RDM

Just a thought... A potential alternative to normal chicken wire would be something stainless. Here's an option you may find interesting. https://www.mcmaster.com/catalog/126/2045 Middle left of the page. For about $200 you'd have a 304 stainless steel mole proof foundation that would never rust. If you've dealt with McMaster Carr before, they are great. Excellent online catalog and fast service. I buy all my stainless hardware there for less than what you can get zinc plate at Home Depot.

FWIW - I can relate to not caring for weights and preferring to get a workout the natural way. When it came to reclaiming about a 1/2 acre of our property back in 2010, just the workout from power tools alone was enough for me. We had weeds 5 feet high, old stumps, trees, rocks and all kinds of stuff that we removed to reclaim the space. Filled two 30 yard dumpsters and 4 dump trucks with the debris. In reference to the uneven terrain in your newly recovered back yard, here's a few thoughts... Our half acre was also rough - like a washboard. So, I rented one of the best contraptions ever invented by mankind. It's called a power landscape rake. You need a smallish tractor with a rear 540rpm PTO to power it and tow it. A category 1 hitch on a small BX Kubota works well - can rent them at Home Depot for a reasonable fee with loader and backhoe if you have heavy stuff to move. The power rake we rented was 5 foot long and it worked extremely well behind my BX Kubota. The power rake has a long cylinder about 10" in diameter with a bunch of solid carbide teeth that stick out a couple inches. The cylinder spins at a decent whirl and pulverizes anything it comes in contact with. It will kick out rocks that weigh 10 lbs without missing a beat. When at an angle the rake does a phenomenal job leveling things out and wind-rowing the debris it kicks up. You can adjust how much "bite" the rake takes with each pass and with a little trial and error, we were smoothing things out and clearing the rocks in 5 foot swaths. One afternoon with the power rake and our ground was smooth and ready for the seed (300 lbs of it) and 50/50 mix on top. (200 cubic yards of the mix) In the end, I managed to grow the best 1/2 acre of crabgrass and other weeds you've ever seen. But, it's level and free of ruts and much better than what we started with.

Agree - just stumbled across it. Been using Windy.com for a long time, which has similar graphics. Looks like the 80F line is approaching Richmond now. If we get those higher temps and dp up this way, it may make the potential for later today interesting.

Yea - rock steady atm. However, you can see the warm air is just below Richmond and coming N. Temps currently in the 80's in NC, at 11am. Way too early in the year for that. https://www.ventusky.com/?p=37.3;-80.0;5&l=temperature-2m

FWIW - exchanged notes with some German friends today. They are on "lockdown" until 20 April. I use the term lockdown loosely because they can still go out to get food and go for a walk, but are only allowed to socialize with those in the same household. Very interesting how Germany has such a higher mortality rate compared to Italy (about 12X). Germany has roughly 60% the number of cases as Italy, but only 5% as many fatalities (compared to Italy). This is still keeping in mind the data on the number of cases is likely skewed because those carriers who have not be tested are not accounted for in the data.

Very sad to hear for all the seniors out there - same goes for those at the University level. Our daughter is considering herself fortunate for having graduated from W&M last year. Her former classmates this year will have to do without a commencement ceremony. While the impact on education in the US is beyond anything previously contemplated, it was inevitable. As a comparison, it's worth noting Japan closed all of their public schools and universities in one action early in the onset of the pandemic. That's credited with being a major factor in minimizing the impact in Japan. To date they still have "only" 1100 cases and 41 fatalities, which is pretty amazing giving their population density. As a comparison, imagine and area smaller in area than the Washington/Baltimore metropolitan area with 40 million people - that's the Tokyo-Yokohama metropolis. Compared to less than 6 million for the W-BMA. 6 times our population in a smaller area.

The effort you've put in shows. Nice ambiance for sure. Can relate to the concept of lessening the grassy areas. When we moved into our place 10 years ago after returning from Thailand I recovered the lower 1/2 acre of our property. It hadn't been maintained for years by the previous owners and in places the weeds were 5 feet high. With the help of my Kubota BX I dug out stumps, removed dead/fallen trees, cleared it and leveled it with a power landscape rake. Was several 30 yd dumpsters full of debris. Put down over 100yds of 50/50 topsoil/compost mix and 300+ lbs of seed. Ended up with the nicest bed of weeds you've ever seen. haha. But, it's better than what we started with. At some point I may do like our next door neighbors did and kill it all and reseed the whole yard. Their yard looks pretty nice now and is light years ahead of what they had before. Some day, when I get a round-to-it.

