A quick post about the garden, Project "Fouled XJ", and CPO results are out.

    Just wanted to put a quick post out. CPO results are out and one of my guys will be pinned shortly. Congrats to OSC Gaines, slated at 51 I think, well done shipmate. BZ!!!!!! Things have been hectic to say, 3 trips to Florida in the past month, with me only making one of them. Mother in law has been placed in a great facility that provides excellent care. My father in law has gone from death's bed to a good recovery, but we shall see what the future holds as he is on a see-saw right now. As everyone knows when you have family members that you are close with and their health takes all kinds of turns, you have to step away from time-to-time to handle what is most important to you. As we have not posted much on our blogs, we have been somewhat busy taking our time off things.Since we have had little rain up until the past few days, we had resorted to watering our crops

Drip Irrigation line for Pumpkins, Sweet Potatoes, and Squash

One Pumpkin with a bubbler

Lower part of the line with the Squash.

These were awaiting me the day I came back from FL. There is a couple of weeks between pics.

Fall Tomatoes with Drip lines

Bought a few to try, Cucumber is only thing doing well. They all contain foreign seed.

     Now we hit the mother load on Cantaloupes and Watermelons this year from seed purchased at out local farm and feed store. We did manage to eat a few before we had this problem.

     Since it has been so dry around here, some of the wildlife has been partaking in a buffet of watermelon to get water. They couldn't get through the rinds of the cantaloupe.

One mom and her cub

Another mom and two cubs, one cub was smart and didn't make it in. Don't believe me?

Smart cub hanging on the outside of the cage with door down. Mom's eye glowing from trail camera

 

Cub who though he was smart

     These 6 Raccoon's were relocated about 5 miles away in a cemetery. Sorry, I don't kill not unless I am going to eat what I shoot or catch. If this was for a SHTF situation and I needed food, well grab the hot sauce then. Now, personal defense situations are different.


     I was very fortunate to have served in the Navy for 20 years with almost half of that time wearing the Chief's "Fouled Anchor". To make the transformation of our XJ unique, I figured I would give it this project name. We made the decision to put off a couple projects till the winter and spring so I can get a few mod's done.

  

   

     A Rough Country 4.5" was installed with 33" TOYO M/T tires on aluminum rims. I did have to trim the fender wells a bit as hard turning caused a small amount of rubbing on the plastic in the fender well. All fixed now. Next up is a transfer case drop kit. I could go with a slip yoke elimination kit but I will wait until I need to rebuild the transmission to save money for other stuff. With some lifts, your driveshaft angles change at higher lifts and I need to lower the transfer case to restore the angles back to as normal as possible. Its drive able but you do have vibrations at certain speeds.

Upcoming modifications will include:

• Front bumper equipped with winch

• Rear bumper with rear tire carrier

• Fender Flares

• Roof mounted cargo carrier

• When I find the right one, cargo area lockable storage vault for inside

• 10 meter Connex Radio and kicker (already have, just need to install). Had a great radio network in Florida with Stephen and the guys, We were able to do comm-checks up to 50 miles away without skip conditions. If we couldn't hear someone, another group member could relay for them. 

More to follow.

Senior

Family CASREP'd, some work around the house, Jeep Cherokee, Deer deterant, a quote from "DUKE", and a hero lost in the line of duty

     Sorry for the lack of responses to my last post and a new post until now. Well, as the title says, the family has been CASREP'd with the crud. We all have been sick, JUGM had a sinus infection, got calls within 1 hour of each other for both kids while they were at school, then it hit me last a week ago Sunday which I took the next day off to recover some more. Have been somewhat busy around here with things. First, I finally got around to putting up my flag pole after I had to take it down for them to build the house. It was cheaper to do that instead of have the pole go through the middle of the living room. I waited until I got my Gadsden/Culpepper Flag from Buchanan Flag and Sign down in Jacksonville, FL. If you need a flag and you are local to them, head over there. I think they sell on Amazon.......

