Good morning

[CaddmannQ]

Don’t worry bro. We have had a couple inches of rain here, but I don’t live in a place where there’s any chance of landslide. It’s too flat here at the edge of the valley.

We might have some small localized flooding if the storm drains back up, but so far that is not happening; and there would have to be about a foot and a half of water in the middle of the street in order to flood my house.

We live midway between the Kings River and the San Joaquin River, both of which have lakes on them, and are flooding right now (going over the spillways.) The dams are all managed by Army Corps of Engineers.

But we are 100’ up above the river beds in elevation, And physically many miles off of the water course in both cases.

And in spite of all the hoopla in Southern California, where hurricane Hillary is washing homeless dwellers towards the storm drains, so far this rain is no worse than other storms we’ve had since I moved here in 1975.

But I keep the batteries charged up on the boat just in case. She is high and dry and sleeping under a new tarp.

Remember that I am on the east edge of the valley 360’+ above mean sea level, and the people who are going to get flooded out are those who live in the middle of the valley, down around the currently reforming Lake Tulare.

This is the current rain outlook and as you can see we are well out of the major danger zone.

Thinking back, it was 2012 the last time we had rains like this, and I was bringing Judy back across the Mojave desert in our new Camry. Now that’s a place that fills up with water.

 

[meanstreak]

Good evening to all of you. We have been toasty again. Very high heat indexes. The past ten days the area around the the lake had a lot of rain.This weekend we had temps of 109, 110. Yesterday during the afternoon I was in Grove, Oklahoma and the heat index reached 125. That is one hundred and twentyfive degrees. The humidity is just horrible.
Personally, I like it much better than say, 0 degrees.

This coming Sunday we are only going to be in the high 90s, so there's that.

Y'all have a good night.

 

[meanstreak]

Good morning. Another hot day on the way. Hopefully we will have a little breeze to at least move the air a bit. I have a few errands to run, and a little yard work. Other than that I will be indoors.

Have a great day and stay cool.

 

[CaddmannQ]

Good morning Mossberg Owners.

Hurricane Hillary has finally played out and everything here is dry and comfortable.

There was a lot of minor cleanup after the storm but it wasn’t difficult. It all dried up by yesterday afternoon, and I am back on the car.

I have scraped quite a bit of paint off the bottom and burnished it out but there is much to do.

 

[CaddmannQ]

Good morning Mossberg Owners.
The burnishing continues:

I went hard after the bottom of the tunnel, which had some original paint, and lots of rust covered with brush paint.


The weather this morning is lovely in the 70s, with a light breeze. I fed my fish and irrigated my trees and after I take a break I’m going to go back to work on the car. Y’all have a nice day.

 

[meanstreak]

Good morning. 80 at 8am, the heat wave continues for a couple of days yet. The forecast calls for a break beginning Sunday and most of next week of high 80s. That would be welcome. A bit of rain would be much appreciated as well.

We are heading to the lake today, it won't be quite as hot, but more humid. I don't think that is a good trade. Oh well.

I hope you all have a great day.

 

[CaddmannQ]

Good morning Mossberg Owners. Everything is nice and dry here but out in the valley there is much flooding as a result of the recent rain storms. I’ve clipped a map here of the California Central San Joaquin valley so you can see how far I am from the actual low center of the southern SJ valley.

I am about 75 miles from what once was (and is now again) Tulare Lake. This is all prime bottomland that had been drained for farming a century ago, but big floods can turn it back to a lake.

I have painted the lake in myself (a bit too big) as late photographs at this scale do not show it, but it is definitely there & if you take a drive down the freeway, it is quite obvious.

To the north, the lowest spot is the Kesterson swamp now called the national wildlife refuge area. We’re about 65 miles off of that depending on how you measure and it’s not nearly as large as what I’ve painted on the map.

At one time the entire San Joaquin Valley was an inland sea, but those are the two areas that will fill up first if there is massive flooding. I’m assuming that of course big earthquakes don’t cause ground movements. We don’t seem to be in an area that suffers from earthquakes the way they do on the coast.

I am still burnishing metal and I did some 180 grit sanding on the bottom of the tunnel.

It needs some welding here and there, but it’s looking pretty good. Fortunately there was no rust in the transmission mount/spring anchor area, and all of this stuff is extremely solid.

Hitting the suspension arms and backing plates, but they still need more work.

The weather in the morning here is just gorgeous but it does get up to 100 in the afternoons. Humidity has fallen off steadily since the rains stopped and it is getting very dry again. This is the view from my outdoor aquarium out towards the pet cemetery.


My redwood trees are getting water every day and they are really looking better than at the height of the drought two years ago.

It’s after 8 AM so time for me to go outside and start making noise with the electric tools.

 

[CaddmannQ]

This is a terrific picture of the Mendota Slough which is quite a bit south of Kesterson, only 40 miles from here by air. They are having some flooding too.

