Bolt Hole Report, October 7, 2010

It's been a couple of very wet days here at the Bolt Hole. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday we had rain, rain, rain! But the night time temperatures did warm up a bit. Never got below the low 40s since the rain came from the south.

Today started much the same way as the previous three days: overcast and rainy. But the sun did finally make an appearance around noon and remained for most of the afternoon hours. Of course, that sun needed help in making its appearance. There was lots of wind pushing the rain away and that has continued through into the darkness of night.

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I mostly lolled around the living room of the Bolt Hole the first three days of the week planning my attack on the electrical wiring in the basement. Today, I got enough courage to actually get to work. Having (nearly) all the material on hand, I strapped on my miners lamp and attacked the old system with gusto. I removed nearly all the old canvas covered, ungrounded wire that ran in the basement. There's still quite a bit of the stuff running through the old portion of the first floor living quarters but that would require dismantling walls, ceilings and floors to replace. Ain't gonna do that just yet. I ran some brand new 12-2 grounded wire to replace the old stuff. Set up two new circuits from those that were already pretty confused. I had to split one circuit in half since I thought there were too many lights/outlets on it. And I also put in a couple of new junction boxes so as to bring one lonesome light into the fold of another rather small circuit. (Why in the world was there just one (1) basement light on a 25 amp circuit all by it's lonesome?)

I only had three moments of uncertainty. One was when I accidentally brushed a ground wire across a live circuit and got a loud POP! and a puff of smoke as I tripped a breaker. Scared the bejeesus out of me! Another time I got a wild tingly feeling in my finger when I brushed that against a bare wire. Believe me when I say I have the utmost respect for electricians working around life current!

The third moment of uncertainty was when, having--I thought--wired the basement lights up correctly, I flipped the circuit breaker on only to have it go all snap, crackle and pop on me and flip off immediately. Four or five times, as I tried to remember how to wire a distant switch to the closer light. After trying a few different permutations (and replacing a GD burned out light bulb!) I finally got it to work. That the problem with doing things only on rare occasions; you forget how to do them. That and all my Time Life home repair books are at the Aerie.

Well, I survived. And it's been a few hours since I flipped the circuit breakers on and the place hasn't burned down--yet, so I must have done a decent job. Once more the Good Enough Construction Company has triumphed!

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The rain and the wind of the last two weeks has knocked most of the leaves off the trees. all that's left are those that haven't changed yet or that are in the process of changing. Lots of bare trees on the way down the hill to the hardware and grocery stores. It's been a weird and fast fall.

The weekend is supposed to be sunny and a bit warmer with highs into the 60s. Quite a change from the 50 degree days earlier this week. Might be time to get outside and do some more fair weather chores.

I'll have to get up on the woodshed roof and tar the living daylights out of the seam where it meets the the cabin roof. Too much rain water getting through the ever opening gap and that's part of the problem with the back walls of the woodshed that I mentioned the other day. Water leads to rot. Replacing that shed is starting to look like a 2011 summer project. It's a miracle it's stood up this long with the heavy snow/ice load it gets.

Once the roof is taken care of, I'll be able to use the wheelbarrow to haul the firewood inside to cure.

Then there's the winterizing of the travel trailer.

Did I mention that it is bow hunting season? HA!

College Football Week 6 Outlook Top 25 plus Opponents

Not too much change at the very top of the list, but from number 10 on down there’s been some movement up, down and all around. Almost everyone plays within their conference this week so there’s a lot on the line for nearly everyone. There are even a few games that pit ranked opponents against one another. #1 Alabama vs #19 South Carolina, #12 LSU vs #14 Florida, #13 Miami (Fla.) vs #24 Florida State, and #17 Michigan State vs #18 Michigan. Of course, in the last two, it wouldn’t matter if they were down around #115 or so, there is no love lost between teams in those patches!

Near the top of the list, the one big question everyone must be asking is: Will Wazzou be able to hold the Ducks to less than 100? (Current line is Oregon by 36 with an o/u probably in the basketball range.]

[The three numbers for the rankings are from the AP Top 25, The Harris Coaches’ Poll, and CBSSports.com. An “NR” means that that particular poll did Not Rank the team.]


1/1/1 Alabama (5-0) The Crimson Tide are on the road against the #19 South Carolina Gamecocks (3-1).

2/2/2 Ohio State (5-0) The Buckeyes host the Indiana Hoosiers (3-1).

3/3/3 Oregon (5-0) The Ducks play at the home of the Washington State Cougars (1-4).

