I feel great!!!

[4rum]

Thanks for asking. Warmed up nicely yesterday, as I passed by the old push mower I had the urge. Primed 'er, pulled the string, started first crank (I have a witness... Ladyrum was there). Mowed a little grass, walked over the yard to see what all was sproutin'... yep... I feel great... thanks fer askin'.

[Bez]

4rum wrote: Thanks for asking. Warmed up nicely yesterday, as I passed by the old push mower I had the urge. Primed 'er, pulled the string, started first crank (I have a witness... Ladyrum was there). Mowed a little grass, walked over the yard to see what all was sproutin'... yep... I feel great... thanks fer askin'.


Hi again...I feel great too. Had a 30 minute walk to the shop where i bought a bike last Saturday ....picked up the bike and rode it home...happily with the wind behind me. It must be 20+ years since I last rode a bike and I was a bit wobbly at first....I could feel all people in cars overtaking me thinking 'geez' another nutter on the road. i know some one who gives 'road aware' classes...might take advantage as there is a big difference driving a car and then being a vulnerable cyclist...anyway....I'm off for some more wobbly cycling...see you later.



As you've been so busy, take a break and visit the Coffee shop. Clipper will be pleased to see you and I have a feeling you two will get on like a 'house on fire' !

[Peg]

4rum wrote: Thanks for asking. Warmed up nicely yesterday, as I passed by the old push mower I had the urge. Primed 'er, pulled the string, started first crank (I have a witness... Ladyrum was there). Mowed a little grass, walked over the yard to see what all was sproutin'... yep... I feel great... thanks fer askin'.
Warmer weather and fresh air does that to me too. By the way, welcome to the garden.:-6

[chonsigirl]

Pushing the lawn mower! Not yet for me, thankfully!

It is 44 here, going up to 56 today!

[randall]

:-6

randall here,

YOUR "PUSH MOWER" has a motor????

Whatever will they think of next.

Will progress never end?

God bless.

randall

:D

[4rum]

Thanx all for the great reception here... uh... you too randall:wah:

[4rum]

...uh...actually no... it means that on another site my name was earschplitinloudenboomer... I didn't get many replies:wah: This name is short, and I'm lazy.

[Bez]

4rum wrote: ...uh...actually no... it means that on another site my name was earschplitinloudenboomer... I didn't get many replies:wah: This name is short, and I'm lazy.


......

[minks]

Bez wrote: ......


4 you seem to be fitting in nicely

[4rum]

...thank you

[Bez]

Done all your planting for the day 4rum?

[4rum]

Bez... no, I'm at work. If it's not raining when I get home this evening, I want to plant some lettuce. I found a new variety (new to me), it's called Ceasar's, I believe because it will go so nicely in a Ceasar Salad. The picture certainly looks as though it would.

I also found a new variety of tomatoe. It's called a Red Lightning... it has a varigated skin of the most brilliant reds I've ever seen. I hope the fruit is as pretty as the picture on the package. It should be!!! The seed packette was $1.34 (US), there were only 9 tomatoe seeds in it.

I have loads of flower seeds to tend to also, day lillies, red lupines, poppies, marigolds, shasta daisies, and I always till and plant wildflowers near my veggie garden, makes it ever so cheery.

...uh... got a little carried away there.... sorry....

[Bez]

4rum wrote: Bez... no, I'm at work. If it's not raining when I get home this evening, I want to plant some lettuce. I found a new variety (new to me), it's called Ceasar's, I believe because it will go so nicely in a Ceasar Salad. The picture certainly looks as though it would.



I also found a new variety of tomatoe. It's called a Red Lightning... it has a varigated skin of the most brilliant reds I've ever seen. I hope the fruit is as pretty as the picture on the package. It should be!!! The seed packette was $1.34 (US), there were only 9 tomatoe seeds in it.



I have loads of flower seeds to tend to also, day lillies, red lupines, poppies, marigolds, shasta daisies, and I always till and plant wildflowers near my veggie garden, makes it ever so cheery.



...uh... got a little carried away there.... sorry....


I think planting wildflowers near veg is good for keeping some of the bugs away....a natural way of pest control....looks pretty too.

[Bryn Mawr]

SnoozeControl wrote: Its already a whopping 48 degrees at 5:30 AM, so the weather is definitely improving here too... and my boss was actually pleasant to me yesterday.




