It's distressing how much money I have. I'm sure I lost a fortune last year, but I have no way to really find out. In the mean time what equity investments I have are all through the roof. I even listened to ray a few months ago and applied for disaster relief and much to my astonishment that came through. But I think the big thing is I'm on semi-lock-down and can't really find a way to spend anything. I walked up to the grocery today and bought a pint of ice cream. That'll be my big splurge for November.

you had better put me in your will mack instead of zeno.

ive done well also the last couple of years with stocks and real estate both of which have gone bonkers. ive been liquidating most of my real estate holdings as they are high and i am getting old and dont see its worth dealing with them even though i dont do much.
plus capital gains will never ever be this low again.and my basis on them is zero.
same thing this year to do for stocks that have appreciated and pay the gains this year before the dems raise it back up to the 40% it used to be. although that may not happen next year but could.

My fire pit that I put in a few weeks ago:




I purchased this great steel fire pit seen above and installed it in my backyard area so I can have a safe fire year around. Also, so I can lounge and read and drink whiskey and gaze at the night stars. The fire pit came with a cover to keep rain and debris out. Anyway, I decided to upgrade my lounge area with a cement pad encircling the fire ring/pit. This required some hard work in preparation. The added benefit to the cement pad is for fire protection, that is, I can have a fire even during the fire season in summer.

Prep step 1



Prep step 2



Complete. Cover on fire pit because rain came tumbling down.




I mixed, poured, and smooth 500 lbs of cement yesterday before the rainstorm hit last night. I covered the new poured cement with blankets and tarps to keep the heat in and the rain off. Curing of cement is an exothermic reaction, releasing heat. See the link below so you yahoos can learn a bit of science:

hydration-of-cement/


Now that the science lesson is over, I can officially announce that my upgrade to my backyard adds that certain degree of civility, sophistication, and panache that sets my abode so far above so many others.


Cheers............

Now you need to build your own Adirondack chairs. Sitting in one of those with your single malt by the fire seems like a fine time.

Zeno,
i wasn't going to chime in until you called me a yahoo, but here we are.

hopefully what you mixed was 500 lbs of concrete and not just cement (by the way, concrete is measured in yards, not by weight. what you have there is probably an 1/8 of a yard). concrete uses cement as the binder, but the primary ingredient by weight is aggregate for strength and durability.

i do appreciate your use of wire mesh for reinforcing, especially since it appears to be galvanized to help prevent corrosion from the moisture in the concrete, but placing the mesh on dobies instead of directly on the ground would get it closer to the center of the slab where the strength is needed. you also didn't tool in any control joints for cracking, which will happen as the concrete shrinks as it cures. the void in the middle of the slab is a prime source for cracks, although yours is round and not square so that should help since it doesn't have reentrant corners. hopefully the cracks are just cosmetic but it's hard to predict since the mesh isn't near the center of the slab to help with strength.

all things to contemplate as you burn the next batch of books and old albums

cheers

I wanted a very smooth pad and also didn’t want to be too elaborate in prep and pour, so went with Portland cement. Noted that I could have made section pies and placed slim wood in interval to help with stress cracks and normal settlement etc., point taken. But this is a back yard project. I will simply use cement patch material if significant cracks appear. I didn’t want lumpy Ugly concrete for this particular project. And I added texture swirls to the cement surface that look kind of cool.

You are welcome to come down and help with my next book burning. I’ll supply all the whisky. You bring the books.

Cheers

let me know the time and place and i'll happily join...i'll come prepared to sleep in my car.
i have at least a yard of 2+2 books on the shelf to serve as fuel, unfortunately none of them are signed by Ray to lower the value, but that's the price i'm willing to pay. looking forward to it.

and while i'm there i might even explain how you can still get those texture swirls you adore while floating concrete after it's properly consolidated and the cream rises to the top.

cheers

if you made it square it would be easier to mow around it.
you should have known better than to take on such a project without asking us here first how to do it. now you have to live this this abomination of a fire pit. that is too small for a bon fire and will get dirty all the time. and have grass growing up through the cracks.
perhaps you still have a chance to tear it up and do it right and of course your friends here like red eye who knows what he is talking about, and myself and even mack can help you through your process of building a simple pad that wasnt necessary.

