Senile Texas Aggie - comic relief for the rest of you

[Baymule]

I carry my phone in my front blue jeans pocket. Sometimes while I'm working, The phone gets squeezed and Siri thinks I'm calling her. She will say things like, "I didn't quite get that, can you repeat it" This of course irritates me. When my friend Steve and I were jacking up and blocking those confounded 40' shipping containers, the phone got squeezed a lot. I argued with Siri, told her to shutup, he and I were laughing about it. Finally I told her, "SHUTUP PHONE AND GO AWAY!!!" Her reply, "THAT'S NOT NICE!"

We laughed like hyenas over that one. it's bad enough to be arguing with a phone, but I got told off!

 

[Bruce]

Apparently the Alexa coders knew that "she" would be just as annoying as Microsoft's Clippy and illicit verbal abuse. Clippy couldn't hear or respond though.

 

[Senile_Texas_Aggie]

All,

It seems that I angered the gods again so they sent me more plumbing problems to deal with. This time the leak was near the house, where I have worked on the plumbing before, and not somewhere out in the pasture. My Beautiful Gal again insisted that I call a plumber, so I called the plumber that repaired my water line that was out in the field. (He is a neighbor of ours that resides on the ridge south of our house.) He was not able to come for a week, but fortunately the leak was a slow one so we could wait that long. He was finally able to come this morning. I was glad for that, as this was the last day with nice weather. For the next several days it is supposed to rain and be cold, sometimes below freezing, and repairing a water line in weather like that is no fun.

One thing I learned from the plumber is that the glue I had been using is prone to leaking after a year or two. Here is what I used: https://www.lowes.com/pd/Oatey-8-fl-oz-LO-VOC-PVC-Cement/4750819 . He said he has repaired so many joints where that glue was used. He uses the same brand, Oatey, but clear. The down side of using the clear is that the pipes to be joined must be dry, no water at all, otherwise the glue won't set up properly. But if the joints are dry and the glue is applied and the items fitted together and allowed to dry, that type of cement will hold.

I have several more PVC joints where I used that blue Oatey cement, all next to the house, so if they start leaking I will replace all of the joints and use the clear Oatey cement. So you gods who are punishing me will have to find something else to use!

I heard the tree frogs (peepers) for the first time this year. Miss @rachels.haven, did you have tree frogs in Iowa or Detroit or Massachusetts? Are you hearing them in Tennessee? Has anyone else on the forum heard tree frogs yet?

Last week our new neighbors who bought a place directly east of us caught their woods on fire. I saw the smoke billowing up and wondered if it was on our property. I heard sirens, so I decided to go over in the tractor to see what was happening and to see if I could help. It turned out that they were trying to burn a brush pile behind their east pond left there by the previous owners. They did everything right: they wet down the area with a garden hose and kept it at the ready and they waited for the wind to be calm. At first the pile burned as expected. Then unexpectedly the wind picked up and blew some sparks into the woods where the fire got out of control. Also, quite surprisingly, a good bit of the ground that they had wet also burned! It seemed that the water ran off the vegetation onto the ground and the vegetation dried out again and was able to burn.

The fire got out of control in the woods, blew across the driveway into the woods on the other side. Fortunately the fire simply burned the vegetation on the forest floor. It did not get into any trees. (We have had substantial rain this winter, so no trees were dried out.) The fire trucks and the bulldozer that the forestry service sent was able to surround the burning area and then put out the flames.

The wife, Trish, was quite distraught and on the verge of tears, as it was her idea to burn the brush pile. I tried to reassure her that they did everything right. It was just that the wind came up. One of the fire fighters said that the next time it might be wise to wait until the humidity is higher before burning, but other than that, they had done everything right. Fortunately, no one was injured, and no structures were damaged -- just some woods burned up. One good thing was that I got to meet the new neighbors!

Senile Texas Aggie

 

[Alaskan]

Too much excitement!!!!

When something like that happens...will those neighbors have to pay a bill or fine or some such to the county or fire department?

How does that work?

 

[rachels.haven]

@Senile_Texas_Aggie , we had a deafening amount of spring peepers in Massachusetts. The other places not so much. I had them when my family lived in Arkansas for a while too and in summers/late spring in Iowa.

 

[Finnie]

I miss the spring peepers we had in SW Michigan. They were wonderful. Here, I have to listen very carefully, and I might hear some once or twice before they are done. Just a small amount.

@Senile_Texas_Aggie , I was wondering how your puppies are doing. Am I remembering correctly that you got a couple LGD pups a while back?

 

[farmerjan]

Sorry to read about the pipes and the glue... and glad that you now have a remedy for it... let's hope that if they are going to give you trouble in the other ones, it waits until it is nicer weather.

So glad that the neighbors fire turned out to not be too bad; and that the fire dept was able to contain it. Burning up the vegetation on the ground is a good thing for them, it will lessen any immediate future problems.
Here in Va we have a burning ban before 4 p.m. from Feb 1st to April 30th... and they discourage you from burning if it is dry . We get alot of wind during the daytime hours for those couple of months... wind patterns they say. West Va has similar burning bans but it goes into May I think. I worry about burning unless it is raining.. because it can get away from you so fast even when you are doing things right.

 

[Bruce]

All's well that ends well?

Seems like those big brush piles are a disaster waiting to happen since the weather can change in the hours it takes them to burn down. Even my little fires in the 12' fire ring take hours to burn down.

 

[rachels.haven]

Strike that, Aggie. We have peepers tonight in Tennessee.

 

[Senile_Texas_Aggie]

When something like that happens...will those neighbors have to pay a bill or fine or some such to the county or fire department?

How does that work?

I don't know if they had to pay a bill or fine. I do know that the volunteer fire department at Sugar Grove (about 2 miles east of us) assesses a $35/year fee that is not required, but I believe that if they are called and you are not a member then you get assessed a fee. We joined the 2nd year we were here (didn't know anything about it the first year).

Miss @farmerjan, there may be such a ban here, thought if there is I don't know about it. The only legal ban I know about is that the county judge of each county can issue a fire ban and the county web site shows the burn ban status.

Seems like those big brush piles are a disaster waiting to happen since the weather can change in the hours it takes them to burn down. Even my little fires in the 12' fire ring take hours to burn down.

That is how it has been here: the brush will blaze up quickly and burn like crazy for about 15 minutes. Then it will burn more slowly for hours, then smolder for days.

@Senile_Texas_Aggie , we had a deafening amount of spring peepers in Massachusetts. The other places not so much. I had them when my family lived in Arkansas for a while too and in summers/late spring in Iowa.

I miss the spring peepers we had in SW Michigan. They were wonderful. Here, I have to listen very carefully, and I might hear some once or twice before they are done. Just a small amount.

Strike that, Aggie. We have peepers tonight in Tennessee.

I am glad to know others enjoy their sounds as well.

@Senile_Texas_Aggie , I was wondering how your puppies are doing. Am I remembering correctly that you got a couple LGD pups a while back?

They are really big now. Max, the boy, weighs almost as much as I can lift, while 99, the girl, is also big. We had Max neutered in January, while 99 will get spayed next month. Once we no longer need to worry about surprise puppies, we will let them out of the pen in which we have kept them most of the time. (They will probably run off then!)

Senile Texas Aggie