Is that farenhight or centigrade?

On third thoughts, being Utah, it's probably absolute!

[randall]

:-6

randall to 4RUM,

No insult intended.

You would be amazed at the amount of people here who still have antigue grass mowers which they push backward and forwards - and they are usually quite well off.

Probably that is why they have so much money in their old age.

My father bought a six penny hand saw for wood out of Woolworths in the early 1930's (They were 6 p and 12 p in those days just like your nickle and dime stores.

He died at ninety and remained convinced that that was all anyone ever required to saw wood even although it was bent and would never saw in a straight line.

God bless.

randall.

:)

PS My spell checker has disappeared again - it certainly has a mind of its own.

[Bez]

randall wrote: :-6

randall to 4RUM,

No insult intended.

You would be amazed at the amount of people here who still have antigue grass mowers which they push backward and forwards - and they are usually quite well off.

Probably that is why they have so much money in their old age.

My father bought a six penny hand saw for wood out of Woolworths in the early 1930's (They were 6 p and 12 p in those days just like your nickle and dime stores.

He died at ninety and remained convinced that that was all anyone ever required to saw wood even although it was bent and would never saw in a straight line.

God bless.

randall.

:)

PS My spell checker has disappeared again - it certainly has a mind of its own.


Hi Randall

My Dad was a carpenter and he used to go off to work with his canvas bag full of all sorts of 'antique' tools. He would be in seventh heaven if he took a look in B&Q today. How much easier his life would have been.....unfortunately he died in 1977 so was never able to take advantage of all the modern stuff.

[4rum]

Hey Randall;



I may owe you an apology. That crack about "you too Randall" was meant in the best way. I did follow with one of those smiliey things. I was poking fun at your friendly comment.

Some times text is so hard to interpret as to the intent of the author.

[randall]

:-6

Thanks 4RUM, randall understands you perfectly, Maybe I am too sensitive but I hate upsetting anyone.

The source of one of the biggest problems in my life.

You may have noticed that I asked recently is there not a "SMILLIE" for "Wistfull" or "Wistfully Thinking."

There should - either or both.

God bless.

randall

:)

[randall]

:-6

randall wearily studying the sky,

Woke up yesterday mornint to fairly big snowflakes falling. 7th April. 2006 - soon cleared but temperature didn't want to rise.

Took another "snow" photo from the front door.

Bright and sunny today - hailstones at 1000. 8th April. 2006.

Can a weather clock go backwards?

Even the weather girls seem puzzled and are being very apologetic.

We certainly don't blame them.

They can only record what the weather IS.

God bless.

randall

:)

PS I once had to cancel a church drive in a bus in MAY about 1950 owing to severe brlizzards!

[Bez]

Hello Randall...ther's smilies for every expression you can think of.........



confused



unsure :-3



thinking



When you post, look at the bottom of the 'army' of smilies and 'click' on [More]...there's loads to choose from :-6 Bez

[randall]

:-6

I DON'T BELIEVE IT! Two minutes ago I wrote a post and the spell checker had appeared. Now on my second post it has vanishicated agaiin? :-6 You''ve got to laugh!

randall here,

Dear Bez, what on earth would this forum do without all you, and all the other girls too of course, like Lady Cop, Allie. And Dear Abbie.

You have given me all the encouragement that anyone could have asked for and GMC and Arnold Layne and the other gentlemen have also been a great source of help and inspiraqtion.

Your news about your father being a ship's carpenter (SHIPWRIGHT) was bery interesting to me as when I started the sea they were among an elite group of mechant navy petty officers including the bosun, lamp trimmer and the Engineroom's No.1 (That's true, that's all he was ever called.)

That group of PO's took first trippers, junior engineers and cadets (Midshipmen in the Blue Funnel) under their wings and taught them almost everything they were ever going to learn about the sea. Stopped them from going astray in foreign ports and spent endless hours giving them geographical knowledge as many of them served on the same ship for twenty years - away for up to five years at a time - so there was little they did not know.

I mourned their passing.

The "Ships Carpenter" or "Chippie") part from woodwork, i.e. repairing the wooden lifeboats making beautiful toolboxes for members of the crew including souveniers to earn some ocket money.

His job included sounding tanks (measuring the depth of liquid - if there was supposed to be liquid in the tank - or to find out if liquid had suddenly appeared in an otherwiise dry tank) every type of tank in the ship at least twice a day.

