New England B.S. Thread

It's a 36v Minn Kota Ulterra with I-Pilot Link. It's the one with auto deploy and trim. 112 lbs of thrust. It's awesome!

 

Damn that’s a nice setup. I am supposedly getting a small boat from the girlfriends dad and have been looking for a trolling motor. This popped up recently:
https://westernmass.craigslist.org/spo/d/south-hadley-minn-kota-powerdrive-v2/7106872143.html

You’ve been happy with Minn Kota in the past?

 

I have run both Minn Kota and Motorguide. I love the electronic aspect of the Minn Kota but I have had numerous faulty switches leading to foot pedal replacements. The motorguides that I had used have the cable system. it takes a little getting used to but More reliable IMO. Then again, I haven't spent more than $700 on a trolling motor. I am saving for the new garmin. That Ultrerra looks sick though. I believe it is salt water rated as well correct?

 

Found something awesome! Might be my first welding project. @dc welding
https://www.coastaloffroad.com/product-page/2nd-gen-tacoma-skid-plate-set

 

That looks pretty cool. Definitely, let me know. That looks like the perfect project to get acquainted with a Mig welder.

 

Yeah, I struggled hard about not being able to buy a Garmin but they only make a deck mount geared towards the bass boats. I cant use a rope retrieve on my deep V salmon trolling boat. I will be buying Garmin for my sonar eventually, need to have Panoptix, but they just aren't there yet for coldwater and saltwater boats on the trolling motors yet. My simple Powerdrive units have been good over the years but I don't need a footpedal for what I am doing. I need autopilot and cruise control. And being able to deploy without leaving my cockpit is real nice. We shall see how it holds up, I'm a little worried myself with as much as this thing has going on.

 

Lol, going to be doing stick

 

This is also good

 

36 tons of gravel being dropped off this morning, can finally finish our driveway area. We have a really good natural gravel foundation that has held up for the last year without rutting or really even showing any sign that we drive on it everyday at all. I want more stone for 2 reasons. 1-asthetics and 2- to slow down the run off from the water, we have a big parking area in front of the house where the water just runs down into our driveway, not a big deal but want to slow it and guide it a little.

Didn't order crushed because it will pack too much I think and not drain like I want...at least theoretically. So we are getting some 1/2 inch river rock and I am going to spread it. I also wanted something we could walk and run around on barefoot. That was honestly one of the biggest factors of a smaller, rounded stone.

I have two concerns with this, but am moving ahead anyways.

1) rounded rock doesn't hold in place as well as crushed angular stuff
2) not as pretty as some nice consistent shoulder pack color

We will see how it goes!

 

Morning all. Tuesday...

Not holding shouldn't be much of an issue (other than plowing, and a plow will hook crushed just as easy) unless you're on a pretty good slope that the water can wash it down. Some of the smaller stuff (1/3" or less) might wash out, but if things are fairly level it'll only wash as far as the grass at the edge of the drive.

It is less visually appealing than crushed, though, for uniformity reasons. And once crushed gets packed in it's not really any harder on the feet than the round stuff. Either one should work fine for what you've got, from what I've seen for pictures. You'll just have to do some raking in the spring to get it back off of your lawn (or wherever you leave your snow piles), which you'd have to do regardless of what type of gravel/stone you use. Even that asphalt reclaim does it.

 

I snowblow the driveway now, and had good luck next door without lifting much gravel at all, so hopefully I don't have a ton of clean up in the spring, but I do have a power broom that makes things much easier. Good to hear it shouldn't move around too much, we are getting 1/2 inch but from the photo he sent I'm sure there is a range in the size that actually is in the mix.

The crush pack would have been fine, but we have a few spots on the top of the driveway that are set to let water run past and into the side yard/woods. These are basically speed bumps now, and the stone will fill it in but let water keep going through it, while the pack would just bring us back to the original issue. So that was something brought into consideration as well. I agree it isn't going to look as good though, I am hoping for a darker mix

 

Should be fine, then. Eventually you'll have to dig your channels out, wash the stone or replace it, and reset everything, because they'll silt in. How long really will depend on the soil in your area, how much rain we get, etc.


Maintenance...

 

Are you using any sort of barrier between the round rock and whatever it's going on? If it's a hard back base, you'll be fine, if it's going on dirt, the dirt will work it's way up and fill the voids between the round rock and, in a few years, you end up with a mess.

I know it's too late now, but something to consider for the future is possibly using stone dust. It's small so it's comfortable to walk on barefoot and still packs in nice and tight.

 

I did my part to help the US economy today... I ordered the Gibson exhaust kit for the truck. They're marked pretty far down and free shipping. Ordering direct through Gibson was the cheapest option. Hopefully it gets here while I'm still working from home so I'll have some time to install it.

 

In a few days I'll be ordering some SOS sliders I believe.

 

I'll be doing my part soon. Placing an order with Rogue to upgrade the garage gym. Just waiting on them to get stuff back in stock.

 

Nice! I'm doing too much shopping myself being at home... nothing else to do but shop online and I bet my Amazon driver and mailman are like wtf is up with this guy... delivery every day or what?

 

I've got the same thing going on. Not uncommon these days for the Amazon guy to be by our house 2-3 times a day. If they could get their act together and make a single trip, I bet they'd be much more profitable.

We're also doing things like Peapod, Insta-cart and Grub-Hub so we have those people coming by also.

 

I've been keeping my non-stupid Amazon purchases to a minimum. I actually ended up with two bags of dog food, we went out a few days before the end of March when there was talks of them stopping deliveries, planned for april 4th on recurring orders. So, now we have 2x 40lb dog food in the garage and drove to Bristol to buy it But otherwise like center console organizers for the tacoma....that can wait

 

We've been doing insta cart as well. It's worked pretty well. Sprinkling in some Whole Foods deliveries as well. BJ's online ordering has been very good too.