George N. M.

Frosty, also, the loads are balanced on 4' 8 1/2" gauge base. As you say, it doesn't take much lateral force to tip something over. Years ago I was in a passenger train wreck. Most of the leading cars except mine tipped over. Not fun doing first aid when the only thing you have for a pressure dressing were the cloths from the back of the seats. G

Part of the problem with rail disasters is that railroad tracks tend to run through populated areas because the towns grew up around the railroad lines and stations in the 19th century when that was about the only means of long distance travel and of moving freight. Interstate highways tend to go around population centers because they were built later (1950s and '60s) and were intended to avoid the congestion in city and town centers. So, a mishap involving hazardous and toxic materials tends to be worse if it is on a railroad. Also, larger amounts are usually involved on trains.

Oh, John! That is really good/bad. It made me laugh out loud. It's a good thing I wasn't drinking coffee at theater moment or I would have had a clean up project. G

Phosgene was used as a war gas in WW1 and according to Wiki was responsible for 85,000 deaths. Based on my military chemical warfare training it is really nasty stuff and is worth avoiding at all costs.

Frosty, if you can find a copy, "The Steel Bonnets" by George MacDonald Fraser is an excellent read, one of my favorite books, in fact. It is a history of Scot/English Borders which was as a "wild west" an area, particularly in the 16th century as anywhere with a lawless reputation. G

Frosty, "I know you are a logger and not a common bum. Because no one but a logger stirs his coffee with his thumb." Or, for medieval reenactors: "I know you are an anachronistic and not a common jerk, Because no one but an anachronist stirs his coffee with a dirk."

Frosty, I just had Madelynn, who is a retired educator with a literacy speciality, read your post about you and your mon and you and Cody. She was very impressed. She says that what your mom was doing with you and what you were doing with Cody was "creative, inventive teaching." She says that damn few teachers know how to do this. She did similar things with her kids and and her 2d graders got to reading at a 6th grade level. She also did something very similar to what you did with Cody with a family friend who was middle school age and had only been given 1st and 2d grade reading work sheets to address his literacy issues.. He was very interested in politics. So, she used Time magazine. He struggled with sounding out the words at first but moved along like Cody. Was your mother trained as a teacher or did she just do this instinctively? Good on you for what you did with Cody. He probably still remembers it.

Alexandr, my late wife, Martha, was a rosarian (rose enthusiast) and we found that the varieties that handled the cold, fairly dry Colorado and Wyoming winters were the English Old Garden roses and the ones that derived from central Asian wild roses. A lot of the modern varieties are very delicate. There is one variety of yellow rose called Harison's Yellow (yes, one R) that you will see still thriving at old homesteads on the prairie that have been abandoned since the dust bowl years of the 1930s. We used to say that the only things to survive the Apocalypse would be cockroaches and Harison's Yellows.

Alexandr, my late wife, Martha, was a rosarian (rose enthusiast) and we found that the varieties that handled the cold, fairly dry Colorado and Wyoming winters were the English Old Garden roses and the ones that derived from central Asian wild roses. A lot of the modern varieties are very delicate. There is one variety of yellow rose called Harison's Yellow (yes, one R) that you will see still thriving at old homesteads on the prairie that have been abandoned since the dust bowl years of the 1930s. We used to say that the only things to survive the Apocalypse would be cockroaches and Harison's Yellows. Alexandr, my late wife, Martha, was a rosarian (rose enthusiast) and we found that the varieties that handled the cold, fairly dry Colorado and Wyoming winters were the English Old Garden roses and the ones that derived from central Asian wild roses. A lot of the modern varieties are very delicate. There is one variety of yellow rose called Harison's Yellow (yes, one R) that you will see still thriving at old homesteads on the prairie that have been abandoned since the dust bowl years of the 1930s. We used to say that the only things to survive the Apocalypse would be cockroaches and Harison's Yellows. Alexandr, my late wife, Martha, was a rosarian (rose enthusiast) and we found that the varieties that handled the cold, fairly dry Colorado and Wyoming winters were the English Old Garden roses and the ones that derived from central Asian wild roses. A lot of the modern varieties are very delicate. There is one variety of yellow rose called Harison's Yellow (yes, one R) that you will see still thriving at old homesteads on the prairie that have been abandoned since the dust bowl years of the 1930s. We used to say that the only things to survive the Apocalypse would be cockroaches and Harison's Yellows.

Chellie, that reminds me of when, as a boy, I complained that something wasn't "fair" my father would tell me that a fair is where you go to ride the merry-go-round and eat cotton candy. G

RE compost: Many of the large dairies and feed lots in NE Colorado have gone into the composting business as a way to deal with manure disposal. They have big piles of composting manure which they turn with backhoes. When it is fully digested it is sold to garden centers along the Colorado Front Range (Denver, Ft. Collins, Colo. Springs, etc.) It isn't a huge income stream but it saves on having to dispose of it in other ways (field application, burial, etc.) and does generate some money. Also, a big pile of digesting manure can dissolve about anything organic, such as soiled bedding straw, etc.. I have heard of some places using it to dispose of cattle carcasses. Anything that will dissolve something that large, including bones is impressive in my mind. The problem with a lot of municipal compost is that even if they just accept yard waste it may still have various pesticide and herbicide contamination. Someone may have killed a bunch of weeds with something pretty toxic and then hauled the dead weeds with the chemical residue to the land fill. Probably not something you want to put on your garden. Garbage in, garbage out applies to compost as well as computers.

