Shop Time w/T.W. Friends

I've got 36min to go.

 

tomorrow for us

 

Afternoon guys, about 13 below right now(sposed to be 6 above)...sposed to be 20 above by sunday.
About the heat...we heat primarily with wood, we have a boiler and it IS hooked to hydronic baseboards but we rarely use it as it is terribly inefficient..speak of the oil bills mentioned.
Well lastnight i noticed the wood stove letting out a bit too much smoke when the door is opened...seemed like maybe the pipe was getting blocked up? So i fiddled with the damper thats not sposed to be there and clink! The rod popped the rest of the way off the flapper inside.. so i had to let the fire go out, pulled the baffle plate from inside and took a mirror to look up the pipe. I found the damper unhooked and managed to use a steel rod to shove it back up there and had the wife operate the rod back into its spot..
Well... with that fixed i inspected the pipe best i could and determined that about 5ft up ive got some build up necking the pipe from 6 to about 4 inches....so, no heat since last night, other than the toyo and now im headed up the roof to clean the pipe. This has never happened before...we've always made it through the winter without having to clean the pipe?? Woods the same and our burn habits are the same....only difference is the mild weather we've had this year...
Hey, all u guys with old houses...mind posting us some pics? Im especially interested in this house from the 1800s..love to see the rough cut beams in that basement!

 

I WILL win the 10mm battle!!!!!

 

2°F last week, almost 60°F today. I jumped on the opportunity. Only problem was the yard was still frozen, so getting the stakes out of the ground for the inflatables was a job!

 

Awesome stuff!

 

About 90 minutes with the old Ford to do some cleaning on the driveway.

Really using the chains to break the ice a bit then plow - repeat, repeat.

There is still ice, if it freezes hard now it will be like a hockey rink.
(a hockey rink on a steep slope)

The photo is accurate, the driveway is both a down grade and a slope to the left.

 

Just had a nice (cheap) piece of steak for dinner, actually impressed myself.
3 ingredient prep: sea salt, black pepper and a bit of butter on the skillet.

Mrs Green got me some nice McCormick brand pepper for Christmas - she knows I will buy the cheap Mart brand for myself.
The McCormick is very coarse and vibrant tasting, I might be spoiled...

 

Typically i only use salt and pepper. Once in a while i'll use some garlic powder

 

Looks like I’m shopping for new front axles, every shop nearby would rather replace the whole assembly than replace the boots. Guess I’ll learn how to replace the boots after I get the axles replaced.

 

The biggest improvement to my meat cooking was a little digital thermometer. Nobody taught me anything about cooking and I have no innate talent either.

I was always concerned that meat wouldn't be cooked enough, the thermometer showed me I was cooking everything way too hot and way too long. It is kind of like a torque wrench for cooking, the spec says it is done - I still have no talent but I can work with a spec.

Only about $14 at The Club.

 

For steaks i use time, chicken and everything else i use thermometer. I like steaks proper med rare.

 

This is what I have been going by, initially I was cooking them to about 175!

Unsurprisingly, pulling them from the heat in the 135 - 140 area makes a big improvement.

 

175° is closer to a roast

 

...or leather...

 

The day I started cooking to temperature instead of time was a game changer. And that only happened a few years ago.

What really starts messing with your head (at least the first time you do it) is when you get into cooking with a sous vide and instead of cooking chicken to 165, which is drilled into you as being the safe temperature, you can cook it to 147 because it's in the water bath for 2 hours and gets pasteurized.

 

Find them when you need them,
Poof all gone

 

I have never cooked a piece of chicken in my life.

Remember, I think store brand mac & cheese is just fine so my personal standard is really low.

I did attempt cooking fish once, it was truly awful.
I was glad Mrs Green was out of town - the reason for cooking it in the first place.

I did eat it ...

because it was paid for ...
and I was hungry ...
it was the most horrible thing I have ever eaten ...

 

Initial verdict on the shovel:

The UHMW blade is very slippery so snow doesn't stick to it like the metal shovels.
The down side to that being it doesn't make for a good scooping/lifting shovel at all since everything just slides off of it. But it is a great pushing shovel.
I was also mistaken that my current shovels were 36". They are more like 30" so this should make for one or two fewer passes on the driveway. But then I'll have to either get out the scoop shovel or the blower.
The 1/4" thick, blunt edge was already better at scraping than I was expecting it to be, which was surprising. I thought it would take more use to sharpen up the edge first.
There is a different sound for the plastic versus the metal on the concrete. It sounds less grating.