Favorite pix from California

Picture of the ocean in the back then beach then the San Simeon river with the shadow of a great blue heron reflected in the river.



Don't know about this one.



Some kind of boid.



Brown Pelicans



Sun through smoke.



Playing in the surf.



Sunset in Ventura



Waves on the ocean.



Sunset on Christmas day.
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Oh, by the way, this appears to be active...... i'm not gonna lie...i don't have a blog

Serious drivel.......

Sunday morning around 9:00 I started on the spaghetti sauce. Here you see the sauce well under way with the mushrooms just about ready to go in.

Now we see the onions just about ready to add to the sauce. The green pepper is in already, and it's starting to smell fine....

I kind of forgot to take many pix, here's one after the meal. I think Bryn and Mag are checking something on the computer.

Now how did this get in here!! I told myself that I WOULD NOT put any more pie pix on this blog!! Oh, well, there is only one left in the freezer.....

Today I ate a huge plate of left-over spaghetti for lunch. And I had ordered the traditional carrot cake for my birthday, and here it is. Some bonehead started a tradition at Marquip that on your birthday you bring enough donuts to satisfy everyone's sweet tooth. Most people bring the donuts. A few people will make something and bring it in, a couple will bring bagels and fruit. I have been bringing a carrot cake for the last there years because I really like them and a gal that works in the print room makes cakes for weddings and other occasions. So I get one from her. The decorations are colored leaves for the season.

What a load of important info on this post, hey?

What I done on me birtday......

I got up. I went to Phillips and bought a coffee at the gas station. I went to Peg's house and started working on the garage addition. I finished up the face board and stuff on the roof edge on the front and back sides, and then put the drip edge on. That completes the roof...( I don't do shingles)

Next item of business was the remaining wall on the south end of the addition. I decided to attack that as the weather was drizzly and supposed to rain all day. It did rain on and off all day and I never did go hunting..

So did the rain deter us from the task at hand? Oh, no. It drizzled and rained on my glasses as I tried to look up under the eaves....

But it was a good feeling to come back inside after nailing that last piece of plywood in place. It's a building.....!! We finished the tarpaper on the outside and called it a day.

The only thing left at this point was to see if the new area is good for drinking a beer..... it is. I took a shower and headed for Copp's to get the ingredients for my spaghetti dinner that I will cook for myself and others tomorrow. I'm taking an apple pie out of the freezer tonight. I'm getting hungry thinking about it. If you're in the area tomorrow, stop in and drink a beer.....

Not so good....

Wednesday afternoon late we started in putting the plywood on the new roof area of the garage addition. The forcast was for thunder storms late evening so we wanted to get it covered. We managed to finish it up at about 7:15 in the gathering dark, with lightning flickering in the West. We had a little rain during the night, but the new area is dry!



I've been watching this hornet's nest all summer. I'm thinking "Man, that will look cool in the Lodge!". So you don't want it to stay out too long and get stuck in a long fall rain spell...... so tonight, as it is supposed to get quite cold tonight, I thought I should bag it and harvest it. It's a dandy, isn't it?






So I got the step ladder, a garbage bag, a pruning shear and my camera and I headed out to the front lawn to get that thing cut out of the tree and put away in the shed.






So far, so good. I got the bag on the nest and the top of the bag tied around the branch. I thought I'ld take a pic.... Here comes the "not so good" part.

After snapping the shot, I was just going to go up the ladder and cut the branch, but just then a big hornet came flying up and started looking for his front door. A couple more showed up in a few minutes...... so, I decided to wait until after dark to see if they have left. Maybe I will have to cut it down tomorrow morning..... Oh, well.


In other GOOD news, you may recall the Ivan was going hunting in Idaho with Chuck. Well rumor has it that Chuck got a BIG bull elk last Sunday. It was 25 yards from Chuck and 20 yards from Ivan, but not a clear shot for Ivan. Chuck, however, had a shot! And he got it. Bow hunting in Idaho.... I think I'll have to go with them next year!!!

Lift off!!

First off, the upper photo is Greg Stevenson's plane, the lower one is just off the web, it's a Weedhopper

No pictures of Steve's plane that we flew in tonight.......