    Along with the Flag pole, one of my neighbors and my dad's best friend came over and graded out where my dad's place was. If you notice to the left, I have 240 amp service to the pole. I already had 2 110 GFI protected receptacles attached to the pole. Current plan is to put a Steel building on the site along with (4) 30 amp RV plugs for some friends of mine. Oh, that's right, someone suggests that I will have an issue protecting my property in a SHTF situation. Well lets see, you know where I work so you put two and two together. Remember, birds of a feather, flock together and having a year to do it, I'm quite pleased with my results. See Navy Chiefs produce "Result's, not excuses".

  

The building I have settled on. Note: this is not my actual building

 

 

     See in a military planning environment, there are many assumptions that come up during planning and in most cases all the assumptions are requested in "RFI's", that stands for "Requests for Information" and they are initiated through N2. He obtains his information from NSA, DIA, ONI, and other national assets. So there you go, your free RFI to answer your assumption, straight from the source without a link to Amazon.com. Also, I have 3 cd's of my service record so you can verify my military training if you like. Actually, you should maybe worry about the people you still have surrounding you, of course they will tell you something completely different to your face if you confronted them of our conversations just after I left, but you will find out one day. So moving on to better and brighter things......

   Some of you may know that I have a 1997 Jeep Cherokee Sport and it has been plastered all over the Internet in all kinds of forums of its worthiness as a great vehicle, specifically in the Prepper/survivalist communities. The modern Jeeps of today are a joke, and I have first hand experience as our 2010 Wrangler Unlimited had numerous transmission recalls (7 of them), and then that one day when it failed, a 90% rebuild with crap falling out the transmission at the jeep dealer. I had enough of it. I feel this could have been avoided if Jeep was still American owned instead of a subsidiary of Daimler, and now FIAT. This Cherokee has the inline 4.0 6 cylinder engine and a AW4 transmission. 

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View of dash going down the road, all gauges operating normally

In the parking lot at work.

    

 
      As our crops start coming up in the garden, I always have a thought in the back of my mind about deer walking in there and eating it up. The key to keeping them out is to make a human scent in there to keep them away. What better scent to keep them out but Irish Spring soap, human hair works good too. If you have smelled those bars of soap, it has a strong scent and you can pick it up pretty cheap in the stores. So NW and I get to work.

8 bars, 1 piece of para cord, separated to 6 core and 1 outer shell.

These will be sprinkled in between the bars, nothing wasted

grading stake, roofing tack and soap attached.

      As some of you know, my good friend Duke from our Florida group has his own place over in Georgia upstate and has taken to making posts on Facebook. JUGM still has an account there to keep in touch with family and friends. She started laughing this morning before I headed off to work and I asked her what was up. She was laughing telling me about a post he did, and here it is:

      We shall see if the Republican voters align behind him or will they do they same thing they did to Romney in the last election. I didn't vote for Trump in the state primary, but this is a process. If I had a good guess, they will be voters who have fit's and run home with their football and say I'm not voting for him. Go ahead and cast your vote for Hillary and please stay home when you still don't get your way because all of us do not want to hear you whining. Welcome to modern day America.  

 Hell, I will add some more funny stuff from him:

Some NC House Bill 2 humor

    

Gotta Love Chelsea Clinton. Looks just like her lying mom

     Now on a very serious note. A town south of Charlotte lost a hero over the weekend, Pineville volunteer fire fighter Richard Sheltra (20 yrs old) lost his life in a fire Saturday night that was suspected as being caused by lightning from the storms that came through the area. This is a personal note for JUGM as her father is a retired Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Inspector who retired after 30 years of service and many times during major fires, they waited anxiously to hear from him. When you put your life on the line to protect others, whether military or civilian, every life matters. Please say a prayer for his immediate and extended families as they go through a very tough tragedy.

Richard Sheltra

     Stay safe out there.

Senior