Pellet heads!! What's up today?

green and gold garage party.

 

I currently have seven laying hens. Only one of them has a name, Ebony and she is a Black Jersey Giant (and yes she is rather large), the other 6 aren't named. Ebony is from my 2009 flock and is still producing eggs. Lost Ivory last year. I only named a few of the girls from the 2009 flock. Ivory was a White Rock.

 

First press.

 

Saw my niece yesterday at Tsc. She was buying chicken grain. She told me she had a hen who had chicks. Now she has 6, not laying yet. But also told me she is getting a coup and 8 laying hens. This should be interesting. She is a school teacher raising three sons. Their dad passed 11 years ago. Tough young woman.

 

Only decision I've made, is realizing that showing the 'Pellet Boss' samples of Pergo XP was a tactical error on my part, BIG TIME.

-Anything- I do this point forward will have to look -exactly- like that.. Time for some Beer Therapy.

-Thank You- for posting the 10% off link in the thread, did some scouting on the site, unfortunately the "Sugar House Maple" option was nowhere to be found.
I may end up 'procuring' 10,000 sample pieces from various box-stores throughout the country, gluing them all together, and calling it a day.

More realistic option: Tiling in the mud room, laundry room, bathroom, hallway, kitchen area, and wide-pine flooring in the living room..

We have used wide plank pine boards to border the garden beds here in the past, had some extra in the shed out back. I pulled one of the boards into the living room, and asked the 'Boss' what she thought about something like that, e.g. wide plank white pine flooring in the living room area, and ceramic tiling in the kitchen area.

* She liked it, reminded her of her grandmother's (circa 1880's) house when she would visit NH w/ her folks, when she was young. There may be hope with this option. Going to HD this week (with the Pergo XP sample) to see what stains are available / for some color matching and experimenting. And tiling. I'm cool with this: her being happy with whatever we end up doing, is the most important part.

Have been focusing on work, and getting a vehicle equipped to haul more pellets (and tiling and flooring) this week.
--
Purchased a Reece trailer hitch on amazon for the Ford Taurus, using the Warehouse Deals option. Being a prime member, they took another 10% off at checkout, scored a new trailer hitch, in re-boxed packaging, for $58.00 - that was huge, score a big +1 for Amazon. Arrived in 3 days, free shipping, only visible difference vs. new was a small paint blemish by the receiver, which would happen the first time I use it anyway. A few quick sprays of black gloss enamel paint took care of that.

Installed the hitch this week - it went well, but still a bit sore from hours of maneuvering and bolting the hitch into place. Got the 'plug and play' wiring kit, that gets installed tomorrow, the utility trailer gets re-registered on Tuesday, should be back-in-business for hauling 'stuff' by Wednesday this week. Not soon enough, w/ winter approaching here.

For flooring, same timeline here - nothing before Turkey day. The girls have been warned, no 'car-loads' worth of prized-college-possessions coming home with them over winter-break this time around, we won't have the room. Both are willing to help out on the install, so whatever is decided, I'm a happy Dad! This will be a fun project.

 

Yesterday was a day of dichotomy: I mowed (probably the last time unless I just mow/mulch the leaves instead of raking), went for a nice ride thru the Monadnock region (fantastic colors right now), then cleaned both stoves since they've been running for several weeks.

 

I'll be more impressed when you have a fermenter full (6 or more gallons) and the air lock is gluging. That is barely enough to to be sure it is apple cider. Did you find a lab animal to try it on?

 

Yep, it should be interesting.

 

I'll volunteer, please.

 

Apologize to WWW for me, sorry I posted that. Misery loves company..

Won't know how we'll proceed, until I re-crunch the numbers with low(er) cost tiling in the mix, supplies, etc. May still be going with Pergo XP in the living room, the Boss has the final say in the matter. I'm just a 'worker' bee. I still got to figure out how to stain white pine to look like 'honey maple', in any case. (Like I needed another self-imposed project. (shaking head))

Also have to be very cognizant of the girls upcoming college tuition for Spring '16 - the payment interval between fall & spring tuition is short / need to make sure they're financially cleared for the Spring semester, before any moderate or major capital purchases.

We'll probably start piecing stuff together over the next few weeks, the wife and I will most likely be 'gifting' flooring to each other this holiday.. Last year it was the pellet stove / venting / and pellets here. But I have buy (extra of) her favorite 'beverage' and extra Smoothies for that discussion though.