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Gorgeous place Irish!

Very entertaining, Irish. Thank you.

Got a little more work done yesterday. I got a wild hair and built a nicer fire pit. The goal here was to build a fire pit with sufficient air intake to have a cleaner burning, more efficient fire that produced minimal smoke. Based on the first fire I made last night it was a success. Even with slower burning hickory and red oak it produced very little smoke and the smoke that it did produce seemed to go straight up faster.

What you'll see in the first pic is a section of gutter down spout that I buried. The other end extends out to the rock retaining wall where it draws in a pretty large volume of fresh air.



Here's the completed fire pit area. More wood Adirondacks to come. I'll be working on the new templates today before settling in for a beer (or 6) and some football...



Here's a pic of the first fire. It starts fast and burns hot. You'll notice I re-purposed the existing fire bowl from the chitty little Walmart fire pit. I did this for several reasons:

1. I can easily pick it up and dump out the ashes. This keeps the bottom of the fire pit from becoming a soggy mess that makes it much harder to start a fire in less than favorable conditions.
2. The domed screen can still be used allowing me to go to sleep and cover the coals at the end of the evening.
3. In theory the fire bowl creates sort of a plenum. I drilled 1/2" holes all around about 3 inches from the upper edge and these act like jets drawing fresh air to the fire.

I'll probably partially disassemble the thing and mortar the stones together so the only air being drawn into the lower plenum area will be through the down spout.

All that to say it works, it looks good and I'm pretty happy with it.

A fire is good quality entertainment.

Absolutely gorgeous view. Love your fire pit. Million dollar view right there!

I've tried to keep busy and make the most of my time off up here. I managed to finish up the Adirondack templates. I plan on using these to trace around, cut almost to the line with a band saw and then use a router to follow the pattern, making all the chair pieces nearly as identical as possible. Then use a 1/4" round over bit and then a quick sand and assemble.



We traveled over to Rome and went to a little hardware and nursery called Lavender Mountain and bought a couple of apple trees. A Gala and a Honey Crisp. I got them planted. I dug a couple of holes 3' in diameter and mixed up a combination of native soil, cow manure, soil conditioner and compost. These are semi dwarf and grow to about 15' high. I certainly hope they do good.



I also got my security cameras relocated to slightly different locations and now I can see a much larger area with both of them. I also installed the app on my phone and it is annoying the crap out of me with motion sensor notifications. I've got to adjust that. I plan on going to Rome again today and picking up two more cameras and strategically place those so I can pretty much get a complete view of the entire exterior of the cabin. The Harbor Freight cameras are pretty cheap, wireless, and so far have done a pretty good job.

Will you need to protect those trees from deer while they are just starting out?

Do they eat the tree?

I don't think they will start producing fruit for a few years and the tree grows about 15' high. I'm sure they will eat any low hanging fruit and any that falls to the ground, but the rest should be prime for picking provided I have a ladder handy.

yes, they will nip the tips off the limbs. I'd put a 2x2x5 foot fence around them.

10-4. I'll get on it.

I told her, "Once you have the apple tree fences built, come inside make me a whiskey and rub my feet..."

OK Irish 😁

And throw another log on the fire, cook me up some......

Fist thing I did when got up this morning was build a fire. It was 25 degrees outside and 60 degrees inside.

Today's menu...

I'm cooking a ham and making jalapeno cheddar cornbread
Mrs. Irish is making collard greens and sweet potato something or 'nuther
Our friend Bettina is making Hoppin' John served over and rice
Skipper is serving up cigars, whiskey and stories.
He and I are going to work on Adirondack chairs this morning trying out his recently assembled router table to use with the new templates I made earlier this week.

We have another new couple coming over. Looking forward to getting to know them better.

Should be a nice day on Lookout Mountain...

It's a bachelor weekend up at the cabin. Mrs. Irish's girlfriend, Karen, is spending the weekend at the house, so I thought I would make myself scarce so they could paint each other's toenails, drink wine, and watch chick flicks and other such things.

Best I can figure we had a little tremor Thursday night at about 0200. Which is not uncommon for Lookout Mountain in the Fort Payne Area. I woke up and immediately heard a crash. I laid in the bed for a few minutes listening for other sounds and then grabbed my 9mm and began to clear the cabin... Nothing. I went back to bed, woke up the next morning and found this after patrolling around the house to see from what arose such a clatter...



So first order of the day, after breakfast was to re-stack all that crap, luckily my tractor wasn't damaged.



Last night I had the window in the bedroom open and had a nice breeze, but the gust of wind kept me up off and on, still I was able to get up early this morning and finish up my Adirondack chairs project. I'm the kind of person that likes to finish a project before taking on another one. So this frees me up to start on something else. I still have to stain and seal them, but at least they are done.

Great place you’ve got the Irish! We are all jealous of it!

Are you eating granola and wearing Jesus sandals?

I would if it was the right time of year, but I'm eating fried eggs, hash browns and ham and wearing Red Wing boots currently...

Hell... I'm jealous of it and I live here.

I'm watching this couple now on youtube. I don't know if they eat Granola or wear Jesus Sandals, but I would love to have their lifestyle...



If I wasn't already betrothed, I would propose to the the Swedish gal...

I'm envious of your wood pile , your are very prepared if we ever do get some cold weather.