The weather being excellent tonight, we started our flight about 5:45. After getting settled in and starting the engine, I taxied the plane out to runway 10 (runway starts at 100° and runs almost west-with west end at 280°). After checking for any other aircraft, I headed the plane out onto the runway and got it lined up straight with the center stripe. At this point Steve took over and had me feel the throttle handle and control stick as he operated them. We climbed to about 800' AGL (above ground level) and there he had me level off by throttling back a bit and changing the nose attitude a bit. We flew west a while and occasionally Steve would have me do a 90° turn and follow a gravel road below. When turning to fly crosswind, there was enough of a west wind that the plane was traveling south while the nose was pointed south-west. Pretty cool. We did pretty easy, low angle turns which in an ultralight are easily done with rudder control alone. It was hard to understand by reading, but in the plane it made sense that altitude was governed by power (and some pitch increase) while airspeed was primarily controlled by pitch attitude. This became abundantly clear as we descended to a grass strip owned by a friend of Steve's. With the engine at almost idle, you could make the airspeed go up or down, but more importantly steady at 35mph airspeed, just with a little elevator change. That's the control surface on the tail that raises and lowers to raise or lower the back end of the plane. As we approached the grass strip Steve again took control of the stick and brought us in for a touchdown, brief taxi and then full power to pick up speed, back on the stick and we were climbing again. Steve told me to level off after a while, turn back to the east and head toward the water tower just south of the airport. The ground passed much more quickly while going downwind!!! Airspeed remained the same, however. We made a slight detour around a soccer field (FAA regs not to fly over any gathering of people with an ultralight). Our path now was essentially the downwind leg of our approach, and I backed off the throttle and eased the nose down a bit. Another 90° turn and we were into the base leg of out approach. The airspeed indicator helped me adjust elevator control so that we did not loose too much airspeed (don't want to stall that wing!!). Now Steve said to make the final 90° turn and line up with the runway.... I think I did that O.K. and now we were getting quite close to the ground. Steve took control of the stick and eased us onto the runway. Awesome!!!
I applied the brake, turned a u-ey on the runway and taxied back to the hangar. This short trip certainly confirmed my suspicion that I would rather fly a fixed wing plane than the powered parachutes. The chutes are O.K., but I don't think they could have flown in the winds we were in tonight. Plus you could actually go somewhere in this little plane. It's way cool.............
This is Carlo signing off... over and out!

Check this unlikely situation.....

Wow, who'd a thunk it!!! It's been 25 years since I started working at Marquip! And four other guys made 20 years recently. So the Design Engineering group had a little luncheon at the park, catered meal of chicken, roast beef, mashed potatoes, beans, salad, rolls and cake.
Would you want to work at a place that would keep ME around for 25 years? Get real! Guess who had to sneak a nap after returning to work.......


I zoomed right home after work and put some corn out in the woods by my hunting tree,then dived into this. Peg will be here in about 10 minutes and then we will travel to Merrill. Today is the ultralight ride!! Can't wait. I'll try to get some pix of things from the air and some close shots of the plane.....
Later.

Monday update.

This is what we managed to get done on Saturday. We got the East and North walls standing with plywood on them.
We also worked on figuring out where and how to put the rafters. We cut the two end ones and got them nailed in place.
So the main part of the structure is in hand. There is a fair amount left to do, but it will be closed in soon.
Another big part of the project was to get the original garage roof fixed up as it was sagging quite bad. As you can see, it took
a couple of ratcheting chain pulls, a pair of old house jacks, a jack post, a new beam and lots of temporary bracing to get things back to a reasonable condition.

Here is a view of the south end of the field at home. Some trees are bare, some are still green. It's been weird fall so far.

Tonight we got all the rafter material out into the new area. We sawed a rafter and tested it in each location and noted the required lengthening or shortening required to make it fit said location.

Then we traced the pattern on each 2x6, sawed them all out and started putting them inplace. By 7:00 it was starting to get dark, but we had all the rafters in place.

So this is what it looks like from the outside. One more day and the plywood and tarpaper will be on the roof and dryness shall ensue.......

Pain has set in....

I sure hope I don't have to go find a job in logging or in the building trades. We started on Peg's garage addition today and I can barely function now!! We started at 8:00 this morning, built walls and got the two end rafters figured out and put up. Cleaned the work area and put tools away, got done about 5:00 P.M. Staggered into the house, showered and took an hour nap. Feeling some better now and this Guinness I just poured is helping.....

Will be heading to Merrill Tuesday evening for that postponed flight I had mention earlier. Hope the weather is good!

Rosie asked about what it would take to be able to fly an ultalight. This bit is from the United States Ultralight Association. "At the end of your training, after you have soloed, you will take a written, oral and flight test. Once you have successfully completed these your application will be submitted to USUA and, in return, you will receive your very own pilot registration card showing you are on the national registry as an ultralight pilot."

The Federal Aviation Administration website is quite interesting. On the site are the Part 103 regs governing ultralight aircraft. Actually, the FAA does not recognize UL's as aircraft!!! They are considered ultralight vehicles. I guess it's a way to let the sport exist without all the controls and registrations that would probably doom the sports availability to people on a lesser budget.

The archery deer season began today but I did not go. I have my license and have been shooting my bow a bit, but there are a few projects that need to get done before I disappear from the normal world and become a hunting recluse. Peg's garage needs to get closed in and there are a number of things around Ottertail country that need attention. Like getting the air conditioner out of the window, putting on storms, final mowing, leaf pickup, etc....
Then look out, Bambi, you're next on the list!!

