Here’s another small painting I completed over the weekend:

20″x16″
modeling paste, house paint, oil stick, and roofing tar on canvas

An old barn on Chestnut Hill Church Rd. in Coopersburg.

What’s left of a chicken coop on South Hillview Road in Lower Macungie.

20″x16″
acrylic, ink, and oil stick on canvas

Changing out the pads for the front disc brakes on the Pacifica is about half hour job. First thing to do is jack up the side you’re working on and secure it with proper jack stands. Once you remove the wheel you’ll be confronted with rotor and caliper assembly:

What I typically do next is release some pressure from the pistons by depressing the caliper. You can get a special tool to do this, but I find a C clamp does the job just fine. It’s rather difficult, if not impossible, to swing open the caliper housing without doing this.

Another view of the depressed caliper:

I next loosen the two bolts attached to the slide pins at the top and bottom of the caliper.

I tend to remove the top one completely and let the caliper swing open. I’ve seen folks remove only the bottom one and let it swing up. In my case I have to rest it on something so I just use another jack stand. Either way, the results are the same:

The pads are easily removed at this point. I also remove the pad retainer clips.

I then start the reverse process by first installing the new clips:

…and subsequently the new pads:

Be sure to use some grease at the contact points of the pads and the retainer clips. The grease reduces any noise and possible sticking.

Because the new pads will be thicker than their old, worn-out counterparts, you’ll probably need to depress the pistons a bit more so you have clearance to swing the caliper back into place. I usually just use one of the old pads here, placing it flush to the pistons, and depress them again with the C clamp.

Once those pistons are depressed all the way, swing the caliper back into place. Replace the top bolt that was removed, tightening it and the one at the bottom.

The new pads are now ready to go.

This evening I started two buckets of Merlot and Chardonnay juice. They sat for 24 hrs after picking them up yesterday from Keystone Homebrew. Both must have had some wild yeast in them because when I popped open the lids tonight they were frothing all over the place. I went ahead and took my hydrometer readings (Merlot @ 1.120 and Chardonnay @ 1.090) and added the wine yeast… They both should have a fun time over the next week or so.

A handful of carrots from the garden.

So I’ve just come in from the rain. While struggling to hold an umbrella and having a flash light tucked under my arm, I collected an additional 40 gallons of water just in the past 15 minutes or so.

Collecting rain water has become this summer’s hobby (more like, obsession) of mine. It all started when I built the rain barrel a few months back. Since then I’ve created three more: two at the inlaws and an additional one here at home just today.

I have 1 1/4″ flex drain pipe used for the overflow and it just so happens to fit perfectly into the mouth of 5 gal water cooler jugs. I’ve converted five of them that my Pops gave me initially for making wine, into water storage containers in my shed – used specifically for watering the 1 yr. old trees that we have around our yard this season.

When it rains hard I take that flex drain pipe and route it into those jugs and few other buckets I have to collect some extra water. It’s amazing how much you can harvest in a single rain fall – so much so that I feel like I need more containers!!

The rain barrel I added this afternoon came from a workshop I attended two weeks ago hosted by the Lehigh Valley Water Authority. It was co-sponsored by Coca-Cola (who donated the supplies). At the workshop they gave out a 65 gallon drum along with the necessary supplies to build your own rain barrel. I took what they gave us, made some adjustments to their design, and hooked it into the already existing barrel we had.

So now I’m harvesting slightly less than 130 gallons of water.  All of it mostly goes to watering our vegetable garden.

I’ve come to realize there’s something primordial about harvesting your own rain water. We’re obviously not reliant on it in any way shape or form, but the act of doing it sticks with me for some reason. Knowing that I’ve personally engineered and built something that harvests what otherwise would just be wasted, is really cool.

These appeared after a storm we had this evening. I think they’re considered Cumulonimbus mammatus clouds that form in sinking air.

I’m not really good at shooting this thing yet, but here’s a video of how I spent a small portion of my holiday weekend:

I think my stance is all wrong. I’m pretty sure I have to lean into it more, so the angle of my body absorbs the kickback a bit better. The inside of my shoulder took a pounding too.