Bigmike911

Lucky that the tree service was "johnny on the spot" it took more than a week after Beryl took out a 65 foot elm and part of my neighbors fence. The backup generator is repaired and in service, and a new one has been ordered, and should be installed in November. Helene was a cat four, while Beryl only a cat two when it hit. And having seen the damage it did, I can only imagine how The Big Bend of Florida and western Georgia look. I can actually say, I feel your pain.

I am a great fan of repairing rather than replacing. I have a great cobbler who can take shoes and completely replace the soles as they do when they are first built. And they wear like new. However, I will have to confine my Turnbull and Asser shirt I wore yesterday to the button bag. I tore the sleeve coming out of a Firehouse Sub Shop yesterday on my way to the toe Doctor. I looked it over and it has a label they have not used since 2001, so I have gotten my money's worth from it. And it will give me buttons to replace them on other shirts as they are broken or lost. T&A use thick shell buttons that cannot be bought anywhere. The shoes look great by the way.

Hurricane Francine has thankfully by passed us, and headed further east. Hopefully since it only got to cat1, our friends in Louisiana will not suffer the damage we suffered with Beryl. Following up after Beryl, I got my back up generator on line again, but decided to replace it with a newer unit. It is 12 years old. As you might imagine there are business out there willing to make a profit off others ails. I got two proposals one $6,500 more than another for the same unit and installation. The lower price came from the company who currently maintain the generator and who got it back in service. I accepted their proposal, and am now going through the process of getting approvals, but it is underway. Even though the current unit is functioning and has gotten us through two actual power cuts, I got a twinge of nervousness when Francine started up the Texas coast. We will soon be past the peak season and so when the 2025 season comes, I will be ready. It is also September 11, 23 years since that terrible event of 2001. I watched the memorial service on Television this morning. I was genuinely touched that we still read every name of everyone lost on that day in NYC, Washington, D.C. and Shanksville, PA. I hope that goes on for ever.

A week of rain and cooler high temperatures followed Labor Day, and Sunday we get our first 'cold' front of the Fall. Lows in the upper 60s (f) instead of 80s. Not fall yet as the A/C is still running, but not all the time. Halloween Candy in the shops, and can Christmas decor be far behind, likely not. Another seasonal change is in the air. This year has flown by, but that seems to be the way it works, the older you get. Not complaining just enjoying life. Hattie, enjoy your voyage of Queen Anne. And give us a full report.

Get well soon.

It sounds like your 2025 vacation will be terrific. And two transatlantic voyages will be icing on the cake.

Definitely a southern treat. I love them.

The peak of August has descended on South East Texas with an air temp of 101f (38+c) this afternoon. The pool looked tempting so I got in. Almost immediately I realized the Pool Man had put acid in the pool today, but didn't note it on the door hanger. I got out a bit irritated but non the worse for wear after a brief shower. I have been away from CC for a week or so. I carelessly let Microsoft upgrade my desk top operating system to windows 11, and my log-in did not work. After getting aol Gold loaded on my laptop and getting my password reset I was able to get into windows 11, and reset my pin. Lots of shortcuts were missing and had to be rebuilt. I am a bit of a troglodyte on technology which is probably explained by the fact that I spent 40 years in the industry, so I like things to stay the same, but alas they don't. But I am back and have read posts of old pals and some new faces. It's good to be back. In a week or so, our Brit friends will be having their late summer Bank Holiday, and we will enjoy Labor Day, the unofficial end of summer. Time moves on and seems to be quicker the older you get.

I am a great fan of British Cheeses. Before the pandemic, one could order them from Paxton and Whitfield, in Jermyn Street, Cheesemonger to the Queen and I presume now King Charles III. Hopefully they will start shipping internationally again soon. My favorites Stilton, English Coastal Cheddar, and Double Gloucester. Stilton is available only during the winter here, and I have a number of packages of vacuum packed Stilton in my fridge.

The Generator. The generator repair man arrived to look the generator over. He was able to start it and run it, but the memory of the shutdown was erased when the battery ran out of juice. He turned the generator off and when he He turned off the street power to the house off, the generator automatically started up as it should. The possibility is that the generator ran low on oil and shut its self down. He had to put a quart and a half of oil into it today. They had to service it in June and changed the oil and filter, and may not have filled it completely. Long story, short, it is running now, and it switches properly when the street power is shut off. It is 12 years old, and I still plan to replace it, but we have a reprieve for now. Lead time on new generators is months long. We are slowly getting over Beryl, but I will take progress any day as a good thing.

A week of rain, some time heavy, some time drizzle, is finally over. Everything is growing. The lawn was not cut this week because of the rain and I have six inches of growth on some oaks planted in the last four years. Maybe they are just glad to be rid of the Elm. I am. Tuesday, finally, the generator maintenance guy is going to come to see if the old generator can be put back in service, as a back up until the new one arrives. I have very modest hope for that. My ever blooming Azaleas which bloomed once this year, have flowers again, so there is good that came from the rain. I found a crawfish in the bottom of the pool along with a tiny frog, belly up. I got my long pool scoop to get them out and the crawfish had moved. I put him in a muddy part of the yard, to make a new home. Their nickname is MudBug, appropriately. The dead frog is in the rubbish bin. Next week, Sun, and welcomed it will be.

Yes, but not of the four legged kind.

I have, but the near constant rain this year, washes it off, almost at once. About the only thing that gets rids of these beasts is when the come in contact with a vehicle on the nearby highway. The Herd in the neighborhood is over ten, with more coming every spring. One even gave birth between my house and my Burford Holly Hedge, right under my nose.