A general term was double bottom tanks which describes them exactly.

In more recent years there have been more and more "side tanks" for the same purposes and also used to bring a ship upright - don't dare go through an American Canal with one side higher than the other (especially if you are a foreigner - they'll come down on you like a ton of bricks and fine you fifty thousand doallars into the bargain.)

The figures the "Chippie" collected were written on chalk on a blackboard just outside the engineroom entrance.

I honestly believe that a lot of modern day "accidents" are the direct result of the removal of all those unsung heroes.

I doubt if he would have envyed B & Q as much as you might think Bez.

I wanted to be a joiner, and I still have a little wooden hand plane given to me at Christmas when I was eight years old as I was building up my "set of tools".

When you got a new wooden plane like that, jack plane or block plane, short or long - some were/are nearly a yard long.

Your first job was to remove the cutting blade and wedge and block up the blade slit with putty. The wood was normally well seasoned beech.

Then you filled the hole with raw linseed oil and left it on a shelf. This was topped up every day as the wood absorbed it. AND you did not use that plane until the oil showed at both ends of the wooden plane. It could take weeks.

Modern tools do not do a better job - they only require less care otherwise they will rust. It easier to adjust the angle of the blade etc with a screw attachment but it was very easy to pick up the skill of adjusting the blades of wooden planes with a tap of the hammer in one end or the other, on one side or the other.

But it may interest you that the tools I saw old-very old, Japanese woodworkers and carvers away back in the early nineteen fifties using, I used to stand and watch them for a hour at a time - sometimes - I have a model of a black bear which I stood and watched a Japanese wood carver carve, sitting cross legged on one of the floors for a Moji, (Far Western End of the Inland Sea Of Japan) department store.

The model is a little bigger than my hand and I watched him finish it by carving his mark on the soles of one of the feet. He used his bare feet as a vice against the floor and a large block of wood and one was fascinated by the fact that one slip of those very sharp tools could have given him a very bad foot indeed.

He handed the white wooden bear to his wife and she stained it black with spirit stain.

I bought it and then with a set of Japanese hand engraving tools carved the date and place name on the sole of another foot so I would always know where it came from (In those days the rate of exchange was 1,000 YEN to the pound.)

It still has [pride of place amongst our ornaments.

NOW these tools are appearing in highclass glossy tool catalogues in Britain as they are reputed to be superior in many respects to the mass produced western tools.

A western saw cuts as you push it - an far eastern saw cuts as you pull it. They claim it gives a cleaner and less jagged cut.

As I said part of the "Chippies" duties were sounding fuel tanks, water tanks, sea water tanks and dry cofferdams which usually were very narrow tanks right across the ship between say a fuel oil tank and a fresh water tank. That meant if one or the other leaked it did not contaminate the other tank.

Then there were the massive ballast tanks that were filled with sea when the ship had little or no cargo to keep her down in the water.

These modern mammoth super tankers and bulk ore carriers are a nightmare when they are empty as the wind literally blows them sideways right off course. (Their massive side area acts as a huge sail.)DESPITE THEIR BALLAST TANKS BEING FULL!

One I was on, the MV "Norse Pilot", carried eighteen hundred cars from Yokosuka in Tokyo Bay to Cambden across the river from Philadelphia.

With her own four Haggland Cranes she could discharge them in twelve hours and then load another eighteen hundred American cars for Kuwait.

Kuwait had nothing to offer so she had to sail "in ballast" all the way back to Yokusuka .

In the South China Sea east of Singapore she was blown so far sideways that they ran out of fuel and had to go into Manila to get enough fuel to reach Japan again.

Right round the world every three months or so.

The accommodation was luxurious and I have always said that when you get a ship with luxudious accommodation, look out. Something else is wrong somewhere.

To my surprise ther mains engine was made by "HITACHI" and was a litteral nightmare and rarely ran for more than two days without us having to stop the ship owing to trouble with the main engine fuel injectors.

Even after THE HITATCHI MEN came aboard in Japan and completely overhauled them she only steamed eighteen hours before we had to stop to change one again.

God bless you all.

randalll,

:)

[Bez]

GOODNESS RANDALL....you should write a book about your travels, experiences and the people you have met. You have so many wonderful memories to recount...xx Bez