Mostly about my backyard chickens. (Boring, I know), but there are a lot of us out here. Mine are only kept as pampered pets. I could eat a neighbor's chicken, but not MINE. There may be a comment on current events only if I get riled up enough. And there will always be a cartoon or a joke to cheer us. I promise to try my very best to respond to comments. Now I have to figure out how this blogger thingy works....
I’m
passing this on because it really worked for me today:
A doctor on TV said
that to achieve inner peace during these days before the election, we should finish things we
started and we would all have more calm in our lives.
I looked around
my house to find things I’d started and hadn’t finished.
So I finished
off a bottle of Merlot, a bottle of Chardonnay, a bottle of Bailey’s, a
butle of wum, tha mainder of Valiuminun scriptins, an, an a boss a
chocletz.
Yu haf no idr how fablus I feel rite now.
Sned this to all who
need inner piss.
An telum u luvum...
:o)
The weather has been beautiful for the last few days. Spent a lot of time outside and running back and forth to the stores. Forgot the camera on some of the trips - of course there were tons of neat stuff to see. When will I EVER learn???
Anyhoo... the trees in the front of Coopville are almost bare now:
Except this one by the corral:
Cows grazing in a field:
The sun shining on some golden colored leaves:
The hill top is almost all bare now:
Charlie's new neck feathers - one of the girls is pulling them out because I can see the new, white fluffy ones all over the pen:
Looked up at the sky in the early afternoon and saw the moon:
The local Acme supermarket had a crazy sale for two days. Hubby and I went twice. The first day if you spent $100.00 in one order you could get up to a 22 pound turkey. Free. Spent $103.68 on Saturday and stocked up on only what was on sale and really needed. Yesterday we went back and picked up some more stuff and our free turkey.. I watch those price scanners like a hawk when checking out. Good thing, too. They had those little bags of pepperoni on sale if you buy two. They rang up at the regular price. Went to the courtesy desk and they refunded my money PLUS gave me the two bags free and an extra $5.00! Whoo-hoo!
No steam trains tonight, but we are going to learn about another type of steam engine:
The Steam Donkey!
Steam Donkey Engines
For many years, logging operations were limited to areas close
to water where the logs could be floated to mills or to flat ground
where animal power could be used. Horses and oxen dragged logs along
roads paved with greased wood ties – skid roads. The process was slow and expensive and the animals could not negotiate steep terrain.
John Dolbeer of Eureka, California changed logging forever in
1883 when he patented the first steam driven spool donkey. These simple,
rugged machines were seen for decades in the woods, long after the
arrival of more powerful and expensive steam yarders and skidders. The
early spool donkey provided no system to return the rigging to the woods
for the next log, necessitating a horse or manpower to do the job. The
need to reach out further from the machine and solve the haul back
problem led to the development of the "Improved" spool donkey about
1900.
On Dolbeer's first model, he wrapped a 150-foot, 4½ inch manila
rope several times around a gypsy head (horizontally mounted spool) and
attached the other end to a log. The steam donkey pulled the log toward
the engine. The engine was moved in the woods by attaching the line to a
tree and pulling itself along on its log skids.
Operating an early Dolbeer donkey required the services of three
men, a boy and a horse. One man, the "choker-setter", attached the line
to a log; an engineer or "donkey puncher", tended the steam engine; and
a "spool tender" guided the whirring line over the spool with a short
stick. The boy, called a whistle punk, manned a communicating wire
running from the choker setter's position out among the logs to a steam
whistle on the donkey engine. When the choker setter had secured the
line running from the spool, the whistle punk tugged his whistle wire as
a signal to the engineer that the log was ready to be hauled in. As
soon as one log was in, or "yarded," it was detached from the line; then
the horse hauled the line back from the donkey engine to the waiting
choker setter and the next log.
In addition to the men operating the steam donkey a man was
needed to chop wood for the boiler fire and, if the donkey was beyond
the length of a hose from a stream, then a donkey with water bags was
required to lug water from a water source to the machine.
Dolbeer Steam Donkey at Work – Unknown Source
Dolbeer Donkey at Work - Darius Kinsey Photograph
This model of a steam donkey
(below) was scratch built by Colin Menzies in 1:23 scale from
measurements taken by Tony Phillips from an original (see below,
left/right) which sits outside the Roots of Motive Power
in Willits (the land end of the Skunk Train and Colin’s home). The
figure was acquired and painted by Tony Phillips (who lives at the sea
end of the Skunk Train in Fort Bragg). The model won Colin and Tony an
Honorable Mention at the National Narrow Gauge Model Railway Convention
in 2004.
Click the thumbnails on right for two short movies of a steam donkey in operation taken at the 2010 Steam Up at Roots of Motive Power
Left and Right are the Originals Used as the Basis of Colin's Model at Roots of Motive Power in Willits (click for larger image)
Center are the photos of Colin's model (roll mouse over thumbnails and click for larger image)
Locally there are two places to see steam donkeys.
First, there are two restored steam donkeys in the Deli building opposite the Skunk Depot. They are on the opposite side of the building from the restaurant. Both belonged to the Union Lumber Company.
Second, about 20 miles from Fort Bragg on Highway 20 at Camp 20
there is a largish stem donkey that used to belong to the Caspar Lumber
Company – see picture right:
Associate Member Colin Menzies also made a model of this steam
donkey. Photos of his 1:12 scale model were published in Timber Times
(see below) – a magazine devoted to logging and modeling logging
activities.
Associate Member Colin Menzies
also made a model of this steam donkey. Photos of his 1:12 scale model
(left) were published in Timber Times (see below) – a magazine devoted
to logging and modeling logging activities. Just roll your mouse over
these images to see a larger version and then just move your mouse
up/down to see all of the larger image.
Text source: http://www.mendorailhistory.org/1_logging/steam_donkeys.htm
Hubby still has a pile of leaves to clean up alongside the house. I like to hear the scrunchy sound of them when I just happen to walk over them:
A foggy morning sunrise:
The light pink sky didn't last too long - heavier fog moved in:
Chicken foots!
(They are from Wilma's big feet)
Storm clouds in the afternoon, but no rain - the sun came out a little bit later!
The gang getting their treats. Charlie likes to be hand fed and will wait by the fence. The girls just scramble at anything that is thrown in. It's fun to watch them try to seal goodies from one another!