Yesterday morning as I opened the shutters in my bed room, I saw a deer grazing on my grass in my back garden. It came through the gap in the fence that the elm took out. I shooed it away. Later there were four in the yard. I cannot grow a number of plants in my front garden due to the beasts making lunch of them, and I have a number of plants in my rear garden that they would love. What to do. I had a roll of brown netting that I usually use to cover the weep hole in the bottom of my pots. I unrolled it and it was large enough to cover the opening. I stapled it to the remaining fence side and bottom. It is about the same color as the fence, so hopefully they will think it is impassable. We will see. Repairs to the fence commence this weekend.

And Tech Teach

Thank you ALC.

I made the decision to replace the generator. I might be able to repair it but it will cost big bucks and I will still have a 12 year old machine, that may have other parts that fail next time it runs It's a quick clean installation as all the other parts are there now. The pad, the smart switch which determines the lack of street power starts the generator and switches to generator power, and the natural gas line are already in place, so it will be a remove, replace and hook up. The guy is coming out Monday to give me a price, but I have decided I am going to do it whatever the price. I joined Club 80 today, and that is too old to deal with problems like the generator, so it will be how soon can you put it in, not how much.

Friday AM after getting the tree estimates and expecting a few weeks for the removal, a call at 7:10 this morning from the tree guy: could the remove the tree this morning. YES, I said and they are here as of 8:30 doing just that.

I think there is a bit of "storm" uplift in the price, but the guy is good and does not make a mess. Most folk think that South East Texas is a barren prairie, but it is actually heavily forested, and one of the complaints has been the power company doesn't cut the trees back as the should. That has NOT been my experience, and I have had to have some 'butchered' trees trimmed up because they just cut the branches in the power easement leaving the a mess. We will recover in time. Thanks for the encouragement.

Interesting Question. The generator which I thought was dead, might be reparable. I opened it yesterday and the buttons had lights. I pressed manual start and it started. I let it run for about 20 seconds and shut it down, is case running it might make the issue worse. The gen. maintenance company has not yet returned my call to come and take a look at it. I may go ahead and replace it anyway, it is 12 years old and one failure is one to many. The tree removal activity has made progress. My tree guy finally returned my message and came by yesterday and gave me an estimate $2,750., and I am on his schedule about 1 month away. He did say in case he could get to it sooner he would as I am a good customer. I have started an insurance claim. Everything is moving but at the speed of molasses in January. The power company still has 200K remaining outages. Everyone is outraged with their lack of preparation and response. The CEO appears on television in a hard hat and safety vest and sounds like a fool, one excuse follows the prior one.

Friday Morning. We started out post Beryl O.K. Power was widely out, but my back up Generator came on as expected. Until 10:30 Tuesday when it failed. We were with out power until 9:20 Friday Morning. Cold food, cold showers, hot steamy nights, but we made it through it all. Having power is better than not.

Beryl has come and gone, and we are living with her gifts. A 65 foot Elm tree came down and is partially in my yard and my neighbors yard and took out ten feet of wooden fence between out yards. The is a lot of debris, small branches from other trees, clusters of leaves from Oak and Sweet Gum, and more pine needles that we ever wanted or need. The whole house back up generator came on about six am on Monday, and as of 4 pm Tuesday is still running. Internet is out (I am using a mobile hot spot) and the land line phones are out, and with it the alarm monitoring system. Most of the Woodlands, Texas is still out of power, and a call to the Dr office for the appointment today asked me to come to their Conroe Office. I left one hour and fifteen minutes early and got there on time, A short stretch of the distance had traffic signals working. I longed for the UK round-abouts, So the US system of clearing intersections was in use. At each non working traffic signal the fall back is to stop, allow the vehicle on the right cross street to go, and then go around the intersection one at a time. It takes forever. Returning home I used a more direct route with No lights and it took an hour and forty-five minutes. The only businesses open were the HEB supermarkets who have back up power, and they were full because not only were people buying to grill on an out door grill, the stores are Air Conditioned and I think people were just enjoying the cool air. This will pass. Tomorrow I will work in the garden bagging up debris for collection on Thursday We can be thankful that there were only a couple of fatalities in both cases trees fell on houses and crushed people. Sad.

The outer bands of Beryl arrived at 1 pm sharp, Sunday. Some wind but mostly heavy rain for a few minutes, but it has passed quickly. The lawn seems to have enjoyed the shower. I scooped pine needles and leaves out of the pool, which will likely be just the first time for this storm. Beryl is moving quickly and should pass a few miles west of me tomorrow and by 2:00 p.m. be headed to the northeast, and gone from the locality. The expectation is for heavy rain, some wind, and our usual power outages. Technology is wonderful. In the lower US television satellite dishes are at 45 degree angle, and heavy rain easily interrupts the signal. My service recently introduced a feature that automatically switches to streaming delivery when the dish signal is interrupted. This works with recorded programming and I now longer play back a program I had recorded and get the message "signal lost" interrupting the recording. It's the little things.

Thanks Techteach, fingers crossed. It looks like a lot of rain for us somewhere between 4 and 8 inches. We will know by this time tomorrow, 10 am.

I have lived here long enough to know that these storms happen from time to time. Some are rough others easy, I cannot say the recent storms are any worse that those I experienced 60 years ago, Hurricane Carla at cat 4 in September, 1961, and the worst storm in American history was the Hurricane that hit Galveston, September, 1900. But I learned to be prepared. Don't live in low lying areas that repeatedly flood, don't live on the coast, always have a good supply of non perishable food, a nice stock of drinking water, and have a 26 k.w. whole house back up generator. With wide spread infrastructure issues, electricity is easily disrupted, and you don't want to be in Texas in weather that is 95f with dew points in the high 70's with out air/conditioning, and when we had the record cold in February, 2021 and there were power issues as the wind turbines froze and didn't generate electricity, I had power to run my central heating system. But then I was a Boy Scout and our motto is "Be Prepared".