In Search of Chili

The Missus texted me the other day while I was at work and asked me to pick her up a chef's salad from the local restaurant on my way home from work. She ordered me up a bowl of chili at the same time. The chili was only about half the size I needed after working all day and it wasn't all that good - not bad but not great. I decided I should look for a decent chili recipe I could make for myself.

The Missus has an extensive collection of cookbooks - maybe 300 of them  - I figured I'd be able to find something to my liking. I went first to The All American Cowboy Cookbook by Ken Beck and Jim Clark figuring there would be no better place to start my search. Sure enough, lots of chili recipes. Most all the recipes in the book are from people in the entertainment business that have played cowboys, or cowgirls, as well as singers, ranch owners - there's even a recipe from Richard Petty.

The book has a lot of photos of all these greats and some bits of bio on many of them. I saw Will Rogers in the book and knowing he was probably the greatest trick roper of all time, decided to see what I could find. The video above is six minutes but gives you a real good idea as to his skill level. If you don't have time to watch the whole thing or aren't at all interested in trick roping, watch the very first few seconds. Good advice there.

The book had a blurb on Ben Johnson as well as his recipe for buttermilk biscuits. Even though I grew up watching the Lone Ranger and Roy Rogers, Ben Johnson is without a doubt my favorite movie cowboy. He wasn't just an actor, he was the real deal as a cowboy. The only person to win a World Champion Cowboy and an Academy Award. Pretty smart guy as well - left an estate estimated at $1,000,000.

No shortage of cowboy singers in the cookbook. Here's one of my favorites: This one's for you Pop!

Time Has Come Today

Woke up this morning after falling back asleep for a bit - clock said 7:07 so I got up only to remember the time change, so it was only 6:07. But this realization came after taking the antibiotic for the Lyme Disease - the one that says not to lie down for ten minutes after taking it on an empty stomach preventing me from just turning around and hot-footing it back to bed. As long as I was up I changed all the clocks, and of course, I grumbled about it the whole time like I always do. However, I now understand why we change the clocks back. The Missus told me last evening the Indiana Liquor Commission told the tavern owners they didn't have to quit serving at the first 2:00 o'clock. They could turn the clocks back and continue to serve until the second 2:00 o'clock. So apparently the whole idea of turning the clocks back in the fall is to allow one extra hour of serving time for the tavern owners once a year. Now it all makes sense. And it almost makes up for the time wasted changing every clock in the house and upsetting everyone's internal clocks. If they're bound and determined to change the time, how about making all of us in Indiana be on the same time? That would make a whole lot more sense to me.

Snow & Cold

The weatherman was right about the snow. We got a bit as you can see from this view looking out on the front yard. The Chicago television stations were all about the snow - some of the northern suburbs got about 6 inches. The temp last night was supposed to get down to about 24 degrees.

I picked all of the peppers figuring they weren't going to make it through the night. Always the optimist, however, I did cover them up again. I also picked persimmons. I got a bucket the same size as the one with the peppers full of nice persimmons so I can make a couple of loaves of bread. Like banana bread or rhubarb bread, persimmon bread is right tasty with a bit of butter and a hot cup of tea or coffee. There's still more persimmons on the tree but I picked all I could reach without getting out a ladder. I think the recipe calls for 2 cups of puree. Depending on how much I get out of my bucket's worth, I might pick a few more to make another couple of loaves to freeze.

While I was outside in the snow, I got the electric cord strung out to the chicken coop and plugged in the waterer. I usually put a light in there about the time of the winter solstice, unless it gets real cold before then. Chickens are pretty hardy creatures and usually do OK as long as they're out of the wind but the light plus the heated waterer makes a big difference in that small coop. The light also keeps the chickens laying during the days of short daylight.

I took a good look in the barn at the dirt piles and figured out it's a woodchuck/ground hog that's burrowed in. I found the other end of the burrow where he gets out of the barn along with what appears to be a maze of tunnels underneath a couple of pallets that I put down to keep some machinery parts off the floor. I haven't come up with a plan of action yet but like the Mounties, I always get my man.

