So what did you put away this week?

Speaking of pork loins...

30 lbs will be cut up into roasts, cutlets and the rest canned.
Looks like I'll be busy tomorrow. (So much for the "day off".)

 

A lifetime supply of asphalt....

 

575 pcs of 148 gain 38 special wadcutter bullets. I should have less than $5 in cash into them. I dug the lead out of the ground at the local blasting spot. I reloaded some ammo for a buddy for the bullet mould and the lubersizer. Some money for the bullet lube, electricity, and the lee casting pot is it.

whynot

 

Went to a local scrap yard and picked up some 5" channel for a car trailer I want to build. While waiting to pay my tab I noticed a tub 'o brass sitting by a small scale. When it was my turn at the window I asked if they would sell it. "Sure". Sooooo, I picked up another 80lbs of assorted pistol brass. I told the guy I reload and he told me to check back in a couple weeks that he should have another tub by then. I've got a few thousand pounds that I still need to clean and sort, but I just couldn't leave this stuff sitting there. Looks to be a mix of once fired 9mm,.40S&W and .45ACP. I just tossed it in a shed with the other for now, but its not like it will go bad

My Salad Master finally arrived so I'll be trying it out making my own hash browns for the freezer later this week when its rainy out.

 

Not much this week, some more antibiotic ointment and bandaids for the first aid kit, a box of defense ammo for the .45, that's about it.

 

Couple bags of pool shock, another ceramic water filter for my DIY Berkey style filter, another couple pounds of activated charcoal, and a year's worth of hay for the rabbits. 150 rounds of .22lr... all Wallyworld would sell me at one time and when I went back it was all gone AGAIN. :/

 

How about telling us about your DIY Berkey? I have been wanting one, but they are expensive when income is a little limited!

 

2, 5 gallon buckets, a faucet, and filters. You can get the Berkey filters or use ceramic candle filters. The one I just got in is by Just Water, 4x4 Ceramic Water Filter | Survival Water Filters | Emergency Water Supplies - Just Water and I'm installing it onto 2 gallon buckets.
Video yammers a lot but it walks you through.

 

THANK YOU!

 

$2.00

 

I did an interesting and quick "modification" to my truck today. Actually this will work with any car or truck which uses a throttle cable. You see, wire cables stretch over time and when I lifted up the gas pedal I could see about an inch inch of excess cable sticking out of the top of the gas pedal / lever. I stuffed some rags under the pedal to hold it up and then added two large zip ties to the visible part of the throttle cable and snipped off the excess. This basically restores the throttle response to near - new performance.

Why didn't I adjust the throttle cable instead ?
Because there isn't any way to do it.

Why didn't I replace the cable ?
Because that costs MUCH moar FRN's than the two zip ties and would take MUCH longer.

Why did I do this ?
Ok, before this "Zip tie mod" the throttle was opening 75% to 80 % and my truck was a bit sluggish.
Now it's noticeably more responsive.

So it goes faster now ?
No not really but its noticeably more responsive, like when passing and going from 40 to 60 MPH.

How do I do this again ?
I didn't think of this but wish I had. Watch the video, it's not mine but the process is very similar to what I did.

 

Got a bunch of cottonwood branches and small rounds Tuesday(neighbor had 2, one's cut down period, the other was just severely trimmed). And what's left is here at our house. The small logs/rounds are suitable for growing shitakes, if not the best choice. The branches/twigs are for crafting. They also gave us some barbed wire they don't need(at least 200ft I figure). I'm gonna use that to intruder proof the chicken coop more. And tried to get 2 cases of pint canning jars at Bi-Mart, but they were out apparently, so we got a rain check for when they come in. Plan to do some serious canning this year. Another neighbor came and cut up our downed trees into firewood rounds. I would have done it, but the electric chainsaw is apparently not good for heavy duty work.

 

Don Julio 70

A friend has been bringing up the networks on a large plant in Mexico so I gave him $20 and asked him to bring back a bottle of Tequila.

He brought me a bottle of Don Julio 70 and I checked it out locally $89 online $75
Tequila Don Julio - Discover the Finest Tequila

 

It was the first time Enrico drank it!

 

This is a little bit less "what I put away" and more a "what I did/got done to help prepare". This was, believe it or not a 4 week process.

First, two words...CarMax Warranty!

I've got a 2005 Ford Explorer Eddie Bauer (4WD, Tow, etc.) that was getting close to the end of the Extended Warranty (like three days by the time I was able to get it in) so I took it in to have them look at a couple of things. Holy CROW! CarMax (at least mine) is AWESOME!

There was a transmission issue that they couldn't fix but set up a transfer to AAMCO to take care of, which was the main reason I took it in...but in addition to that, they decided to make sure everything that needed fixing was taken care of before the warranty expired. They found the following (that I had NO idea about) that was ALL under warranty:

• Radiator Leak
• Rear Passenger Wheel Bearing
• Tie Rods (both), which included an alignment
  
• Power Driver's Seat raise/lower motor was stripped

My warranty covers a rental car for up to 7 days, which I graciously accepted. CarMax bumped me up to a larger/better/more expensive car for free. When the 7 days was up, they put me in a car off the lot. After two weeks of being in that car I asked if I could swap out for something else as I was considering purchasing something new/different (to replace the wife's car). Their response was, I kid you not, "how quick can you get here?".

One week later they had finished fixing everything they found (took almost two weeks on the seat due to parts availability and the tech had a family emergency and was out of town a couple of days), and the transmission work was done by AAMCO in 36 hours. They couldn't close the ticket until everything was done because the warranty had expired while it was in the shop but as long as the ticket was open, no issues.

AAMCO even pushed the warranty folks to pay for a rebuild rather than a replacement used transmission (and it runs better than when I got it 5 years ago).

To top it all off, when I picked up my car they had washed it and filled it with gas since it had been driven back and forth to the transmission shop...AND THEY WAIVED MY DEDUCTIBLE!

I got just under $4800 worth of work done under warranty (for a warranty that cost me a little less than $2000) and they felt bad about keeping it so long that they waived my $50 deductible.

Yes, I ran both of the loaner cars through the automatic car wash after filling them up on the way back (I got it full, I try to return the favor) because I don't want to by "that guy", but man, I can't say enough good about the experience.

So, my prep this week was getting my BOV (yeah, that's my BOV) as fixed as it can be.

***No, I wasn't compensated for singing the praises of CarMax***

 

Proof, customer service is not dead. Well done sir, well done.

 

It really did restore my faith, that's for sure!