4/4/4 Boise State (4-0) The Broncos host the Toledo Rockets (3-2).

5/5/5 TCU (5-0) The Horned Frogs will host the Wyoming Cowboys (2-3).

6/7/7 Oklahoma (5-0) The Sooners are idle this week.

7/6/6 Nebraska (4-0) The Cornhuskers play on the road against the Kansas State Wildcats (4-0) Thursday night. [One of two games pitting two undefeated teams.]

8/8/8 Auburn (5-0) The Tigers play at the home of the Kentucky Wildcats (3-2).

9/11/10 Arizona (4-0) The Wildcats play host to the Oregon State Beavers (2-2).

10/10/9 Utah (4-0) The Utes play on the road against the Iowa State Cyclones (3-2).

11/13/14 Arkansas (3-1) The Razorbacks play at the home of the Texas A&M Aggies (3-1).

12/9/13 LSU (5-0) The Tigers are on the road against the #14 Florida Gators (4-1).

13/14/17 Miami (Fla.) (3-1) The Hurricane host the #24 Florida State Seminoles (4-1).

14/12/15 Florida (4-1) The Gators host the #12 LSU Tigers (5-0).

15/15/16 Iowa (4-1) The Hawkeyes are idle this week.

16/18/19 Stanford (4-1) The Cardinal hosts the Southern California Trojans (4-1).

17/16/12 Michigan State (5-0) The Spartans play on the road against the #18 Michigan Wolverines (5-0). [This is the other game pitting two undefeated teams. Some one has got to lose this one...right? They won't play for a tie. Right?]

18/17/11 Michigan (5-0) The Wolverines host the #17 Michigan State Spartans (5-0).

19/20/18 South Carolina (3-1) The Gamecocks will host #1 Alabama (5-0).

20/19/21 Wisconsin (4-1) The Badgers host the Minnesota Golden Gophers (1-4).

21/23/20 Nevada (5-0) The Wolfpack host the San Jose State Spartans (1-4).

22/21/22 Oklahoma State (4-0) The Cowboys play at the home of the Ragin’ Cajuns: Louisiana-Lafayette (2-2)

23/24/23 Florida State (4-1) The Seminoles are on the road against the #13 Miami (Fla.) Hurricane (3-1).

24/22/NR Missouri (4-0) The Tigers host the Colorado Buffaloes (3-1).

25/NR/NR Air Force (4-1) The Falcons host the Colorado State Rams (1-4).

NR/25/NR Northwestern (5-0) The Wildcats host the Purdue Boilermakers (2-2).

NR/NR/24 Southern California (4-1) The Trojans play at the home of the #16 Stanford Cardinal (4-1).

NR/NR/25 North Carolina State (4-1) The Wolfpack host the Boston College Eagles (2-2).

Bolt Hole Report, October 5, 2010Enough Already!

Jeeze, Louise! Last week when I was preparing to travel from the Aerie to the Bolt Hole, the weather forecasters were talking about a chance of showers on Monday and Tuesday of this week, but their numbers were in the 30 and 40% range. So what happens? It's been raining pretty steadily since Sunday evening and they now predict showers for the rest of the week (at least through Friday) in the 70 and 80% range.

As of now, the weekend is looking nice. Hope it stays that way. No, make that: I hope the forecasters are as accurate with this short range forecast as they were last Friday morning. (That would mean the sun will come out this afternoon and stay out for a week!)

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At least the wood got split last Saturday. Unfortunately, it's been sitting in a heap out there in this rain and will be soaking wet when I finally get to go out a stack it.

As for where it will be stacked...Sunday Mark and I spent the morning bracing up the roof of the woodshed attached to the house. Then I spent some time moving the wood that was already in there into a more accessible location (away from the back wall and closer to the door to the kitchen) so I can put the newly spit wood in there to season a bit longer while still having some "older" wood to burn this fall.

Moving the firewood away from the wall exposed some serious damage to the exterior wall and one of the corners in particular. The damn thing was constructed on rough-cut 2 x 6 sills laid directly on the ground. Carpenter ants love that stuff! As does all sorts of fungi. In one corner, where the rain ans snow melt comes off of two roofs in large quantities, moisture, fungi and ants have pretty much turned a non-pressure treated rough-cut sill into soil and a post into so much lace. I'll probably spend lots more time replacing this wood shed in the near future so, for now, I simply braced that corner up as best I could so I can get the firewood inside when the weather does finally clear.

I should have been ready for all these Bolt Hole repairs after years of watching This Old House but most of them still are coming as a surprise.

