Chit Chat in VOLTVILLE Thread #2 :)

[Tritium]

Me too, i think i'll make a salad with cherry tomatoes.

In the mean time my exhaust is in Budapest !?!, probably DHL rented a bicycle (with a virgin on it) and started from Germany touring around Europe till it get's here.

 

[3mg Meniere]

the other white thing that looks like broccoli Winter plants in general.

Got many mosquito bites lately?

 

[Tritium]

Maybe i added too much cheese..

 

[awsum140]

Looks about right to me!

 

[rave]

I've been working (cursing at) on the Jeep. The saddle clamp wouldn't hold against the pressure of the brake fluid, 2000-3000psi. It cut the rubber I was using for a gasket like a knife. So, I bought some brake line, a bender and fittings and cut out the piece that was bad. That meant making a flare connection on the old, rusty brake line. That didn't work either, getting a good flare on a cleaned up line that was now less than the original outside diameter proved impossible.

Today, I bought two four foot brake lines and replaced the whole line from the master cylinder to the flex line at the rear axel. What a PITA! The piece going from underneath to the master cylinder was bent like six pretzels and snaked between all kinds of obstructions. It took me about an hour to get the new piece bent to match the old one and snake, wiggle and curse it into position. Thankfully, no leaks so I'm "mobile" again. I'm really tired of looking at the dirt side of that thing!

Oh maaan - That stinks! I hear from a very reliable source that Jeeps are a royal pain to work on. Eventually mine will get fixed. Right now it is vacationing in southern Indiana getting new tires. BF's mechanic is going to take a glance for obvious wiring damage as well as long as he has it up in the air. Sorry that you're having to deal with a Jeep's convoluted engineering as well, Awsum.

I went to see Penny today to groom & graze her. Jasmine looked like she wanted the same treatment, or maybe she just wanted to be with Penny. Anyway, she was fiddling with the latch on her stall door, and I was afraid she'd figure out how to open it. I told her to stop in a sharp tone, and she listened and stopped. She is a very responsive horse. I really do think she wanted some TLC, too. The boy who owns her was off at a hunter safety course. He'll go bow hunting. I asked him if later, he'd hunt with a gun (the bow season comes first, then black powder, then shotgun). He said he was afraid Jasmine would freak out from the gunshots. I told him when I boarded at Deb's, it was right in the middle of the national forest, and during hunting season, it was like a war zone, with gunshots all the time, and the horses all soon got used to it. Of course, no one was shooting all that close to them. That might frighten them. When Penny would hear a shot, she'd lift her head to listen, then go right back to grazing again.

Penny is a lot cleaner now. I'm disappointed that they don't have a hose so I can really bathe her. It'll be sponge baths from now on, I guess. Jasmine hates water, so the boy never ventured to hook up a hose, since she wouldn't stand for it. But he has to carry buckets of water to fill the buckets in the stalls and the bigger tubs in the pasture. That can't be easy.

Now I have banana bread in the oven.

I was surprised no one posted today, too. Where's Lizzie? She usually says good morning.

Sounds like Penny is doing well. Hope that you figure out the bathing situation without having to haul water. You never know - Jasmine may become interested in getting a bath too if she sees Penny appreciating one.

Time to say good night. I'm going to do sunset pictures for a while.

Breathtaking!!

Good morning, Voltpeeps.

We did the bare minimum this weekend. Hubby's ankle has been bothering him and I have been telling him to stay off it as much as possible. His feet are bothering him, too. He is in maintenance and walks on hard concrete floors all day. Plus, he has to go up and down three flights of stairs. On top of that, he works around here.

Then, he got on a going to the gym every work morning to work out. It's too much and I told him that!!!!! If something has to go, it needs to be the gym. All that exercise advise he reads online is not geared for blue collar workers that work their butts off all day and he is 55 years old now.

I saw the adorable stop sign guys [and gals]. You guys were totally cracking me up.

Terry, you are now another 2 days closer to your goal.

SandySu, great photo.

I have a house to clean today. I may have lost the new gal. Her sister has come to live with her and she thinks she is keeping up on the house now. I'll find out in a month. I told her I was skipping her for my vacation week. I really only get a vacation four days, darn it. Mammoth should be gorgeous. The weather is still warm and wonderful and it looks like the weather will hold until vacation. We shall see.

Sounds like the hubby needs to take it a bit easier. But - he has to be able to keep up with you!!

Mammoth Lakes is at about 7,000 feet in the Sierra Nevada mountains. I think we can camp low and play higher up so it will be reasonably warm.