That looks great. Look forward to some updates. Nice back yard too btw. We have a transition area with a lot of poplar trees also (albeit our back yard don't look near so nice). The abundance of trees makes it difficult to keep grass. It does ok until the leaves on the poplars come out. Then the combination of partial shade and the poplars sucking the nutrients out of the soil make it hard for grass to compete. Hope yours takes hold and does well. Certainly looks like its got a great start.

Well said PSU. During a normal flu season, how many people actually get formally tested for the flu? Nominally we get the flu, maybe go to the doctor and/or medicate to soften the symptoms and stay home until better. COVID is another situation entirely. Also agree on the point about the data. The stats on the much followed JH's COVID heat map point to some interesting trends, but need to be viewed as suspect (although I look at the site a lot myself because there's little else out there). In the more modern countries where testing is assumed to be carried out to established standards, the data is likely far more objective. With that assumption, the variability in the fatality ratio in Europe is interesting. Case in point is the significant difference in the fatality rate in Italy compared to nearby France, Switzerland and Germany. However, as a catch-all, the overall data totals on the JH site is very subjective and even suspect for two reasons. One is the data is solely reliant on official test results of people tested, which must be assumed to be far short of the number of actual cases. The second reason, which is the predominate driver in undermining the pedigree and linage of the data on the JH site is because China is heavily involved; having contributed the largest portion of the data set by country. At this point, Johns Hopkins should just cut the data out from China entirely. China is arguably at the top of the list of countries when it comes to active domain monitoring and content control. They have an iron grip on it and we are seeing that machine in action now. It was interesting how the number of cases in China came to a grinding halt last week and now the only new cases they are reporting are labeled with having originated from outside China. Their internal filter machine is working overtime now and as a result any of the COVID data out of China is questionable at best, which further taints the JH heat map as long as data from China remains included.

Yes, have a decent first hand perspective on Italy. Mainly in the Northern alpine areas, but also Rome and Sardinia. Lived in Germany two different times and spent a lot of time in the Alps. Part of the challenges in the norther part of Italy is the aging population as noted by others. The alpine villages are typically densely populated and relatively isolated - ripe for infestation once infiltrated. That appears to be a contributing factor in Switzerland too. This hit at the height of spring ski season and vacationers from the low land and tourists from other countries brought COVID into the resorts (from the brother of my Swiss-sister who is a Doctor in Bern). However, another mitigating factor in the data comparisons to the flu is that on an annual basis there are a lot of fatalities attributed to the flu as a pseudo catch-all. The same takes place in the US. No doubt, some cases of the flu are confirmed as being attributed to the flu through flu strain specific testing, but many aren't. My older sister is a recent example. She contracted flu like symptoms last week and was confirmed through flu tests to have "flu B", whichever one that is of the two flu strains she was tested for and which are dominate this year. While many of her symptoms pointed to a COVID-19 potential, not all of her symptoms were consistent with COVID, so her doctor tested her for flu first as an initial measure. When the tests confirmed flu-B, then that precluded further testing. Assume this M/O is/was being followed in other cases around the country. My sister-in-law is a PA and my daughter works for INOVA Urgent Care and this testing methodology is consistent with their testing MO, even though both work in facilities where COVID test kits are available. Back to the topic of Italy, what we're seeing take place there over the last week is way beyond comparison to anything that is nominal for even an aggressive flu season. Talked to some friends there, in Switzerland and Germany recently - they are all struggling to cope with this. On the flip side of the fatality rate is Germany. While they also have a relatively high number of confirmed COVID cases. Their documented fatality rate is significantly lower than Italy (on a percentage basis). That's interesting, but far be it from me to conjure a guess as to why.

No - this is not at all normal. Not even close to it. Italy does not nominally deploy army convoys in the middle of the night with police escort to carry away the caskets because the hospital morgues are overflowing. And yes, I've spent a fair bit of time in Italy. This is NOT normal.

