Annual Valentine Song Festival! Sharp Dressed Man, ZZ Top

Annual Valentine Song Festival! Barbara Ann, Beach Boys

 

Annual Valentine Song Festival! A Pretty Girl Is Like A Melody, John Steel, Rudy Vallee

 

This song is another study of the change that came with microphones and electric recording vs acoustic recording. John Steel, star of the Ziegfeld stage had to sing to the back of the auditorium, and record through a megaphone to a vibrating diaphragm.  Fifteen years later, Rudy Vallee crooned to microphones.

Boys' Club Met Today

 

Still Ganged Up

 They will scatter when the weather warms up a bit. Have not seen any antlers lately, so it is probably time to look for sheds.

Annual Valentine Song Festival! Laura, Spike Jones

Tuesday Torque: 200 HP 1905 Darracq

 Wow! Look at him go! Another great pick by Merle! Thank You!

Annual Valentine Song Festival! You're Still The One, Shania Twain and Brooklyn Duo

 

The Back Roads Are Clearing Up...

 ...Go out and replenish your milk and corn meal.

Back To The Old Grind!

Annual Valentine Song Festival! Dance Me To The End Of Love, Leonard Cohen

 Many Thanks to our friend Mary for requesting this song!

Weekend Steam II: Durango and Silverton Cab Ride!

 

Annual Valentine Song Festival! Footprints In The Snow, Flatt and Scruggs, Live At Carnegie Hall (Released 1963)

John Barleycorn Must Die, Traffic; Robert Burns, Author

 

For Today:

"Some hae meat and canna eat,

And some wad eat that want it,

But we hae meat and we can eat,

Sae let the Lord be Thankit! "

Weekend Steam: Burrell Single Crank Compound, 4" Model

 Merle, this is a new concept for me. We have seen tandem compounds with both pistons on the same rod, and cross compounds with the cylinders having their separate cranks, but I have never seen a single crank compound with parallel cylinders before. Both the high and low pressure cylinders are connected to the same crosshead. I think that American manufacturers never made an engine like this one.  Many Thanks, Merle! (Click The Photo for the Link, or HERE.)

Annual Valentine Song Festival! An Old Fashioned Love Song, Three Dog Night

An Old Fashioned Love Song was released January 1, 1972.  More than fifty years ago. When I was in high school, 1920's songs were only forty years old. Holy Cow!

Foster Schips Adapting

 

The downstairs dogs are real pets and love to rest in front of the fire. We will be sending Bandit (L) out into the world soon. Zahara (R) must be treated for heartworm, so she and Peaches will be with us for a while. They are buddies and will go out together. So much joy!

Thirteen Degrees This Morning

 Going up close to freezing today. Tomorrow it melts!

Annual Valentine Song Festival! You Belong To Me, Jo Stafford

 

Still Hard Ice!

 Walking our driveway is still a challenge. They are calling for 31 tomorrow, so maybe we will melt a bit.  A thaw is coming in Saturday. Maintain your verticality! Falls kill old people!

Annual Valentine Song Festival! Tea For Two, Marion Harris, 1925; Comedian Harmonists, 1934

  Electrical recording and microphones were introduced in 1925, so Marion Harris is of the old school, where you had to project your voice to the back row, and sing loudly into a megaphone to be recorded via a mica diaphragm vibrating a needle into a wax disc. Big changes were ahead for performers.  The dividing line was a century ago. It is hard to believe, because I still play my acoustic discs on the phonographs.

The Comedian Harmonists recorded Tea For Two in 1934, and you can tell that artists were adapting to the new technology.

Home Is Where The Heat Is!

 The temp is up to 17 degrees F at mid-morning. Heat Wave!

Annual Valentine Song Festival: Gentle On My Mind, John Hartford (Author), and Glen Campbell

 

Tuesday Torque: Shoot Fire! It's A Lanz Bulldog Pulling The Sled!

 Lanz Bulldogs are a single cylinder 2-stroke engine; a big, heavy chainsaw type engine. Boy can they pull! Thank You, Merle!

Annual Valentine Song Festival! Waltz Across Texas, Ernest Tubb

Annual Valentine Song Festival! Thank Your Father, Helen Kane

Keep Those Home Fires Burning!

 

Black oak is our favorite for cold weather. Fast growing, easy to split, dries fast, burns with blue flames. Dig ashes, add wood, repeat.

Back To The Old Grind!

Annual Valentine Song Festival! Music From Cinema Paradiso

 Beautiful music, but oh, so sad. I have read the plot and looked at many segments, but the story line is nearly as sad as Old Yeller, and I try not to watch movies that break your heart. But The Music Is Good!  Here is Cormac Thompson performing the love theme, and that is where we became acquainted with this widely acclaimed movie

Lyrics translated to English:

If one day you could see
Through my eyes the beauty
And happiness I see in you.
When I see your eyes
The life I dream of can come true
Or is it just a dream?
Are you near?