I machined up some little parts for work and installed the brackets I made for the nail cabinet. I've actually got quite a bit of work to do for my employer. I came up with the solution for the bike carrier. It shouldn't be too tough to do, just a little ticked off with myself for the design failure. I ordered some taillights for the job. They are the small round ones that go into a piece of 1-1/2" tubing. With the lights protected inside a piece of tubing, they shouldn't get broken while loading the bike. I put a pair of these in the sidecar and was pretty happy with them. I'd rather not have someone rear end me because they couldn't see the truck taillights and smash the bike and the truck.

Looks like it's going to continue to have daytime temps in the thirties for a few days then warm back up to mid-forties. Yep, it's winter, like it or not.

This & That

I think this thing is just the coolest wrecker ever. I wouldn't think this was an "off the shelf" rig but where would one have gone to get something like this done? There were more than a few coach builders back in the day but even back then, this kind of work would have been somewhat costly I would think. Might be Cuzzin Ricky and I need to take a road trip to Chattanooga and visit the museum down there. If anyone would know about old wreckers, they'd be the ones.

I suggested to my boss that he should consider welding on a few of the broken plastic parts they use. He gave me the look indicating he didn't know if he should take me seriously or not. He did a bit of investigating and decided it was worth giving it a try, so he bought a plastic welder from Harbor Freight. I farted around with it a bit on a scrap part and things welded nicely. I'll need to practice some but it looks like it will do the job - save him a bunch of money and once again makes me look like a hero. Pays to have a skilled craftsman on hand when you go outside your area of expertise.

I finished up making all the parts for the motorcycle carrier but I'm not happy with it. I need to raise it up a couple of inches. I wanted to keep it as low as possible to make loading it as easy and safe as possible but I over did it a bit. I can't imagine it snagging on something but if it did it would be a catastrophe. The extra braces really stiffened things up. In fact, I think you could probably hook a crane to the carrier and pick the whole truck up with it. It's going to be a bit of a hassle to raise it up a couple of inches but I'll sleep better with it lifted up.

I haven't decided what to do about the animal burrow out in the barn. It's dark now when I get home from work and since I don't know what's living in there now, nor do I have electricity in there, I'm a little uneasy about going in there in the dark. Last night the coyotes were howling across the tracks while I was getting some chicken feed adding to the spook factor. It'd be just my luck to go out there in the dark and trip over whatever is living out there, fall and hit my head, and then have whatever it is eat my face while I'm lying there unconscious. I am considering putting on a sidearm while I'm doing my chores in the future.

It looks to be winter now for all practical purposes. There's snow in the forecast and it'll be November in a couple of days. I ordered a pair of insulated bibs to keep in my locker at work. Much of what I normally do is in the unheated part of the building. What I should have done was typed up a letter of resignation rather than an order for warm clothes. Since I'm damn near 70, have to wonder why I keep working. We'll see what the winter brings. Might make up my mind for me.

Wild Kingdom

I caught another raccoon in the ceiling of the shop again. I'm fairly certain I know how they are getting in but was waiting for the frost to hit because I've got raspberries growing along the edge of the building. I figured I would cut the berries back to give me some working room and then I could get up under the overhang of the metal roof and close in the spot where I think they are getting in. It's amazing that big fat coons can get into such small spaces.

I've got a pair of two buckle rubber boots I was going to dig out figuring I could take them to work to keep my feet warm and dry when I need to shovel snow this winter. I'm required to wear steel toed boots, so a pair of two buckles work well. I keep them on a shelf in the stairwell going to the basement and when I went to grab them I saw something fall. I keep a pair of muck boots at the bottom of the stairs, so I stuck my hand inside one of the boots and felt something try to bite or grab my finger. I jerked my hand out, turned the boot over and a bat fell out. Must have decided to hibernate in the stairwell. Seems we get a bat in the house at the rate of about one per year. I've got no idea how they get in but get in they do.