Aeronautical update.

The planned introductory flight for last night in Merrill was cancelled just because of a few thunder storms and a ton of rain.... go figure. Have been doing a lot of pondering on this plane situation and this is what it looks like--
I would have to find a used plane that someone I trust can verify it's airworthyness, hopefully in the $6-7000 range. This should not be a real big issue. More of a problem is storing the thing. I had a tentative arrangement with airplane Al in Phillips to rent some space in his hangar. This would work until I can get something going at the Ottertail. This means building something big enough to hold a 28x18 plane. Not to forget the 30 x 10 door necessary to get the plane in and out. None of these things are insurmountable problems, but it will require considerable planning (and money) to get it accomplished. This winter I will have to get a plan worked out to see if this agenda can happen next spring or not. In any event, we are going to go ahead with training in the spring. That could be done this fall, but I have a ton of things to do yet, not to mention bowhunting starting this weekend.....
We have re-scheduled the flight to next week. I'll let you know what it's like.

We're on our way......

Greetings..... Peg and I just got home from Merrill, the proud owners of two successful completions of Ultralight Ground School!! But let me back up a little.
On Saturday morning we went to Wisconsin Rapids to visit Ken Snyder's Quicksilver dealership at the Rapids airport. We talked at length about the different models, the differences in flight, how they handled, how much they cost, etc. We came away with a load of brochures and a price list. I thought that we might as well go find the Merrill airport, as I have an appointment there to get an introductory flight in a Quicksilver next Tuesday. So we found it, drove in and found Steve Krueger, the instructor that is taking me up. We talked a long time about his planes and also about a ground school that he was teaching the next day, Sunday. So..... we decided to go, and Peggy is decided to take it as well. So we continued on to Paul and Susanna's place to drop off a CD of theirs that I had, but the weren't home. We left the CD and split. We headed back to Phillips and attended the late afternoon and evening of the Boy Scout family campout weekend. We were planning on camping and such, but now we had to be in Merrill by a little before 7:00A.M. So we got up at 5:15 and headed out at 5:45. Got to the airport before 7:00. The school started right away and went to noon, we had pizza at the airport and continued on with class. We finally finished at 5:00 and then we had the written test. I guess we got out of there about 6:15..... Long day sitting there trying to absorb about a million details. We go Tuesday for the flight and we both have determined to take the instruction for the FAA recognised Ultralight Pilot Certificate. This training is sponsored by the USUA (United States Ultralight Assoc.) and will be done at the Merrill airport. Yeeee-haaaaaa!! Are we nuts, or what??????
p.s. Peg's house is one of those down there......

Fly-in at Price Cty Airport

The ultralight fly-in at Phillips was on Sept. 3rd & 4th. We just went on Saturday as we needed to go to Burlington on Sunday and Monday (but that's a whole other story). I went with a particular interest in getting airborne in a powered parachute. I got there about 10:00A.M. and it was getting too rough up above from thermals and stuff, so I would have to wait till late afternoon for a ride. So I spent quite a bit of time talking to Greg from Irma. He flew his single seat Quicksilver MX to Phillips from Irma for the event. Cool lookin' little plane, hey? Here's a shot of the added on fiberglass nose piece. As these planes do not come apart easily, they require storage in the form of a hangar, with a wing span of about 30' and the plane about 18' long, it would be a considerable project. The other option would be to rent space in a hangar at the airport. There were two other Quicksilver planes there. They also flew to Phillips for the event, one from Barron and one from somewhere farther west. One was a single place and the other was a double seater. These people talked a lot about their planes and where they've been with them. I also got the names of a few people in the area that fly and train others, and I found the website of Northcentral Wisconsin's chapter of the EAA.

So it was now time to start thinking about the power chutes. There were five of them in the area, four giving rides for $30 a shot. These beasts have a tubular metal frame, three wheels, seats, a motor and prop, and a 400 square foot parafoil chute. By the way, that's Peggy coming in for a landing above us. So she got to sample it before I did, at least now I knew it might be safe...... just kidding. Just before take-off they lay the chute out on the ground behind the motor unit. Then they start the motor and the prop wash fills the chute, it raises, they give it more gas, start rolling and when the chute is stable above, they nail the throttle and off you go!!!
These things are pretty neat to fly in. You look down in front and the only part of the plane you see are the foot operated steering bars. Nice view of the area from 400' above the ground. So here we are just after lift off. Seems like you're just floating up. There's always a head wind of 26-32 miles/hour, as that's the speed the chute can move through the air. They climb quite fast and supposedly the ceiling for these things is 10,000 ASL. When you look up you see that big, colorful chute above you, holding you up in the sky with some REALLY TINY looking strings. Kinda creepy so I didn't look up much.















Here are a couple of pix of the view at 400 feet up. Take a ride in one these if you get the chance!!!!