Chellie, years ago I made Martha some crochet hooks. IIRC, I forged out some 3/16 bare welding rod and used a jewelers pliers to make the hook at the end. If you are not familiar with jewelers pliers the jaws have a tapered and round cross section. They are miniature scrolling tongs. You could also start with square stock and put some kind of fancy twist in it and some kind of finial on the end opposite the hook. I'd probably use BLO for a finish and make sure that it was good and dry before use. G

Chellie, IMO you should spark test your horse shoe to see if it is WI. Just touch it to a grinding wheel and look at the spark stream. IIRC WI has kind of an orange color and the spark form straight lines, no secondary or tertiary bursts like little fireworks. Check Google and Youtube for examples. If it is WI work it at yellow heat. G PS Hi to Tom.

Billy, how are dogs like that used? Thanks, G

Shaina, you can usually buy pretty heavy copper wire by the foot at hardware stores. It may be used as grounding wire. G

There are 9 states plus the District of Columbia where you can establish a common law marriage. It is just another way of establishing the legal relationship of a marriage along with civil (courthouse) and religious (church) marriage. Generally, there are no magic rules except that a couple must "hold themselves out as married." This means doing things like introducing your partner as "This is may wife/husband X." and doing "married" things like filing joint tax returns and naming the other person as a beneficiary or a joint property owner. This comes up when it is necessary to establish whether someone was legally married after they are deceased. Because there are often very different rules regarding dividing up an estate for spouses than for "partners." And where a lot of folk get wrapped around the axle is that they do not realize that there is no such thing as "common law divorce." They think that because they established a marriage all by themselves that they can just dissolve it the same way. Not true. Some years ago there was a case in the news where a Denver Fire Department Captain died in his 50s or 60s of a heart attacks while at a fire. His pension and on duty death benefit amounted to a significant amount of money for his spouse. He had been married for 20 or 30 years. However, a woman appeared and was able to prove that she and the deceased had established a common law marriage years before in their early 20s and had never been rormally divorced. So, legally, the 2d marriage was never valid and he was still the legal husband of #1. So, she should get the payout. Legally she was correct. IIRC, wife #1 and wife #2 eventually came to some settlement and split the payout. Also, if a couple establishes a common law marriage in a state where you can do that, it is still a valid marriage if they move to a different state where you cannot establish a common law marriage because of the "full faith and credit" clause of the US Constitution where a contract made in one state is valid in all states.

Congratulations to you and Deb. It would have been 36 with Martha if not for the f......g cancer. I'm very happy with the 9 with Madelynn. G

Welcome back, Anvil. I/we are glad to hear from you again. I saw a meme about dogs which had a picture of a cute puppy labeled "0-6 months" followed by one of an adult dog labeled "2 years to ---", for the picture for 6 months to 2 years was photo of a velociraptor. Our Cavalier King Charles spaniel is now 2+ years old and he has settled down a lot. G

OK, here is a link to a very deep rabbit hole, maybe a Mammoth Cave of rabbit holes when you consider the links. Beware, this could be a real time suck. https://www.academia.edu/122223347/Techniques_and_tools_for_Roman_die_engraving_and_coin_production_evidence_from_the_4th_century_Ramskold_York

That is one ferocious predator. You really need to be cautious around him. If you give him just one too few skritches I don't want to think about what could happen. The other George

If you follow Frosty's suggestion to make templates don't forget to add a few mm for overlap for the rivets. I had a friend who did just that and had to start over on a similar project. In case you are not familiar with this website re the Oseburg cauldron: https://warehamforgeblog.blogspot.com/2020/03/oseberg-cauldron.html "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

This is a very nice sword. I really like how you have used the oxidation blue. I do think you need some runes on the scabbard. Also, are you going to install some kind of suspension system for carrying it? How many hours do you have in it? I do have to say that the one thing that I do not like are the screws under the pommel. Everything else looks great to me and seeing those just clangs aesthtically. They are so anachronistic and out of period. I would have thought that you would have soldered the 2 pieces together. Yes you have the pommel screwed on but that is not visible. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

Giving it a good coating of BLO (Boiled Linseed Oil), particularly on the ends would help protect it and probably make it more insect and rot resistant. We don't have much in the way of large hardwoods out here in the west. It is mainly various pines, spruces, aspen, and cottonwood. So, all my stumps/logs are pine. I have found that any splits that develop during seasoning/drying pretty well stabilize once equilibrium has been reached. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

Very cool. It touches on numerous aspects of the iron founder's craft and some that are not often considered, e.g. the difficulty of transportation when the roads are "myre." From the spelling I would guess it to be 16th century.

Many years ago I took and filled an order for 500 hand forged nails. I was REALLY tired of making nails by the end and I still only make them when I have to as part of another project.