There are some lava craters, an earthquake fault, it is close to Yosemite [Tuolome Meadows], Bodie ghost town and Mono Lake. We should be able to fill in four days with no problems. I heard they have a gondola to the top of a mountain. That's my kind of hiking.

That sounds like my kind of vacation!

Lizzie maybe he needs some rest, i hope he feels better after some rest.

Tomatoes in the city seem to starting to die, at the village they are producing like mad, i have 2 bags of cherry tomatoes in my fridge. Watermelons since they were planted late, we are now full. I'm thinking of putting one into resin and make a helmet. We also store tomato paste. Peppers are full too.
We have prepared another field on the other side of the city (my brother's girlfriend) for broccoli, beetroots and the other white thing that looks lice broccoli Winter plants in general.
Can't wait for the beets, we usually boil the leaves and make a salad.

Wait - hold up - a resin-coated watermelon helmet?!?!

Maybe i added too much cheese..

No such thing as adding too much cheese. Just sayin'.

 

[Tritium]

Kinda like this

Or this

I'll say it again, brake systems are difficult but if you are good in tech details like Roland he will eventually get it through.
Rave if you had the car near me i would repair the harness in a day I did in on some bikes and cars, dismantled everything.
Now i need to take apart the harness of the scooter and integrate an alarm system on it (i hate seperate harnesses and hanging cables) Then using Fabric tape put everything better than the factory.

 

[rave]

Kinda like this

Or this

I'll say it again, brake systems are difficult but if you are good in tech details like Roland he will eventually get it through.
Rave if you had the car near me i would repair the harness in a day I did in on some bikes and cars, dismantled everything.
Now i need to take apart the harness of the scooter and integrate an alarm system on it (i hate seperate harnesses and hanging cables) Then using Fabric tape put everything better than the factory.

Oh yeah - I think you need a watermelon helmet!

Yep - I'll just bet that you could repair that harness in a day. BF is confident that he can rebuild it too, but no mention of doing it in one day! He's completely rewired school buses before, so he doesn't think it'll be a problem. Plus, he bought the Chilton's manual on my Jeepers. It's just a matter of taking the time to do it and having a non-rainy day.

 

[rave]

Another caving adventure this weekend. This one was chosen for ease of access because I'm still not quite up to snuff. We went to Bluespring Caverns. It was an hour long adventure - the vast majority of it spent on a boat 110' beneath the surface of the earth. I'll quote some Wikipedia stuff because ... I'm lazy and they'll word it better.

"Bluespring Caverns is a cave system located in Lawrence County, Indiana, approximately 80 miles (128 km) south of Indianapolis. The cave system is a karst and river type cave formation and drains a 15 miles² (38.8 km²) sinkhole plain. The cave contains 21 miles (34 km) of surveyed passages and is most notable for having the longest known subterranean river in the United States with approximately 3 miles (4.8 km) of navigable river.

The cave system was discovered as early as the 19th century. Up until 1913, the entrance used was the exodus of a spring which drained into the White River. However, a dam completed in 1913 on the White River closed off this entrance. In 1940, a second entrance was created after a severe storm passed through the area. A small pond on the farm of George Colglazier vanished overnight, becoming a sinkhole, and the present day entrance into the cave system."

Can you imagine being a humble dairy farmer with a nice pond for watering your cattle and/or maybe fishing, and then your pond disappears overnight because the weight of the water broke through a thin limestone barrier? Then you find an amazing cavern system that had been hidden all of those years. I truly wonder about the sinkhole system on my property and what lies beneath. Interesting (at least to me) was that there were no sinkholes when we first moved here in 2004. They appeared rapidly thereafter. I told my late husband about them, but he was very ill with chemo and radiation treatments and, in his condition, simply didn't believe me. Now there is a long connecting line of them. One is at least 30' wide.

This is my first view of the cavern entrance from above on a walkway


When the sinkhole collapsed it lost all of its water into the new opening at the bottom joining an existing underground river. This is looking up at the edge of the sinkhole from the opening of the cavern.


Looking back up at the walkway where I was standing when I took the first picture


When you first enter the cavern, it opens up into a huge room. If you look carefully at the bottom of the photo, you can see the sloped ramp with a handrail going further and further downward approximately 110' below the surface of the earth. Much, much better than a spiral staircase!!


Looking up at the cavern roof, you see soda straw stalactites - each delicate and hollow.