Agree. Saw a couple of listings last night on FIOS from previous tournaments. If they play some finals from long ago, maybe we'll be able to forget who won when watching to avoid spoiling the fun. Heck, I can't remember who one many of the tournaments in the 90's and 2000's anyway. Was overseas most of that time - plus I'm old now and forgot what I did yesterday. On a separate note, the impact on advertising and lost revenue is enormous. Was watching something last night and an advertisement for the Players Championship ran just like normal, after it's obviously already been canceled. Was a late night program, but was still interesting to see an advertisement for a canceled event.

Not sure I follow the syntax of the part in bold about "not going to be able to under report deaths from the virus". If they are not going to be able to under report, does that default to they will be over reporting deaths? Not trying to be sarcastic, just trying to understand the point you're making. It's was interesting to watch the growth of new cases in the equatorial strip of Africa and the Indian subcontinent over the last 24 hours. Same for Central and South American and the Caribbean - all have experienced significant growth in the number of cases. Wonder if the growth in these warmer and even tropical climates is catching the eye of CDC etc.

Agree with some of the reference to warmer areas, but there's exceptions to this too. The majority of the warmer climates in the world are also among the poorest where access to reliable testing is going to be marginal at best for a long time. And the stats on the Johns Hopkins Heat Map are based solely on verified test results, which are significantly less than the number of actual cases. The stats for India and Africa are the prime examples of what is most likely under reporting. Stats in African and the Indian sub-continent are currently well behind much of the rest of the world. That said, the stats starting to ramp up 2 days ago. From a temperature perspective, the northern tier of the subcontinent is still in transition from cool winter/spring temps (it does get below freezing in the winter in Delhi - DJF) to what we would call summer-like temps in the south. If we look at South America and Australia also, their stats have grown significantly over the last couple of days and Australia is just entering Fall along the southern coast. As for China, their data integrity must be objectively questioned and significantly so. Just as they deployed the largest quarantine in history, they also have the ability to control the data/stats. They actively control all nodes of Internet traffic in and out of China with an acute level of precision most can't contemplate. Experienced a similar level of domain control albeit with the "free" press in India when I lived there in the 90's. We had an outbreak of pneumonic plague in 94. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_plague_in_India They voluntarily evacuated the US Embassy as the news consumed all forms of information services at the time (largely pre-Internet except for a few). The story went from consuming entire sections of the Delhi Times on a Friday to nothing two days later. Not a whimper. In reality, the Indian political machine clamped down on the press and it just went away - like that. Was a pretty amazing thing to live through at the time. Actual deaths were wayyy higher than those acknowledged in the official reporting. Nothing above is intended to demean or question what we're facing with this pandemic. Hopefully, the US will rise to the occasion and group together to bring to bear the best of what we can muster. My fear is the current political climate will continue to undermine attempts to do so.

Thanks. Can relate to what you mean about the "heavy hard stuff". My childhood home in Ohio was built in 1880, my brother's home not far away in 1860 (and my brother and his family are only the 3 occupants since 1860!). In both structures, they used real wood that is nearly impossible to drive a nail into. In the early 80's when I was still at home we built a large detached garage addition at my parent's home for my dad's fire museum (all from the hand-pulled era of firefighting). Dad thought he'd save some money and add a little nostalgia to the interior of the museum by using some reclaimed wood from a local barn tear-down. It was rough sawn oak - rough dimensioned. We used it for the studs on the ground floor. Only after getting the walls up and second floor trusses in place did we realize today's modern nails would not cut it. It took a dozen or so tries before we got the first 16 penny nail to go in. We ended up having to drill every single hole by hand for the outside sheathing and firebreaks. It was funny at first how hard that stuff was. The novelty of it wore off fast when you have to drill several hundred nail holes by with an electric drill (properly undersized of course to provide good grip). That stuff was literally tougher than nails.

Couldn't agree more on the truss spacing and walls and the roof slope. Never understood the logic in using measly 5/8" sheathing too. Yea, it saves a few bucks, but why not go for full 3/4" tig and have a roof that will really hold up? Not sure if you remember the fiasco around NOVA in the late 80's with the delaminating roof sheathing? Impacted a lot of developments put up in the late 70's and early/mid 80's. Because 5/8" is so thin, when there's a bad batch and/or void in the lamination the weakness in 5/8" exasperates the situation whereas 3/4 has a much greater ability to compensate for any manufacturing voids. On the roof slope, in some cases design and/or geometry drives a flatter slope. However, the steeper the roof the stronger with a far less tendency to have ice dam issues. Still curious what sort of construction standards they have in the GL snow belt to compensate for the snow load. If we had 4 feet of snow on the roofs around here the impact would be terrible. We saw some of that in 2010 with some collapses and damage due to ice damming. Our code is for an ice dam layer as well around here, 2 rows if the pitch is 4-12 or flatter. But we all know how that goes...

