Journal: Sunday, 1/11/09

►  Weather Summary:  High = 61ºF/00ºC.  Low = 21ºF/00ºC.  A very nice winter day, except for being a little chilly in the early morning.  Mostly clear with a light north wind.

►  Day of reckoning with the studio light fixture:  Jo and I got the ballast changed with only one minor glitch.  The leads on the new ballast were only about half as long as the ones on the old unit, meaning we had to splice wires together to make them long enough.  Once the ballast was installed, we re-assembled the fixture and inserted two new fluorescent tube.  When we flipped the light switch, the ballast hummed a little, but the tubes did not brighten.  We messed around cleaning contacts and swapping tubes around until the light eventually decided to work -- and is still working.  I hope this project is now completed and stays fixed for a while.

Tickseed Sunflower seeds in Jo's mittens.  The little seeds are everywhere and easily attach themselves to all forms of clothing.  When clothing with these seeds attached is washed, the seeds often come loose and attach themselves to a different article in the washer.  At the moment, there's hardly any frequently worn clothing of ours that doesn't contain at least one Tickseed Sunflower seed.  Sometimes they can end up in very inconvieninet locations.  Those pointy little horns can be very irritating.  (Photo of a Tickseed Sunflower in bloom.)

►  Firewood:  As previously mention, all the firewood I've been cutting lately is coming from alongside our road out, small diameter trees my neighbor thinned from his roadside property back in the fall.  He just let the trees fall and -- with his permission -- I am cutting them into firewood lengths and carting them home.

►  These small trees required no special felling techniques -- like notching and back-cutting.  Jerry Joe just sliced them off, but I did notice he'd sliced them off rather high, some of the "stumps" remaining came almost up to my waist.   Jo and I decided Jerry was just being lazy and loping off the trees at a height requiring no bending.  Since these stumps contained a piece or two of usable firewood for me, I'd been cutting them off closer to the the ground.

►  Today I received a phone call from Jerry Joe asking me to stop cutting off his stumps.  His theory is that the tall stumps are less likely to put out sucker shoots and resume growing. (Creating a coppice.) That's a new one on me, but maybe so.  I'll certainly honor his request since I'm cutting his trees on his land.  And, since I've trimmed of some of the stumps while others remain tall, we'll see if his theory is correct.

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Journal: Sunday, 1/11/09

Journal Through Friday, 1/09/09

Tuesday, 1/6/09:

► Weather Summary: High = 41ºF (5ºC). Low = 28ºF (-2ºC). Overcast most of the day, but cleared to partly cloudy for a couple of hours about the time we took our afternoon walk.

► Jo and I installed the new fluorescent tubes in the light fixture in her studio. It still didn't work. We pulled off the cover and saw the ballast looks as if it's been getting more than a little warm. The ballast is probably the problem. Now the question is: Do we replace the ballast in that old fixture or replace that eight foot fixture with two four foot shop lights. Shop lights are often heavily discounted and would probably be cheaper than the ballast, but they'd require more time and effort for some rewiring.

For a brief period of time, these were the only clouds still around on Tuesday afternoon. Unfortunately, the sky quickly became overcast again.

Wednesday, 1/7/09:

► Weather Summary: High = 59ºF (5ºC). Low = 31ºF (-.5ºC). Mostly sunny all day with a few more clouds moving in toward sunset.

► Jo decided to use 4' shop lights in her studio -- and since we had a couple of those on hand, she began checking them out. She found that neither were working completely right. That's the problem with those super cheap shop lights. They're not always dependable.

► Jo changed her mind and decided replacing the ballast in the 8' fixture would be the better route. She called both the hardware store and the lumber yard in town only to discover they were both out of that particular ballast.

► This seems to be one of those simple little projects that's destined to turn into an ordeal. All Jo wants is enough light throw pots by in her studio. At the moment she's using multiple clamp-on lights with cords strung all over the place. Not the best set up.

► I finally got around to grinding some of the beans I purchased from E-Z Discount. The coffee is drinkable, but nothing special. What did I expect from hardware store coffee?

Thursday, 1/8/09:

► Weather Summary: High = 60ºF (15ºC). Low = 31ºF (-.5ºC). A new, weak cold front overnight. It didn't lower the temperature much, but the wind was out of the north in the morning. By late afternoon the wind had switched around to the south again, though.

► I installed one of my newly sharpened chains and cut some firewood. One of the large wood racks is now almost full of newly cut firewood.

► Blog post on Nature in the Ozarks: Scenic overlook near Harrison, AR.

Friday, 1/9/09:

Weather Summary: High = 55ºF (12ºC). Low = 38ºF (3ºC). Overcast in the morning with a prediction of clearing to partly cloudy during the afternoon, but that didn't happen. In fact, a light mist was falling when we went on our afternoon. The sky did seem to clear a bit after dark. I could see the moon and a few stars through the clouds, but then it clouded back up and we experience a few light and very scattered rain showers.

Made a batch of waffles and put together a fruit salad.

Blog post on Nature in the Ozarks: Hemmed In Hollow Falls.

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Journal Through Friday, 1/09/09