Your use of chicken wire for rebar is ingenious. I'm surprised you're not here in The People's Republic of Texas pouring slabs for tract houses. The sound of slabs breaking often keeps me awake at night.

Since your lovely fire pit has a top, does that mean it also has a grill? That would make it easy to throw some hamburgers and hot dogs on while you were drinking whiskey and burning books.

looks like he was trying to bury a flying saucer.

I can tell some Of you are just jealous and have the green-eyed monster of envy gnawing at your brains. You Can’t stand the beautiful slice of heaven I’m making for myself in my costal paradise. That’s OK, it will just make my sipping whiskey around my flying saucer fire pit all the sweeter.

zeno, is this to avoid the helicopter surveillance?

The deer continue to be problematic, especially the bucks rubbing their antlers on my redwood saplings and damaging the trees. I had to bandage one sapling yesterday to help it heal and preclude bugs and rot getting to it.

Red, that’s on the neighbors property. Which is 5 acres of junkyard trash, assorted dead cars and equipment, old trailers, and piles of tossed off and collected debris.

next summer's project may need to be a fence.

no thats where he gets all his parts. he could get hurt climbing over a fence to get them in the middle of the night.

Ray, i'm not sure if you've heard, but sometime during the medieval times or before there was an invention called 'a gate'.
based on zeno's pics he already has the moat ready to go. i'm guessing we need to help him with his drawbridge project as well.
summer 2022 will the trebuchet with spare car parts as ammo and that black sedan as the counterweight.

of course i know what agate is. i frequently find them on the beach. fun to do.

actually no person with any brains is going to mess with zeno's crap.

Saw a northern harrier hawk today. They are very graceful. They have a white band near the tail so easy to recognize. Also saw some bufflehead ducks. Also easy to recognize and one of the funniest sea ducks to watch cavort about and dive and bob. Very common about here, near the mouths of rivers and on near-ocean lakes. Teals (Green-wing and Blue-wing) and Mergansers also abound on all the lakes and up all the rivers.

Ray - sometimes you need to give them space, often in the middle, to allow them to be what they want to be. one example:


Zeno - do you ever see tufted puffin in your neck of the woods? i know they're down there, just not sure how far.

for the past several weeks (after daylight saving) the great horned owls have made their presence known almost every day as i walk the dog in the morning before sunrise. interesting to hear their calls to each other and try to judge the distance in the dark. makes me happy at the thought of them feeding on the moles and voles that occupy the property.

the puffins nest in cannon beach on haystack rock. last few years the bald eagles are giving them fits so not very many were hatching eggs. still you can always see them flying around. the rock is right on the beach.

in montana i usually have horned owls nest around the house within 500 yards or so.
i get to see the babies sometimes sitting on the fence or up around my barn.
one year they nested in the roots of a tree that had been dug out some by the coyotes. the babies were there all the time sitting on the exposed root looking down on my driveway. they hoot every night in the summer.

I have a screech owl house and the same pair nests there every year. The male's already back and has his spot staked out for spring breeding. Mama should be home some time in January, I think. I love those little guys. Four fledglings last year.

Zeno - sorry to derail your blog with owl talk. let me know and i'll shut it down. i just really find them fascinating

i live 500 feet away from a 645 acre state natural area, and closer to that if you consider the back half of our property is natural resource zone that connects to it.
the great horned and barred owls are the two that are most common around these parts and i can recognize them by their calls. rarely see them, somewhat frequently hear them.

after a quick bit of research it appears the Western Screech, Northern Saw-whet, and Northern Pygmy have also been spotted in the area but aren't very common.

fun video

one year we had snowie owls come down from alaska in montana as we had a boom in voles or something.

We have a ton of eastern screech owls. They hop out of their trees at sundown looking like they really need a cup of coffee. They're tiny until they take flight, then they have surprisingly long wing spans.

We also have plenty of great horned owls. They're active all night long. I've seen some of them come close to two feet tall out in protected areas near reservoirs and lakes. I once had one fly so close in front of me that its wing tip brushed my nose, and I didn't hear a thing -- it was completely silent. I didn't have time to be startled. It was past me and sitting on a telephone pole before my mind could sort out what had happened.

I get to see a barn owl every couple of years. They always bring to mind cigars and Yankees baseball. They're real shy around people -- it's hard to get close to them.