I went out to the big barn after dealing with the bat and found a burrow under the old manure spreader. It's a big hole and the dirt's been thrown a long way from the opening. I'm guessing it's from a woodchuck but with my luck it could be a badger or even a Chupacabra for all I know. I'll have to see what I can do about filling in the hole and getting whatever it is out of the barn.

Later that evening while I was washing up I felt something on the back of my arm like a loose flap of skin or something. I looked in the mirror and found a tick hanging off. I jerked it loose but there was a red spot about the size of a quarter with a dark spot in the middle. It didn't look like the normal wood ticks we have around here, so now I'm on a two week course of antibiotics to prevent me getting Lyme disease.

As Roseanne Roseannadanna used to say - It's always something.

I'm Liking It So Far

I started welding the motorcycle carrier together yesterday. Since everything was already cut to length and had the weld bevels ground, it didn't take too long. The photo above is the part that goes into the receiver hitch and the end pieces of the frame with the 3/8" nuts welded to the inside.

Detail view of one of the welds on the hitch. I'm TIG welding everything primarily because TIG welding doesn't produce a bunch of sparks making it less likely that I'll burn the shop down. Also, I'm in no particular hurry and I'll have less grinding to do when I'm finished. I put a root pass around all sides of the hitch part. After I get everything else tacked on I'll put the whole thing up on some horses and finish weld it. I'm also planning on welding on some fish plates or gussets over the weld joints.

Looks pretty good hanging off the back of the truck. All my measurements came out like I figured as far as the height and the distance sticking out from the truck. The bike is pretty narrow but with the bags and the wide bars, I need about 18" to the center of the carrier. Measured from the hitch I'm right on 18". The tailgate sets back a couple of inches from the hitch so I should have plenty of clearance for the handlebars. The square tube is rather a loose fit in the receiver so the carrier does rock a lot more than I'd feel comfortable with, so the braces to the underside of the bumper are going to be a must.

I worked on a couple of things for work while I was out in the shop. I think I've got one of the prototype parts I've been working on ready for "production". I don't know how many of these are going to be needed in the future but they'll be fairly easy to make and the same goes for the installation by the technicians in the field.

Been a productive couple of days. A couple more like that and I'll have the bike carrier ready for paint.

Ramping Up

The mailman came early yesterday. He usually hits our house around 2:30 but I got a knock on the door about 9:30 and he dropped off the ramp I ordered for the bike carrier and new flannel sheets the Missus ordered. He had asked about getting some of the scrap corrugated roof sheeting I had out back once before and he asked if I was still willing to get rid of a few pieces. He came by after work and we loaded up a few sheets after cutting them in half so they would fit in his truck.

After he dropped the ramp off I had an exact measurement to make the frame it will bolt to. I got the pieces all cut to length and the corners mitered. I need to drill the hole for the hitch pin and then I can start welding the frame together. I'm going to drill some holes in the end pieces and weld a couple of 3/8" nuts on the inside so I can bolt on pieces to fasten the hold-down straps to. With the nuts welded on I'll be able to fasten the parts on easily without having to have a wrench on the inside of the frame - easy two handed job instead of wanting a third hand as so often happens when trying to bolt a part on. Those parts will also serve as a place to fasten a taillight to and a side marker light. I'll probably buy a light kit from Harbor Freight, so I need to do that to see what it will take to mount the lights and make the wiring where I can easily unbolt the side pieces without messing with the wiring at all - just pull the plug from truck bumper and call it done.

There will also be a couple of pieces that will come off the backside of the ramp frame and fasten to the truck frame. Those might be a bit of overkill but I don't want to take a chance on having the carrier collapse with the bike loaded up after hitting a big bump on the interstate. As Uncle Pete used to say: "It ain't much for looks but it's hell for strong."

Also got a bit of work done on the winch mount, a bit of general tidying up in the shop and got the new flannel sheets washed and installed on the bed. 'Fraid it's that time of the year but I should be set for the arrival of winter with the completion of just a few more things.

Last but not least, happy birthday to my running buddy. I'm blessed to have her and several others that are true friends.