A new family member

This morning, after my wife's doctor appointment, we headed east a bit to pick up our newest family member. We've been talking about getting current dog's replacement for awhile, but when Silas suffered his spinal injury in December, it kind of put that more at the forefront. Si has been the best dog ever, but with his injury he's never have the full use of his back right leg again. As a hunting dog that will slow him down tremendously, and I will never be able to send him out into a river to retrieve a bird because of his limited swimming capabilities. Since I have no plans on quitting duck hunting, it necessitates a change, and that means a new pup. I'd love to get one fully trained, but that is cost prohibitive, so here we go. Our lab Si, is named after Uncle Si from Duck Dynasty. We have decided to name the new pup Jep. In the real world, Jep is Uncle Si's nephew, so now our Si can really be Uncle Si. Here's to puppy days!

 A long Week

Not much activity here from me this week due to the fact I was down south working fires in dispatch for 4 days. 14 hours a day having fun without the sun. The three new dispatchers did a good job, and being this early in the year the fires weren't going to go big, so these were actually good training fires for them. I like making the extra money, but dang, at age 67 this is getting tougher and tougher every year. After coming home for a short break last night, I'll be headed back down later today as I'm working again S/M/T for the rest of May. I will say it was nice to be greeted by blooming flowers this morning, and that made me smile. 

Pickin'

Yesterday we had our monthly bluegrass jam here at the house. 80 degrees, sunny and calm, but plenty of shade provided by out big cedar trees out front. Between players, and listeners, we had 40 people here, and everybody seemed to have a great time. We had a good number of new folks come, and they all had a great time. Folks are really loving this time of music. Might only be 2-3 hours, but there's no politics, no division, no hassles...only music. It's hard to beat that. 

 The Hand of God

I have a 2016 Dodge RAM 2500, with a 6.7L Cummins engine. It's been a great rig, but like anything mechanical there's always something here or there that needs attention. One item on that engine is the air heater grid. It's a plate under the air intake that heats the incoming air during cold weather starts. On that grid is a bracket with a nut and bolt. The bolt is standard steel, while the nut is stainless steel. One potentially huge issue with this grid is that it may overheat, causing the bolt to melt, and the nut to fall off. That's bad enough, but when it drops it can easily roll into the #6 cylinder and destroy the piston and/or the entire cylinder. It's an issue the Dodge knows of, and will do nothing about. New engines can run $20k. I recently got a code saying there was an issue with the grid heater, and our mechanic said to park it immediately and he'd get the replacement kit coming from Banks Power. They were changing it yesterday, when I got a call to come down. I went down and he showed me the grid, and where the bolt had melted. 

He said he didn't think it had gone into the cylinder, but it was in there
somewhere, and they had to find it before they could put everything back together. Finding it could get as bad as pulling the head, which requires taking the entire cab off the chassis, and that means a LOT more money. While I was there they hunted up a small camera on a wire. We all went over to the truck, and he carefully slid the camera into the engine and started looking. He was moving the camera, and watching the small screen, when two of them said, "There it is!" They found the nut, and there was still a piece of the bolt in it. Being stainless steel, the nut is not magnetized, but the bolt was. At this point, while leaving the camera in place, they fished a small magnet into the engine, very carefully moved it over, and connected with the bolt/nut: "Got it!" Then, he very carefully snaked it back out of the engine. All four of the mechanics in the shop immediately told me to go buy a lottery ticket, because what I saw never happens. That bolt/nut had dropped down, and was sitting right at the edge of the cylinder. He said one bumpy road, or one hard acceleration on the freeway could have put it into the cylinder, and now we'd be talking many thousands of dollars of work. 

There is no doubt in my mind that the reason it hadn't dropped into the cylinder was nothing short of the hand of God. And now, thanks to divine intervention, and the work of an excellent mechanic, I'll get my truck back today, fixed and running great, and I'll never have to worry about that particular problem again. 

Odds and Ends 

I don't have any one thing in particular today, more of a scattered approach, I suppose. First, I changed the comments again to allow any posting, no moderation, so we'll see how that goes. Comments are appreciated: that way I at least know there's somebody out there. 

First thing up is last night's dinner. I told my wife I'd cook, which I do periodically, and I chose to make eggplant parmesan. It seems I can never remember exactly how I make it between sessions, so there's always a slight variation, but it's always quite edible. Last night I had three eggplants, and I only cut up two of them. It was enough for the 9x12 pan, but in retrospect, I should have used the other one as well. Hindsight is always a great thing, right? The fact that both my wife and I had a second helping leads me to believe it worked out just fine, but I do think a bit more eggplant would have been better. I can always alter that in the future. 

Item #2 on today's menu is also food related, however, this is a recommendation
for avoidance. I like SPAM. Not the kind you get in email, the kind you get in a can at the store. I have always liked it, and have never had a flavor I didn't like, until now. The other day I was at the store and saw Korean BBQ spam, and I thought, why not? I got a can, and brought it home, and a couple days ago I decided to try it in a sandwich. I made my sandwich, then decided to try a small sample of the meat only. My first thought was, really? I ate my sandwich, and I decided that I wasn't going to ever make another one. My wife, who also likes the various flavors of SPAM, tried it, and her opinion was, chuck it. And that, friends, was the end of that can of SPAM. That particular variation will not be coming home with us in the future. 

Item #3 is also food related...kinda. Friday my wife and I walked around the downtown area a bit, looking at small shops, and we came to the new candy store. Inside I found a curious item, and decided immediately it was something I just had to try. I mean hey, I lived through the Korean BBQ SPAM, so how much worse could it be? So, I grabbed a small container of pickle cotton candy, and it came home with us. After dinner I broke it out for a sampling. It was definitely cotton candy, and it was definite pickle tasting. Now, this isn't something I'd probably make a habit of keeping on my shelf, but it wasn't bad, and me being me, I may go back and get some just to gross other people out when they come over. I'm going to have to give pickle cotton candy two thumbs up, if nothing more than for the entertainment potential it contains. 

My closing item, #4 by my calculations, is animal related. We have two cats, a mom and her daughter. They look almost identical, but they are vastly different in personality. We started letting the mom out a month or so ago, and once outside she's an entirely different cat. Outside she's lovey dovey, while inside she's a straight stuck up snob. But, there's something outside related where she absolutely shines, and that's her hunting ability. In our front pasture we've had a big problem with voles. It seemed like every day a new mound would pop up. BUT, the instant we let Sophia out, the mounds disappeared. Hmmm.  A quick correlation said our cat was taking care of the issue. This was  confirmed after I was working outside, and watched her in action. As I was working, I looked into our front pasture, and she was crouched in the grass, staring at the ground. She inched forward, then made a big pounce, and came up with a vole! Good kitty! A couple days after that, I walked the dog out in the front and saw a fresh mound. Sophia, who likes to walk with us, was there, and I told her she was starting to slack a bit. The next day there was a vole body laying at the bottom of the steps, and no new mounds in the pasture. At this point, that cat can be as weird as she likes inside the house, because outside she's a rock star.