More to follow ... (wellll, what did you expect!?) ​

 

[rave]

At the very bottom you come to a boat dock with a few flat-bottomed boats. Each has a bench facing opposite sides of the cavern. The boats had extremely quiet, low horsepower motors. Occasionally, it would make a sound, but rarely. The objective was to enjoy the quiet deeply-hidden beauty of nature. That was a little difficult. There were five very young and un-controlled children on the boat. The father was nearly as mouthy as the kids. He yammered away non-stop during the tour and the kids hooted and howled to hear echoes, and stomped their feet against the metal benches. It was difficult to hear the guide. I enjoy children, but I appreciate them much more when their parents are able to keep them quiet and well-behaved. It severely tested the patience of me, my BF, and I'm certain, the guide. Okay - I'm done with the negative tirade.

As the boat began moving along the river I was able to close out the other sounds by focusing my attention on the amazing adventure of taking a boat along the nation's longest known underground river and seeing sights like this:


The guide mentioned that it coud have been broken off by early explorers but it was equally likely that it had been broken by flood waters. When the world above floods, the cavern become unnavigable. The force of the water moving through the tube could easily have broken it. Here's a close up:


By the way, please bear in mind that my pictures may not be that great. I was in a moving, shifting boat. For every good picture that I have, there were four more that were a blurry mess! Another stalactite, but they were very rare down here.


Mostly, it was just a matter of enjoying the various rock formations and the mysterious ambiance of the cavern. The ceiling here was kinda cool and ever-changing.:


The stripes on the walls are reflections from the movement of the water


No bats in this cave. They don't much like setting up housekeeping in an environment that floods.


A peek at the ceiling above


A flow stone that looked like satin or some type of fabric


Just meandering along ......


Oh - by the way, the air temperature and the water temperature are typically an even 52-54 degrees. There are extremely rare, sightless Northern Cavefish that live here as well as blind crayfish and salamanders. We were told that anything that lives in the cavern for long goes blind. No matter how long you attempt to let your eyes adjust to the light, there is none available, and you won't see any more than pitch blackness. Unless there's a boat going by, of course.


Annnnd more to follow ...​

 

[rave]

This is a photo of an odd brach of the river that goes back for miles. That opening is about a foot and a half high at its uppermost point. Our guide had explored the branch for miles many times. The only way to do it is to lie on your back in a canoe and push yourself along with your hands!


This is a massive room. The huge rock that had fallen from the ceiling is aptly called The Rock of Gibraltor. At least 2/3 of the rock is beneath the surface of the water which is about 12' deep at this point. Beyond it is a wide yawning ledge of mud where you can sink up to your waist. No thank you.


I can't believe that I nailed this shot. It was shot in pitch blackness along the side of the boat. It is a frog swept in there by a flood at one time or another. There are no insects for him to eat, so he'll either find his way out at some point, or ... not. They go into a state of suspended animation.


A nice stalactite


This was just way too cool. I was smiling so much my face hurt.


A beautiful flow stone formation


The largest known stalactite in the caverns


An area called The Quarry where the rocks were so evenly cut it looked as if they'd been cut by man


Another unfortunate frog


And returning to dock. Amazingly - no one had pushed the parents of those kids into the river.
​

 

[rave]

After the caverns, my BF and I tooled all around southern Indiana. He took me past the infamous Country Auto Parts which was the focal point of the short-lived Porter Ridge show that was on The Discovery Channel for awhile. Apparently, they miss the notoriety. There was a sign out front that said "Fans Welcome" and below it "Stop by, dadgummit!!" Wish I'd gotten a picture of that! It cracked me up. If you don't know what show I'm talking about, it's this one:

Porter Ridge: Preview new show's first episode | Video Library | The Courier-Journal

Then we wandered down to West Baden Springs and French Lick. They are the sites of two amazing hotels first built in 1901,1902. One suffered a terrible fire and was rebuilt. Both fell into decay and the West Baden Hotel was sold to the Jesuits for $1 when the stock market crash emptied the hotels of guests. It became a college for awhile after the Jesuits had to give it up. Billionaire Bill Cook invested millions to restore both to their former level of opulence and they were reopened in 2007. There is a casino in the French Lick Hotel. The 120' high, 200' wide domed atrium was once the largest in the world. It now has National Landmark status. We couldn't even drive in to take a look up close. There was a cop guarding the driveway to prevent anyone from coming in. He said that there was a special event. Rather cryptic.