******

I guess I'll have to switch over to some rainy-day projects.

Put on my electrician's hat and do some rewiring. Lots of canvas and tar wires that need to be replaced and a couple of 25-amp circuit breakers to be switched out to 15-amp service so the breakers can do their job of tripping off when the circuit is overloaded instead of having the outlet or junction boxes fry and, maybe, burning the place down.

Then there will be a trip to the grocery store. And, probably, the hardware store.

College Football Week 5 Results

Week 5

With so many games pitting ranked teams against another (#1 vs #7, #4 vs #9, #8 vs #21, #11 vs #24, and #17 vs #22). And with so many match-ups featuring two undefeated teams, the results of this week's games should bring about changes.

[The three numbers for the rankings are from the AP Top 25, The Harris Coaches’ Poll, and CBSSports.com. An “NR” means that that particular poll did Not Rank the team.]

1/1/1 Alabama (5-0) the Tide had little difficulty with #7 Florida (4-1) as the outmanned the Gators 31-6.

2/2/2 Ohio State (5-0) The Buckeyes started their Big 10 season with a 24-13 defeat of the Illini of Illinois (2-2).

3/3/3 Boise State (4-0) The Broncos romped over New Mexico State (0-4) as they shutout the Aggies 59-0.

4/4/5 Oregon (5-0) The Ducks’ LaMichael James rushed 31 times for 257 yards and 3 TDs and teammate Darron Thomas completed 20 of 29 passes for 238 yards and 3 TDs while rushing 15 times for 117 yards and another TD. Still, they trailed at the half 31-24 before scoring 28 unanswered second half points to beat #9 Stanford (4-1) 52-31.

5/5/4 TCU (5-0) The Horned Frogs shut out Colorado State (1-4) 27-0.

6/6/6 Nebraska (4-0) The Cornhuskers will have the week off.

7/7/8 Florida (4-1) The Gators lost to #1 Alabama (5-0) 31-6.

8/8/9 Oklahoma (5-0) The Sooners remained undefeated beating #21 Texas (3-2) 28-20.

9/13/12 Stanford (4-1) The Cardinal ran out of luck in the second half as they lost to #4 Oregon Ducks (5-0) 52-31.

10/11/7 Auburn (5-0) The Tigers tamed the La.-Monroe Lions (1-3) 52-3.

11/9/11 Wisconsin (4-1) The Badgers dropped their Big 10 season opener against #24 Michigan State (5-0) 34-24.

12/10/15 LSU (5-0) The Tigers got lucky when Tennessee (2-3) had too many men on the field on what could have been the last play of the game. Instead LSU got a second chance and scored a TD with no time on the clock to win 16-14.

13/12/10 Utah (4-0) The Utes will have the week off.

14/14/13 Arizona (4-0) The Wildcats will be idle this week.

15/15/17 Arkansas (3-1) The Razorbacks will also have the week off.

16/17/20 Miami (Fla.) (3-1) The Hurricane defeated the Clemson Tigers (2-2) 30-21.

17/18/18 Iowa (4-1) The Hawkeyes drubbed the #22 Penn State Nittany Lions (3-2) this week 24-3.

18/NA/16 Southern California(4-1)The Trojans lost a squeaker to the Washington Huskies (2-2) 32-31 when the Huskies' Erik Folk hit 32-yard field goal as time expired.

19/22/19 South Carolina (3-1) The Gamecocks have the week off.

20/19/14 Michigan (4-0) The Wolverines will play at Indiana (3-0).

21/16/24 Texas (3-2) The Longhorns lost to #8 Oklahoma Sooners (5-0) 28-20.

22/20/25 Penn State (3-2) The Nittany Lions go manhandled by the #17 Iowa Hawkeyes (4-1) 24-3.

23/NA/23 North Carolina State (4-1) The Wolfpack lead the Virginia Tech Hokies (3-2) 30-21 in the fourth quarter. Unfortunately for NC State, Va Tech went on to score the final 20 points of the game and won pulling away 41-30.

24/21/21 Michigan State (5-0) The Spartans defeated the #11 Wisconsin Badgers (4-1) 34-24.

25/25/22 Nevada (5-0) The Wolfpack’s Vai Taua ran for 188 yards and 3 TDs. He also scored a TD on a Colin Kaepernick pass as Nevada beat UNLV (1-4) 44-26.

NA/22/NA Missouri (4-0) The Tigers have the week off.

NA/24/NA Oklahoma State (4-0) The Cowboys beat Texas A&M (3-1) 38-35.