If one day you could see
With my heart the yearning.
Then you would know just how I feel
When I feel your heart
And when I drink you in my arms
And breathe you with my soul
We are one
Remember.

If one day you could see
With my soul the future.
Time would stand still, then
Disappear.

This is all I ask
Just like a film that fades from view.
My paradise was you
So I dream
Remember

Wikipedia summary and spoiler link.

Weekend Steam: How Fast Could A Locomotive Go?

Merle picked a great topic for this weekend, and I am sure that many today doubt that these speeds could be reached and maintained. It is pretty well documented, though.  These high speed engines had to be built especially well, because a locomotive running wide open is basically working to destroy itself. That is a lot of metal moving on these monsters.  Thank You, Merle!

  

 

 

60 to 80 miles per hour was much more common than 100 plus.  It is dizzying standing close to tracks when and 80 mph train speeds by.  Hang onto your kids when train watching up close.

Annual Valentine Song Festival! Love and Marriage, Frank Sinatra

Urban Deer Herd Puts Ours To Shame!

 Our blog friend John in Philly sent some video segments from his urban back yard. His herd of deer puts our little country herd to shame! I bet the nighttime driving is dangerous in John's neighborhood. We limit our driving after sunset ever since hitting a deer a few years ago. Thank You, John, for the video, and your permission! How on earth can you have a garden with this heavy load of hoofed herbivores?

Annual Valentine Song Festival! Embraceable You, Judy Garland (George Gershwin song)

There is a touching story about this song in the interview with Marine veteran Charles B. Kelley, beginning at 23:20. I recommend setting the slider at 18:00 to get yourself oriented to Mr. Kelley's circumstances, as he and his buddies were fighting on Okinawa.

 

Long Shot?

 Shooters seem to be obsessed with long range shots, and it is great to have an accurate rifle that can hit small targets at multiple hundreds of yards, but I like to think practically about hunting. This photo is one of our resident mother deer, with her two babies from last year, at 200 yards across our pond. There is less than 50 feet of woody vegetation between the deer and the pond's edge.  It's an easy shot for a rifle with a trajectory of the 30-06 or 308. Sight it an inch and a half or two above the crosshairs at 100, and 200 yards will be right on. You just have to be steady and pick a shot that won't tag any branches.  Any good marksman can make a heart shot with an off-the-shelf rifle and factory ammo if they are serious about their marksmanship and know their trajectory.  

But, if you are hunting in the woods and don't have unobstructed hundreds-of-yards, the latest whizz-bang rifle caliber isn't going to do you much good. Things get in the way and deer are usually moving, making brush deflection ever more likely with distance. I've shot many groundhogs over the years and the farthest was just 100 yards out. Most of them have been around 25 yards.  A deer was on one side of the barn, and I was on the other, shooting through the barn, just a little more than 50 feet. Another, in the woods, was only at 30 feet. High quality factory ammo and modern barrel forming makes heart shots the norm for today's woods hunters. Rifles that can bang steel at 500 yards and farther must be a lot of fun to shoot, but really aren't a necessity for most of us, 

Annual Valentine Song Festival! Everybody Loves Me Baby, Don McLean

 

Full Moon Setting

 There were several years when I walked our Big Jack regularly, and I kept up with the moon phases, planets, and constellations. The current dogs are walked in the fenced dog yard, with a bright security light that obscures the night sky. The moon still shines through to grab my attention. The full moon setting in our snowscape was really nice.

Annual Valentine Song Festival! Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing, Andy Williams

 

Tuesday Torque: Crosley OE 128 Engine

 We all love big uns, Merle! Thank You! 

I have heard many horror stories about using ether for startups, but I have used it, always with a bit of dread. When I was working for an oilwell service company, I had to start Waukesha 135s on cold mornings before the pulling units left the yard. They ran on LP, and had magneto ignition. The impulse on those mags did not always work when the motor oil was cold, and  the tool pusher didn't want the crews to run batteries down and burn up starters, so the engines got the first start of the day before the crews arrived. My method was to hook the cooling system to a running pickup truck to warm up the antifreeze, then give a shot of gasoline and oil to the intake manifold, followed by a small shot of ether. The Waukeshas would fire up right away, in spite of the weak spark from a slow magneto with that combo. 

Valentine's Day Is Just One Month Away! Annual Valentine Song Festival Begins!

 Anticipation, Carly Simon

Dog Life, Our Current Fosters...

 

Meadows Mills...

 ...Manufacturing bur mills since 1902! Buy a new one, or rebuilt, or take your old one there for restoration!

Back To The Old Grind!

Not My Victrola: Fight Those Winter Blahs!