This is well outside of “downtown” Mendota. California.

In Mendota they call it the Fresno Slough.


This is one of the things that makes navigation a problem even with maps in modern GPS.

I used to travel down a road every day. It had 4 names within 30 miles.

 

[Bobster]

Flooding is Nature's way of taking back what was once hers. When people build in swamps and lowlands, flooding is bound to happen. Hurricane Ian last year did a ton of damage around here as the water had no place to go but rise. I'm high and dry so no issues but not even a mile away people's homes were under a few feet of water.



PS: the first two pics are before and after AND they are 180^ out--might help you picture the damage...

 

[CaddmannQ]

Today was quite lovely, and I took my bicycle out for the first ride in a couple weeks. Shortly after I screwed up my left knee, I stubbed my middle right toe badly, so I’ve mostly been limping. I just had not felt up to riding until today, but it went pretty well and I made 3 miles without hurting myself.

I cleaned up the transmission some more and I got the isolator disassembled and cleaned and repainted.

 

[CaddmannQ]

Good morning Mossberg Owners.

I did manage to flip this beast up on its nose, and start scrubbing down the scaly underbelly. Paint on scale on paint…

I didn’t get too much done this weekend because I came down with the sniffles. I was taking Kleenex out of a box, contaminating it, and discarding, fast enough to cause friction burns.

After 4 days of seclusion at home, I finally felt good enough to go to Walmart for pet food and a few groceries. I don’t think this is Covid but I’m not taking any tests. I’m going to take granny Clampett’s advice and in a week I’ll be fine.

I’ve managed to keep up with irrigating the trees and changing fishwater but otherwise I’ve been lounging a lot.

 

[meanstreak]

Good morning everyone. We have had three very nice mornings in a row, mid 60s to start the day. We are slowly warming back into warmer weather and should be high 90s for the long weekend.

You all have a great day.

 

[CaddmannQ]

Good morning Mossberg Owners.

The weather here has been lovely in the mornings as well and it doesn’t really even start to get hot until about noon. In between noon and five it will wrap up to 105°F.

I am still sniffling a little bit, but I’m making some progress. The bottom of this transmission had about three more coats of paint on it then the top dip, and about three times as much dirt in the paint. Not a lot of grease though. I don’t think this transmission was ever a leaker.

If it’s not too humid I might put some paint on it this evening after I finish detailing it out.

It’s actually been very dry here except for the three days when Hillary rained on us. Since then it’s been no rain at all and I am irrigating every morning as per usual.

You all have a nice day.

 

[Ernst]

Thought for the Day

 

[meanstreak]

Good afternoon to yous. 5pm we are at 89 degrees. A very nice day we have. Each day we are inching higher, lol. After the past 6 weeks this is like a fall day. Fall will be here before we know it, followed shortly thereafter by old man winter.

Y'all have a great day.

 

[meanstreak]

Good morning. 69 degrees and no wind to speak of. Another nice day is unfolding. High today will be right at 90. The forecasters have lowered the next 3 or 4 days from high 90s to mid 90s. A little bit of much appreciated relief.

Have a great day.

 

[CaddmannQ]

Good morning Mossberg Owners.

It appears that the car freighter Freemantle highway is being unloaded, and cars are still smoldering. They are dumping hot cars into water tanks with a crane after they pry them off of the deck.

 

[Ernst]

Thought for the Day

 

[CaddmannQ]

Good morning Mossberg Owners.

We are having a cool break from the hundred degree days and I think today should only get up to about 85. This morning is breezy and slightly overcast and it will not be an ideal day to paint unless it warms up significantly.

I was keen to paint my transmission two days ago but Thursday afternoon I had to go for oral surgery. My bone graft had finally aged out.

I had a titanium implant threaded into my skull. He didn’t get it close enough to the brain the first time.

It took him two more tries and all in all he changed the drill bit 10 times and had the implant out twice and in three times.

They had to cut my gums to get at the bone graft and drill me so they had to sew them back up and he took a while to do the embroidery work.

Finally he was satisfied, and to celebrate they took about 12 x-rays of the whole business so they could see it from every angle.

Then they gave me the bill & sent me to the pharmacy for antibiotics. After standing in line there I wasn’t up to any other work. I went home, ate some soup, and I’ve been more or less loafing except for minor chores like laundry and feeding the fish.

Then my mouse started to die. This puts the big entertainment system nearly out of commission. I didn’t have a whole lot of energy Friday after taking the antibiotics. They just messed me up totally. But I went to OfficeMax for a new mouse plus I did go out and ride my bicycle hard for 3 miles. I also managed to go out & irrigate my trees, and feed the fish, but I wasn’t up to sanding and painting.

Today I’m not feeling a whole lot more motivated, But if it warms up and the breeze goes away, I will go out there, prep, tape, and shoot some paint.

 

[Ernst]

Thought some of you fishermen might relate to this?