Bolt Hole Report, October 2, 2010

I took advantage of today's cool temperatures, light breeze and fair skies to do all the wood splitting that needed to be done. It only took me from around 9:30 until 2:30 to get 'er done. The constant running of the log splitter was only interrupted when the tank ran dry and for a half hour lunch break. Now I've got a huge pile of split wood in need of stacking. That will be the job for tomorrow.

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Meanwhile, Mark came over this evening to ask if I had moved all the wood from the barn the last time I was here. Er, NO. There was still a wheel barrow full or so left on the pallets. It was taken. How about the half dozen flag stones in front of the cabin door? he asked. Er, NO! didn't you take them? I tell you, this petty thievery is really starting to get me a little angry. I guess I can look forward to more firewood being stolen from the barn as soon as I get it stacked in there. Doesn't do any good to complain about it either. How do you trace flagstones and firewood when the former are pretty nondescript and the latter is burned to ash before you even know it's gone? I'd put an infrared game camera in the barn, but that would probably get stolen too.

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On a positive side, the weather was gorgeous today. Just under 40 degrees when I got up at 6:30, it warmed to 50 degrees this afternoon. Barely broke a sweat as I did the wood splitting. There was a pretty strong upper elevation wind blowing from the north in the morning if the clouds were any indication, and the geese were taking advantage of that tail wind as skein after skein made their way south. before I started the splitter there was a constant honking of the high fliers overhead.

Tonight is supposed to be quite cool with the temperatures getting down close to 30 degrees. At least they've taken the rain out of the forecast. Good thing since it might have been snow flurries instead!

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If I remember correctly, the dark bands at either end of the wooley bear are supposed to represent the fall and spring while the middle brown stretch is the winter. The larger the band the longer the season and, in the case of winter, the more severe. If that's correct, we are going to be in for one hell of a winter! THe three caterpillars I found today among the logs all sported very small black ends and long brown middles. Oh oh!

Bolt Hole Report, October 1, 2010

I enjoyed an uneventful ride to the northland. I ran into no rain although there were a few spots where it appeared that it had rained shortly before my arrival.

Radio news carried several reports of flooded roads but not where I was riding. Many of the rivers and streams I crossed were very high but that's to be expected. When I emptied the rain gauge this morning at the Aerie there was 5 inches of water in it. Syracuse reported only 2.66 inches but even that was good for a September record. (Most in any given 24-hour period in that city.)

I also heard on the radio that some sections of Route 11 around the Cortland area were affected by mud slides, but I skirted west of that area on Routes 13 and 281 and saw none of that. Then there were reports about a failed retaining wall in Polaski, NY on the Salmon River. Being on Lake Ontario, that was much further northwest than I was going. The West Canada Creek and Mohawk River were extremely high and, in spots, out of their banks, but even they were still below the danger levels.

The only traffic tie-up I saw was on I-481 where the southbound lanes were being closed so crews could install some new overhead signs.

Arriving at the Bolt Hole I unhitched the trailer and then checked in with Mark. He had a 5 gallon bucket sitting in his yard that had close to 7 inches of water in it. Since these buckets are pretty close to cylindrical--having the same diameter at the top and bottom--that 7 inches is within an inch or so of the real measure of rain in the area. Points east of here had even more. It didn't even stop raining over in Albany area until closer to 1 PM this afternoon.

The forecast for the area of the Bolt Hole is for a clear and very cool night (40 degrees or there abouts) and mostly sunny but cool (mid 50s) on Saturday. There's a chance of some more showers late Saturday night but that's about it until mid week.

Aerie Report, October 1, 2010

Unlike NYC to the east where the continuing rain has prompted flood watches and advisories...IN THE CITY, here at the Aerie the rain ended sometime around 3 AM this morning. It's still overcast and threatening, but the weather gurus are saying it's over. The same is pretty much true for the Bolt Hole to the north. The rain has ended and there's a promise of some sunshine this afternoon.

Flood watches and warnings still exist for much of the area between here and the Bolt Hole. The West and East Canada Creeks, and Mohawk River in the southwest 'Dacks will be cresting later today as the runoff from the smaller creeks and rivers reaches them. There don't seem to be any warnings around the Aerie. Perhaps the low level of the rivers before this event took place has something to do with the rapid step down from the flood warnings and watches of yesterday.

I've a few things to do this morning before I head to the Bolt Hole with the log splitter in tow for a couple of weeks of hunting and chores. Can't wait to see how things are along the way.

Later.