Category: Self reliance

well, that was not difficult – alternator replacement

My trusty Toyota Tacoma 2005 2.7L at 218k miles was doing fine, until recently I noticed a high pitched whine from the engine area, even when the truck was not moving.  The whine was pronounced some days, less so others.  It did not seem to come from the engine block (good) but one of the accessories.  The serpentine belt is a long belt driven by the engine crankshaft which turns the alternator (charges the battery), the power steering pump, the water pump and the A/C compressor and is held under Read more [...]

leaf bag experiment and a cable sizing conundrum

My leaf bag collecting operations produce confusion for some neighbors and emulation with others.  A close neighbor, whose current preoccupation is the recent resignation of Mark Richt, the UGA football coach, was unclear whether I was collecting the leaf bags in order to keep the paper bags or for the leaves, and if the latter, why?  On a more pleasing but also disconcerting note some, or at least one  neighbor, has also begun removing leaf bags from the curbside - new competition for next year?.  Read more [...]

update on growing, blueberries, leaf bag collection, shoe repair & ups

Today is Nov 20 and, after lots of rain earlier in the week the past few days have been in the 60's and 70's and no freezing temps yet.  So my fall greens (collard, kale, turnip greens and radishes) have been doing really well with minimal pest evidence. Each year I get a little better.  I pull the weeds early and cover the growing areas with growth.  Garlic is different since it does not provide shading leaves and does poorly with weeds so I weed carefully before planting garlic and then Read more [...]

gravel drive

My drive is 220 ft long and is a gravel drive with most of the original gravel buried, worn or washed away.  Time for a new face.  I contacted the local trucking company and dispatch was not available but the accounting lady, who acknowledged she was not very knowledgeable about gravel, suggested that #34 gravel would work and that it costs $30.50 a ton.  A ton is 2,000 lbs which is what she was referring to, though there is also a metric ton which is defined as 1,000 kg which equates to 2,204.6 Read more [...]

podcasts and technical issues

I travel almost daily to north Georgia and the roundtrip is about 2 hours and tho NPR often has topics of interest, what I really enjoy is listening to the podcasts I have downloaded.  In the early days I burned the podcasts onto cd's which I played in the truck's cd player, then I acquired a Sansa Clip mp3 player and played the podcasts back over a portable battery powered speaker positioned close to my ear. One of my tech savvy sons gave me a Go Groove x2  - a bluetooth device which plugs Read more [...]

3 sisters, a new brush, problem = solution, food from the garden

3 sisters 3 sisters refers to the practice of growing corn, climbing beans and squash closely together with the corn providing scaffolding for the beans, the beans providing nitrogen fixing and their hairy stems dissuading insects, and the squash shading out weeds and enabling water retention by the soil.  My 3 sisters appear to be doing ok, though I now realize some fine tuning is needed for next year. You can see the beans wrapping round the stalks. But is the corn handy scaffolding, Read more [...]

when things go wrong

When I last mowed the grass/growth in the main chicken paddock, I left the center unmowed because the clover was in bloom and pollinators were busy.  So on Tuesday I fired up the lawn tractor (see prior posts on various repairs including welding of deck) and as I did the first outer loop happened to notice a clutch of eggs in a hollow at the base of a pine tree. Three hens participated and since no one was on patrol I assume convenience and the summer heat contributed to the decision - why Read more [...]

catch me if I let you

A senior credit manager once told me:  "Catch me once, shame on you, catch me twice, shame on me."  Which may be fine in the world of relationships but for the consumer in this  information filled internet world the maxim should be:  "Catch me once, shame on me!"  Last week 2 incidents when I was almost caught and by "caught" I mean taken advantage of. Ever since I rebuilt my Troy Bilt chipper shredder engine (model # 47330) in August 2013- see post on seized engine repair it has performed Read more [...]

the wonderful world of free internet college courses

I didn't post this site at all in May.  Not because I had stopped my growing activities or lost interest but because I was completing 2 demanding courses on electronics and programming and am in the middle of a new course on Python programming. College education of your choosing at your convenience with the world's best colleges for free!  If you are interested and can make time available, this is a bonanza. My education in South Africa and England was in law, accounting, business and the Read more [...]

my 4 mowers, and mower deck repair

I have 4 mowers.  I use a scythe (21" blade)  to clear the growth under  fruit trees for which it is ideal.  Extend the blade to the near side of the trunk and pull sharply toward you and the weeds are leveled, all while standing a distance away without worries of snagging branches or snakes (I refer to the venomous ones - copperheads or occasional rattler).  It is also useful on a hillside where riding a mower is iffy. For how I peen my scythe and hand sickle, search "peen" on this site. Next Read more [...]