Shop Time w/T.W. Friends

Guy I used to work with gave me a recipe for squirrel chowder (pronounced chow-duh) that called for 8-12 grey squirrels. The weird thing is Maine has an open season on grey squirrel, meaning shooting them any other time of the year would be illegally harvesting them. Which is kind of weird. You can shoot as many red squirrels as you want year round, but I’m guessing it would take more than 12 to make a decent chowder.

 

Meat Church bbq on YouTube has some great videos on ribs, I’ve followed his recipes before with good success. I have cooked chicken and other things at higher temps on my pellet grill, (350-450*) and they come out well. Tastes like it was cooked on open fire vs a really smoky flavor, still very good. One thing I would be careful of is drying out the turkey. Just a regular chicken breast has a very slim window between great, and drier than sawdust.

 

The insurance goes dormant December 1 until March 1 - back to driving the old daily van.

 

My wife is probably tired of me texting her instructions about the smoker from work ..

 

My at least 43 year old 1/2 drive craftsman started to skip. Sentimental value- I got it when I was 15…

I thought I needed a rebuild kit so I ordered the one in the pic below.

I disassembled the ratchet only to find it wasn’t the right kit. I guess my gasketless ratchet pre-dates the kit

I looked at the original pawl and quick release gear and found them in good condition. Grimey and caked with crud in most interior places so I went ahead and cleaned everything. Wiped everything done and lubed with powdered graphite I had on hand.

Bingo bango Bob’s your uncle, I have a cleaned up, perfectly functioning ratchet

It’s the small things in life that brings me joy

PM me with your name and address if you can use the rebuild kit.

 

So your wife is doing the smoking and you're claiming it? Be very careful with this one!

 

I like to think of her as my.. assistant lol

 

you better hope she doesn't see this!

 

She don't think about you at all.

 

Update from the assistant/main chef?

 

How are you not home to sample those?

 

Someone has to make sure people's fishing boats are good to go haha. It is killing me to not be there myself though

 

You're almost done with the day! AND you'll have food waiting for you when you get home

 

Mine thinks of me as part of her staff...many levels below her cats.

 

Well fellers, another afternoon under the sink & in the cellar - the entertainment never ends on this job...

I thought I should at least attempt some sort of insulation on the heat run in the crawlspace, I got this stuff at Slowes, it wasn't too expensive.



Usually with insulation thicker is better however I have enough problems already under here - I ain't jacking with thick fiberglass.

For my convenience I used a strip of Gorilla brand double sided tape to hold the starting end in place.



Stick the start:



And finish with foil tape:



I know it isn't R-99 but what the heck, I did something and it didn't cost much.

 

Probably will help with noise reduction. Those ducts can be noisy when they heat and cool off as well.

 

Someone helpfully put this 2 million lumen light bulb right where I have to work...

 

It's al led. Had to be some one you know?

I hang out with a couple guys, too. "Me" and "Myself". Both can be real assholes.

 

I have heard warm air systems make noise but never observed it here - there really wasn't much ductwork to make noise though.

I grew up in a house with a steam boiler, those systems had a whole collection of character noises, they would creep visitors out as it often sounded like footsteps upstairs.

 

So there, one kind of insulated duct.
Now to go play Tetris under the sink to get it connected.