Well that was interesting ....

Something went POP just outside the house during a storm last night.  I'm looking things over before calling the insurance agent and an electrician Monday morning.  I've not ventured out to get a meter yet, so I've just observing what is obvious.

Right now the back porch original outlets, back bathroom lights and original outlets, front bathroom lights and outlets, east kitchen outlets, basement lights, and furnace do not work.  I unplugged the water heater.

We have one circuit on breaker #11 that doesn't do anything.   Our draft induced gas water heater is on breaker #17.  If I turn off #11 with #17 on something buzzes in the water heater.  I disconnected it and turned off both breakers.  I discovered this morning the furnace/air conditioner (#26) is not working either, and the breaker is turned on.  I observed an LED night light in the back bathroom is flickering when plugged into one outlet, but not when plugged into a different one on a different breaker.

Let's see, did I get the fire insurance paid ?

edit:  It appears the  problem is the main disconnect switch.  It has 120 volts coming in both lines, but only one line coming out has 120.  The other is dead.  Our noises were from backfeeding through some 240 volt appliances.  Once I disconnected them the noise quit.

Hutsonville High School multi-year reunion

I'm not sure that was the official title, but that was the net effect Saturday evening.  They blocked of part of Main Street and had food and music and a silent auction ... actually kind of impressive for a small town like Hutsonville.

There were people from as far away as Washington (state and DC) and New Hampshire and Florida ... and I think I failed to get a photo of any of those folks!  Did get folks from Texas and St Louis

A good time was had by all

Maybe more some than others

I'm just sure he used to be younger than her ...

Not sure what I am allowed to say ...

Not sure what I am allowed to say, so I'll just post a photo and let you wonder

An email I sent this weekend

I don't like tooting my own horn very much.  I stopped to help a couple guys with a flat tire and one of them asked me to drop him an email.  I said I would, but what do I write? "Here it is, hope your spare didn't go flat."?  They had stopped part way up the hill north of Walnut Prairie with most of the car still on the road with a flat.  Awkward, but manageable ... until they didn't set the parking brake on their front wheel drive car and it rolled off the jack shortly after removing the wheel.  Here's what I wrote:

David,

Hope you guys made it to Marshall OK.  Your request I drop you an email caused me to ponder on why I do things like that.  I don't do things like that looking for recognition.  If I hadn't told you I would send you an email I would have just driven off into the sunset. OK, so what do I say in this email?  Let me tell you why I showed up, and a bit about my town.

We were setting at home when we heard the ambulance called to a neighbor's home.  West Union is a small community. (http://westunion.blogspot.com) My wife and I know the patient, we know the Paramedic and the EMT driving.  So when Bill called in a 10-46 (disabled vehicle) as they were in route to the hospital we knew there was something special about the situation.   My wife turned to me and said "You're going to go check on that, aren't you?"  It really was more of a statement than a question.   That's why I showed up. Jamie and Avery Booth stopped because they saw a car with a problem a half mile from their house and my truck setting there.

As it says on the West Union Facebook page (www.facebook.com/pages/West-Union-Illinois/118405071514792) "There is a special attitude in West Union. The park, library, community center, the Fire Department, the Christian Church Mission fund, all these things testify to that 'We can do it' attitude." It is an interesting little town. Population around 300, it has 3 restaurants and a carry out pizza place, plus it's the first town east of Moonshine (www.themoonshinestore.com/).  West Union has a fantastic Library for the size the town is.  Its operating budget is about twice what its tax revenue is. It has the largest t-shirt shop on ebay (www.honeville.com) plus a few other businesses.There are 3 churches in West Union  (The Christian Church has a web site at www.wucc.us) And how many towns have their own guided missile?

I mentioned the ambulance.  West Union has an ambulance based there.  We had 4 Paramedics staffing it on a volunteer basis.  After an accident last fall cost us the life of one we are down in numbers but still going. (http://westunion.blogspot.com/2010/10/west-union-paused-this-week.htmll)

So stop by again some time on your way through.  We can do most anything but fix a tire.

Mike Bumpus

www.BumpusFarms.US
http://walnutprairie.blogspot.com

Isn't this a beautiful car?

BMW Z 4

It was setting about 2 1/2 miles east of West Union last week.  All week. Right there in the middle of the road.  On the hump bridge. Family members know the field beside it as Maxine's 40.

Perhaps you were watching the river stages last week?

Seems the driver either was off his meds or needs meds.  He parked the car there and walked to town.  Eventually he ended up laying in someone's yard going "I'm not crazy" over and over.  By then the water was too high to recover it. I don't know if the river got inside it, but it had to be close.  Edington's came after it late this week.

I'm kind of curious what Google will do with this.  I posted on BumpusFarms.US and mentioned  irrigating.  After I posted it some ads popped up for irrigation suppliers on the blogspot dashboard.  Maybe I should put in a few random words,  Could be interesting.

How's you week been ?

Well, let's see ... here are a few photos from this week:

(This is a photo of nothing.

That's what Mom saw in the garage Monday

morning when she went looking for Dad's golf cart)

 This was at the end of the field. It was related to the golf cart being missing

 Tuesday Cole helped me pick up 4 tree tops plus several limbs that blew out of trees along a field.

 Amazing how far some pretty good size limbs blew, all in a straight line

Oh, and I forgot to mention Old Molly.

Aman and Kent were planting a test plot beside the pizza place with the 560 and the six row planter.  The voltage regulator came off (still unsure how) and shorted out.  Caused a bit of excitement.  They unhooked and finished with the 966.  We haven't had time to go drag it out of the field.

 Thursday the fertilizer spreader truck got stuck about 75 feet east of where I got stuck Friday

We have a beautiful stand of no-till corn right across from the landlord's house.  Except the fertilizer applicator forgot the 3 acres west of the lane .. with fertilizer, herbicide, and insecticide.  I called Thursday and told the manager I was going to spray it myself with glyphosate but don't have time. Could they do it?  We're still not sure what happened.

They've thought on it, checked their records, looked at what was sprayed previous, nothing makes any sense.  Current thinking is some kind of problem with mixing two oil based products, sunshine and heat and fast growing corn.  Anyway, something about the application had bad effects on corn

Anyplace there was an overlap the corn was this bad or worse.  The skips looked pretty good, except so did the grass.

 

So Saturday I dug up a near perfect stand and replanted it.

At least it was only 3 acres.  The Syngenta chemical rep said he had looked at lots of fields with similar problems sprayed on Wednesday and Thursday.

The week wasn't all bad, it's just the difficulties seem to stand out in my mind this week ...  and I don't have many photos of the good things on my phone.

On the bright side we got recovered the golf cart, Mom's surveillance cameras and recorder were installed, we found Cole (long story), we planted more seed production, we're "sorta done" with corn planting (still have second planting on seed corn and commercial corn depends on how fast the ground behind Mom's dries out ), Becky's surgery went well, nobody was hurt and nothing broken, the river crested and started back down,.

Maybe I should concentrate on taking photos of good things next week.