Plan on doing a nice remote day trip and hike again soon.

Got all the new plug-in outlets wired into the shop today. First test to see if the plugs were wired correct was to listen to a Who CD. Every thing was good for my generation. Tomorrow we wired in the lights.