Just curious - Do you know if they have special building codes up there in the snow belt? Normal 24" rafters with 5/8" sheathing won't withstand that sort of repeated snow loading on a flat pitched roof. Not trolling here - always wondered if their code has extra factors built in. Tks

Wow - now THAT is an excellent shot. Fantastic. One to remember. Appreciate your narrative about the event. We're all hanging on every report...

Just came in from getting diesel for my Kubota. The stiff NW wind is a bit nippy. Looking at the NWS radar, looks like the fetch off of Ontario is still nailing NY and the Tug Plateau. Rochester is about to get hit by a nice band... lucky devils.

Congratulations. That's quite something to be proud of. I feel for you re the tuition. Our daughter graduated from W&M last May. That was $140K... With your daughter's intellect, SAT and other skills, maybe Temple will work with you some... Good luck.

Indeed - around Dayton we set a number of records for that period. Besides not getting above freezing for the month of Jan, believe there was a stint when we didn't get above the single digits for well over a week. That really took its toll on about everything. On the coldest morning of the period (-27F) my sister's Dodge Omni clutch cable broke. Got a new cable and fixed it outside on our driveway with a snowmobile suit on. Froze my arsh off. Was only about 130 lbs then, vice 270 now. Recall when it warmed up there were major issues with ice flows/jams on the GLs and the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, and their tributaries. Lots of flooding from the ice dams. Recall them dropping charges from helicopters on the Ohio to break up the piles.

Haha - believe it or not, I remember that story in 77. Remember the cutter having to go out after them when the ice they were on broke off and stranded them. I think we had around -28F IVO Dayton. We never got above freezing nearly the entire month of Jan. I The cold in 77 raised havoc with municipal infrastructure too. In Ohio building code for water lines and building footers is 4 feet below grade to help avoid frost heave, vice 2 feet below grade around here. That year the frost line got down way below 4 feet, which cracked foundations and burst water mains. Remember the facilities guys in our little town had constant issues repairing busted mains, and the flooding that occurred. The elevated water tower in town froze over too, which had never happened before (according to the really old timers). The overflow nearly destroyed a couple nearby homes. The impact of extreme temps as you approach or exceed -30F can be surprising. Then the year after 77 we had the grand ole blizzard of 78....

That's about the annual LES schedule I remember too growing up. Michigan would freeze over earlier than Erie, which would shut off our options for getting squalls where I lived. Even down by Dayton we'd sometimes pickup some decent LES qualms that could accumulate over a day or two, even given the distance from the GLs. Not sure, but I don't think Erie froze over solid this year.

I'm schizophrenic in how to respond. One part of me says "Awesome!" and the other part is jealous as hell and has nothing but contempt for how awful this year has been... So close, but so far away. The mere fact the LES machine is in high gear the end of Feb, due to the lack of anything frozen on Erie and Ontario, is more testimony to this year's lack of cold. Normally the LES machine dies down in Dec or early Jan as the lakes freeze over or at least the water temp cools. Water temps in Erie are several degrees warmer than normal which is helping fuel the fetch. My relatives back Dayton, Ohio even got some LES squalls yesterday off of lake Michigan. Very rare for this time of year. Enjoy the spectacle up there and please keep the videos coming....

Sounds great. I've heard of Corbett's in ski magazines. Sounds something like the run from the backside of Zermatt, Switzerland down to Cervina, Italy. Hands down THE best run I've ever been on, anyplace, ever. (although some of the heli-ski runs in NZ were comparable). The run to Cervina is several thousand feet of vertical on a somewhat consistent slope about 100-150 yds wide. It's wide enough it doesn't get carved up. I love long wide runs with about a 20 degree slope. Often tele-ski w/o poles and get down low almost like a snowboarder. Use hard shell kneepads to protect from hard impact. My tele-boards are old skinny boards - 205's. They look way out of place with today's short-wide carving skis. Can't use wide carving skis because I still use leather tele boots - can strap ice crampons on them and/or tele cleats to climb steep slopes where skins alone are not enough. Making me get the itch to get back out again, but at nearly 60, not sure my knees will take it...