Tommy Bolin

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since Oct 17, 2024
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Recent posts by Tommy Bolin

Dog kibble.
Around here, squirrels=spruce cones. By the thousands. The mountains of cone trimmings near a perch/stash in the spring can be amazing.
Along with squirrels, the whiskey jacks, pack rats/foxes/mice (at night), woodpeckers, ravens, chickadees, all help themselves to the troughs we feed the dogs from. Not like they just come by for an afternoon nibble. They pillage as fast as they can.
Whiskey jacks especially. They hide so much, I'm not sure they even remember where it all is.
Woodpeckers use any crook in a poplar they can find to hold the kibble like a small vise, then peck away at it. They don't actually eat much and don't bother me.
Ravens have mobbed up and attacked our old Marema, trying to drive him off of his own feed.
Cats hunt near the feeders, as do small owls at night. Balances the mice and small birds. Dogs run the foxes off. The rest nominate themselves for a date with air rifle destiny.
13 hours ago

Riona Abhainn wrote:This is interesting, everyone's planting it in Oct.  Last year I found Nov. planting to be successful.  Should I do it earlier like you guys, particularly inquiring of R and David because you're in a similar area to me.



Lil'B plants mid-October. For us entirely weather dependent, bit of moisture, but before snow. Covers with straw when temps look to go -10C. Forces mice to seek shelter elsewhere.
1 week ago
No. I looked to me from the way you drew it, that you intended to raise the building one piece at a time. Maybe due to (solo) labor constraints.

Deep beam across yes. Strength of the beam proportional to square of depth as I recall. Little extra goes a long ways.

I have not watched the reference video, but remember, stacking things with 'lincoln log' type joints is fine, but a true truss or bent does not allow for any displacement at any joint, it is intended to be rigid or stabilized in any direction.
Pegs are not load bearing, just keep the joint together, therefore generally neither are nails, except in shear planes.
I used to tell my apprentices without added seismic/hurricane hardware that a wood framed building is held together only by gravity/inertia. Turn it upside down and the whole thing falls apart. A building must be anchored from roof ridge to solid earth. Start your mental modeling of structure from the roof down. Figure out how much weight you intend to carry, how to distribute it, how to keep it in it's place, how to get it to the ground.
Stacking Lincoln Logs makes a structure that will stand but does absolutely nothing for wind or seismic uplift, lateral displacement.  
You don't have snow, but wind is more destructive, and you live in Louisiana, t-storms and hurricanes. Your concern is not the weight bearing down so much as keeping the building in place in high winds. Racking and lifting.
What you have drawn is neither a truss nor a timber frame bent. None of the members are joined. You don't give the sizes of material you have to work with.
The beam spanning the width of the building at each post carries about half the roof/timber weight of each bay from the ridge in the middle. Which means a deep beam.  Your span can be covered by a true king post truss and would likely need those diagonal web members to function. The design is readily available online or in a timber framing book and very easy to understand.
You want those 10ft bays and the extra work involved.
My guess is you want to frame this in pieces, in place, not having to lift a truss you assembled on the ground.
I built a pig pole barn years ago at MSU in Bozeman. We used 2x6 purlins set on edge to carry the steel roofing.
Don't give up yet!
I melted a battery post on a huge old 4v solar cell a few years ago, due loose connection/corrosion, not sure. Was in the lake cabin, not used much, therefore was not paying enough attention. Could have been worse.
I took a large old fishing sinker, built a mold out of sheet metal, and recast the lug on top of the remaining stump. Not perfect, but it didn't show voltage drop that I could measure, battery lived on until the whole bank died couple years later. Bank was almost 30 years old at the time, very expensive to replace, so very much worth the effort.
Took a couple photos of the process, if I can find them, I'll put them here.
As for you battery, if there is enough post left to charge and the battery will put out current, then it is worth trying.
3 weeks ago
If you are attempting to sell your home, and have installed one of these, without the permit you could not have gotten, then any moderately aware buyer's home inspector or real estate agent will likely flag it for further scrutiny. Portable, I suppose means just make it gone, pretend it was never there.
You will then have to choose to remove it, at your expense, try to get it permitted, at significant cost and aggravation, or cancel your purchase contract.
While your buyer may choose to accept it as is, perhaps demanding an acceptance of liability or your part, their homeowner's insurance likely will not, without certified installation and UL type approval. Many readers live in more rural areas where such troubles are less likely. To everyone else, good luck.
Right or not, we can argue or hope/wish, but we trade the market at hand, not the market we wish for.
4 weeks ago
Beksi watching the lake. Coyotes very pesky, wolves back. Cows leave soon. Dogs will be at a bit of loose ends. She is, I like to suppose, waiting for the lake to freeze into a huge snow covered playground/highway.
She and her siblings will spend the winter chasing the unwelcome intruders off.
4 weeks ago
There are two parts to the equation of life.
Energy and time. Energy, not in the sense of finding motivation, but of the ability to sustain oneself.
The most common way to acquire energy in most of our lives is money. Money or the acquisition of energy are fungible. The power of compounding means that there are almost infinite amounts of energy that can be harvested or created, almost infinite paths to do it.
You can bag on 'worky jobs', but money is the easiest to compound. When invested, it silently works, 24/7/365, growing, providing future acquisition of energy.
Investing in yourself, your skillset, investing in your 'home(stead)' wherever you live, means finding ways to wisely compound your labor, and therefore your ability to acquire energy. Most live with a balance of both paths.
Time, however, is not fungible. Finite, it passes no matter what, and cannot be created. It is the limit to the compounding part, or the future acquisition of energy. That should help frame a person's answer to the 'value' of time.  

1 month ago
We are then at approximately the same elevation, as is our Nevada home.

I like Basin. I remember in the early 70's when the highway still passed through town. I also remember the year, 1976? how surprised we were the Interstate was being completed to pass around. We had a cabin on the North Fork of the Sun, just south of the Bob Marshall. My dad was stationed in SoCal after his second tour, and we passed through every July until we moved back to Great Falls.
I also remember Elk Park just south towards Butte being one of those quirky places on the morning news with the lowest temps in the state, when it wasn't Butte.
1 month ago