We have posted this one before, and is a great song to lift your spirit on a cold and dreary winter day. It is one of my favorite records for Fox-Trotting, so push back the furniture and join in the fun.

No sun today, but the temp is now to 39 degrees F, and the snow is settling rapidly!

TSS Earnslaw, Queensland, New Zealand

 Once again, Merle takes us to a place I have never been, to see steam that I have never heard of. The Earnslaw is more than a century in age, and is a hand-fired triple expansion powered passenger steam ship. 

Weekend Steam: 110 Case At Pinckneyville

 Merle reminded us that we haven't watched a spark show for some time, and the big Case at Pinckneyville is well worth revisiting. Thank You, Merle! 

Best Seat In The House

 Goes great with a cup of coffee and a Schipperke for company.

Crusty, Hard Walking

Our precip came down in layers of ice and snow, and walking on it is hard. It will take most of your weight, then drop you. The deer have not been seen until Thursday night, when I saw some movement over in the pines. They normally walk across the dam every day, but the only tracks out there this week are from squirrels. More snow is supposed to ease in tonight, maybe up around four inches on top of our crustiness. Ice from Sunday is still sparkling up in the treetops. 

The county blacktop melted down enough that you can drive on it so long as you keep a light foot on the accelerator. Sunshine melted much of the ice, but it is re-freezing tonight. It is much better than it was Monday and Tuesday. I was able to go to the farm with the little Nissan two-wheel drive pickup today.

Here comes the next one! Update, 6:30 AM, very light snow, dry air is keeping the snow from making it to the ground. I give that a thumb up!

Snow 6:30 A, Jan 10, 2025

Snow 10:30 P Jan 9, 2025

 

Dashing Through The Snow

 I didn't make it over to the farm to check on my cats for a couple days because of the ice and snow storm. The county blacktop is a solid sheet of ice, so I did not want to take the family car, or the two-wheel drive pickup. The tractor was the solution. The gravel roads were impassable for two-wheel drive when I got off the blacktop, but the tractor handled it OK. The cats were fine. I had put out extra food and water before the storm. The road commissioner bladed my route a second time before I headed home, and it is passable now for a car. The blacktop is a mess, though. This morning I spent a few hours just down the road with a fellow who slid into the ditch. I had no traction and couldn't budge him. A bold co-worker showed up with a four-wheel drive work truck and yanked him out with a series of jerks, something that I was hesitant to do to a stranger's car. Nobody got hurt, and I doubt that the car is bent from the jerking. Nobody fell, or got hurt, and that is a blessing. Be careful out there, especially when the next blast of cold comes south!

Running into the Giraffe crew was a nice bonus of this cold ride. Those guys don't take snow days!

Tuesday Torque: Potpourri Of Facebook Reels

 Click The Pics for video links. 

Fairbanks 6 Cylinders

Apple Peeler!

Old IHC

Reeves 40 Prairie Tractor

Only a couple of these LaCrosse Rein Drive tractors remain. One of them is shown at Mt. Pleasant, Iowa every Labor Day weekend.

Many Thanks, Merle! These are some good ones! Sorry I'm late, the snow kept us busy today.  

It's Crusty

Sleet and freezing rain on top of four inches of snow. Gonna be scraping a bit tomorrow. Back To The Old Grind!

 

Not Snowmageddon, Thank Goodness!

 We got a little over four inches, then some sleet and freezing rain, but the power is on, and we have plenty of wood at the house. The dogs like it, but tire of it quickly. 

Weekend Steam II: Swiss Snow Blower

 Merle sent a great link that applies today. We spent a large part of the day clearing snow around the house and off the firewood, and now we have sleet and freezing rain on the ground. At least it is not glare ice. We will be OK. Thank You, Merle!

Weekend Steam: 4" Burrell Engine...

 ...but what about that footwear?!  Well, it's not as egregious as running a saw in flip-flops, shorts, while up a ladder. Thank You, Merle! This is a beautiful engine! (Click The Pic for link.)

Fruit Jar Bourbon

Char some white oak heartwood sticks, put them in a fruit jar, and add vodka. Vodka will probably be 80 proof, (40 %) ethanol, and you will want to bump that up to around 120 proof (60%). Our limited experience so far is that two years makes an extremely dark and woody bourbon. The second batch on the same sticks smells and tastes like store bought bourbon in just a year. You can probably get by with fewer sticks than we used. Write the date on the lid and put it away where you won't be tempted to sample too soon. Remember to dilute it before drinking, and enjoy it in small samples. The pecan sticks are an experiment, and we will update our readers whenever we pull it out to check the progress. 

New Year's Eve Excitement!

 Mina (with the ball) and Vinnie pumping up anticipation. 

Vice Grip Garage: John Deere M, Fine, Frosty, Family Fun!