My shot from the highway after the officer shooed us away:


A photo (from the internet) of the atrium:


Monroe Lake was our next place to visit. We were investigating the spillway as a possible future fishing site. It looks promising.

After that we went out to dinner at one of our favorite "home cookin' style" eateries. It occurred to me sitting there that most people that had spent the morning 110 feet below the surface of the earth would probably have gone home and changed their clothes before going out to dinner. But hey, this is Indiana. No one cares! I love this state.

 

[rave]

And all of that was just Saturday!!!!

 

[JerryRM]

Very nice, Raven !!!!! We don't have anything even closely resembling those caves around here...........unless.........they are deep underground and haven't been discovered yet !!!

 

[Tritium]

Cool pics rave
I don't like caves too much, too closed space. I could be sitting on a pole 100 meters high which is on top of a 2000 meter mountain and eating a sandwich but closed spaces are too much lol.

 

[3mg Meniere]

What a grand album. I was just too entranced watching the pictures scroll by to hit the like button. I enjoyed it all, Rave. Excellent work, and I got to see it without having to listen to kids' voices echoing all around the place!

 

[tmcase]

Great pics Rave and I'm really impressed that you could recall all that info. I'd be too in awe to even hear the guide. What a great trip that must have been.

 

[SandySu]

I'm back from tutoring and, at the same time, having my car checked for a recall. I took the car to the dealer in Ithaca, then their courtesy van to the restaurant, where I met up with the kids and walked them to the library. We did the lessons there. Their grandfather came to get them with their little brother. He walked them home and I called the driver of the van to pick me up and take me back to get my car.

Then I had a late lunch/early dinner at Moe's, which has my favorite meal for half price on Mondays.

When I got home, the vet left me a message reporting on the fecal exams on Penny's and Jasmine's manure, which I took in on Saturday. As usual, Penny had hardly any eggs (only 3) but Jasmine needs deworming. I hope Penny continues to fend off worms at this new place. Some horses just get more worms than others, and that may be it -- I hope. The vet also said Jasmine never had her spring shots! I wonder why not. I emailed the boy who owns Jasmine to let him know the details.

Then I checked my email, and an old friend wants me to give her daughter riding lessons. She was in North Carolina for years, but has recently moved back to this area. Of course, I'm interested, but when I tried to phone her, I got voice mail.

Trit, I love the watermelon helmet idea! Are you really going to do it? If so, we'll need pics.

Rave, that boat ride through the cave looks wonderful. I'm sorry you had to put up with the noisy kids. Thanks for sharing the photos. You said there were very few stalactites. Do you think the periodic floods took them out? After all, it broke off that one. And what about those sinkholes on your land? Might they turn into caves? Do you think there are caves down there somewhere? What an adventure that would be!

Terry, I'm sorry you have had so many delays to getting your house. Hang in there! Someday, it'll all be over.

 

[rave]

Cool pics rave
I don't like caves too much, too closed space. I could be sitting on a pole 100 meters high which is on top of a 2000 meter mountain and eating a sandwich but closed spaces are too much lol.

And I sure as heck couldn't do what you do! No way! 8-o I rather like cozy, enclosed spaces.

What a grand album. I was just too entranced watching the pictures scroll by to hit the like button. I enjoyed it all, Rave. Excellent work, and I got to see it without having to listen to kids' voices echoing all around the place!

Well, thank you! Trust me - It's much better without the kids and their blabbermouth father!!

Great pics Rave and I'm really impressed that you could recall all that info. I'd be too in awe to even hear the guide. What a great trip that must have been.

That would be a really nice one for the two of us to take together! If we'd go during a weekday, there wouldn't be child-type critters. We may end up having the boat to ourselves with that nice, young guide.

 

[awsum140]

Rave, I'm no geologist (and don't play one on TV) but if you have a bunch of sinkholes in a line I'd suspect an underground stream/river or even a cave underneath that area. Be careful out there, the bottom could fall out!

 

[Qew]

Another one of Rave's excellent adventures! Thanks for sharing the awesome pictures, and I really enjoy reading your descriptions of everything. Even if you are not at your 100%, which I hope you soon will be, I'm glad you were still able to go exploring. I hope the frogs find their way.

Soon Terry, soon. I know it's really frustrating when you are sooo ready! When we built our house we expected to be in before school started at the end of August. We ended up buying an old and extremely beat up mobile home to live in because we weren't able to get into the house until March of the following year. The house was still not done, but it had heat and water and the township only gave us permission to have the trailer on the property for 6 months. Fun times....but well worth it, in hindsight.