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Spaulding Smails

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Everything posted by Spaulding Smails

  1. I'm a huge fan of Clausen's pickles. Both the whole and the spear. Best Maid hamburger slices on a pulled pork sammich is bliss. Though I'm a dill guy through and through, we recently bought these and they are amazing. Go so well with a reuben.
  2. I'm in the same boat. As the owner of a construction company, I always pitch striated roof panels so I don't have to field call backs about oil-canning, but on my personal house, I went flat panel galvalume. Love the oil canning and I like the variations in patina that are starting to show after four years. I think it adds character, and it's not sacrificing performance (unless we get a crazy wind storm where flat panels are less rigid). That's an interesting take on SDLs vs true divided lites. I never really thought about that, but it makes sense. I actually had a customer complain a few months ago because the tempered glass in her living room adjacent to the front door looked slightly different than the non-tempered glass in the next bedroom. We always go all tempered in the same room to avoid that issue, but she was concerned about the difference from the exterior between rooms. I couldn't notice it. Luckily, we have a good relationship with the window manufacturer, and they came out to back us up and cited the language in their product sheet that she signed identifying potential variances in glass color. It's the same with paint. We had an architect insist that samples we put up not only matched color and sheen, but also PRODUCT so he could review. So, we had to buy full gallons of all 15 samples he wanted to see. I thought it was bullshit, but sure enough, he was able to pretty much call out each color variance. Some people can see variations that others can't.
  3. We installed a La Cornue range a few years ago on a project. It was a really, really well made appliance. That thing seemingly weighed more than a battleship. To the point of @Landomatic, they need to be the focal point of a kitchen, otherwise they may potentially detract from the aesthetics. In this case, we did a double glass-front SubZero fridge, and the range was flanked by stone columns in the center of the kitchen with a big island. Definite focal point and it made sense in the design. From a functionality standpoint, this particular client was a major foodie and loved to cook, so it made sense to her. If you love to cook, can make it the show piece of the kitchen and have the coin, go for it. Otherwise, go with Wolf or Viking. Sidebar... That same client gave me her 30 year old Viking range. Needed a new igniter for the oven, and I had to convert it from NG to propane, but it's freaking awesome. Though the new Viking stuff is fine, the pre-acquisition products are incredibly well built. The appliance guy I use came to do the conversion and said those old Viking ranges are some of the best built products he works with.
  4. I was just talking about this exact same sammich with my buddy yesterday. That's a must stop location for us when en route to NoLa or Red Stick.
  5. As if on queue, I saw a commercial for this a few times yesterday. https://www.lg.com/us/discover/instaview-door-in-door/craft-ice
  6. Fun hobby for sure. Lots of nuances. I've done it before, and there's lots of variables. A few years ago, I built a bar on Rainey and installed a Clinebell ice machine. Learned a lot about how clear ice is made. These machines are super cool. https://clinebellequipment.com/pages/cb300x2e
  7. FINALLY got the garden back to working order over the weekend after a six month hiatus due to our pool project. Picked up lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, greens and artichokes today.
  8. Damn fine opening day after the disastrous dove lease last year. Got a last minute invite to a buddy's place in Burnet. We've hunted there before and shot maybe 3-4 birds max. Buuuuut, he just put a tank in last winter. One of the best opening days I've ever had. Not a crazy amount of birds, but the ones we saw were all coming our way. Most headed straight for the Mojos and into the wind. Easy limit for me and the boy managed 12. Murphy killed it as always. Even pulled off a few double retrieves.
  9. Looks like a Monterrey Oak
  10. Mongoose sounds like a solid plan. Or a bobcat that's trained to avoid birds and only focus on rodents.
  11. While not an English major, I've always tried to communicate correctly, even in text messages. I'll write full sentences and avoid short hand notation. For example, it irks me when someone writes "TY" instead of "Thank You". And, I absolutely cringe when I see grammatical errors in published news articles. That being said, I actually heard a pretty compelling argument a few weeks ago on a Podcast about the evolution of communication and language. The comparison was made between letters home from rank and file soldiers during the Civil War and soldiers stationed overseas today. Those Civil War letters were verbose and descriptive and full of emotion. Why? Because letters to a wife or mother were sent home once a month, and there was no other way to convey those thoughts and visualizations. And, they had ample downtime in the evenings with minimal other distractions. They took their time and ensured that what was on paper gave a deep and detailed perspective. Compare that to a soldier communicating home with a loved one today. It can be a FaceTime call every evening, maybe a few texts during the day. The wife or mother on the other end can see facial expressions. Pictures and videos are sent. Quick texts provide updates. So, the argument was made that it's acceptable and natural to get away from formalities in written communication. The intent behind communication is to effectively convey information. If that's being accomplished by a picture, an emoji or shorthand, then it's actually progress in the evolution of communication. Shortly after hearing that Podcast, one of my managers sent me a text that we were awarded a job we'd bid on several months ago. I replied with a "happy dance" GIF. In a sense, that GIF communicated more effectively my sentiments about that achievement more appropriately than any written word could have done. It's interesting to take a step back and try to understand how rapidly that evolution of communication is unfolding.
  12. The heat is oppressive today. Feels like it did a few weeks ago when we had that run of 105+ for a few days. I was outside with one of my crews at 10 AM on top of a roof, and it was already blistering.
  13. I tried that. Once. They mowed down the veggies along with the bugs. Now, they're the perimeter defense and I had to weld on another panel to the bottom of the gate to keep them out of the garden.
  14. Spot on. If you go with protein / corn mix, make sure it's no more than 50/50 and make sure you have a water tight feeder. We've fed 50/50 from May - August the last two years and have seen really nice improvements to the antler growth in that timeframe. Will probably move to a stand alone protein feeder next spring. We want to let the areas around the feeders "rest" for longer than just that February - May timeframe.
  15. Chickens will eat the shit out of bugs. I built our chicken run adjacent to our garden. Pest count in the garden went way down once we got the chickens. My only complaint is that they mess up the mulch in the flower beds. More of an annoyance than anything.
  16. I hope you're right about wind and rain only. But, their house is surrounded by huge trees as well. Rita took down 50+% of their timber. I'm guessing this could be worse based on projected wind speeds.
  17. Good news: My wife's 90 year old grandmother evacuated her house in Orange Monday night. The house flooded in Harvey and will probably flood again with this storm surge. Bad news: She evacuated to her 70 year old daughter's (my wife's aunt's) house in Starks, LA. More directly in the line of the storm. They have a farm and didn't want to leave their animals. My wife begged them to let us come get her and bring her to Dripping Springs. They all politely declined. The farm has somewhat of high ground where the house sits, but they're surrounded by swamps. So, best case scenario, the house survives the storm, and they're probably landlocked with no power for a pretty long time. I don't want to think about the worst case scenario... More bad news: My FIL left his house in Cypress to go to his fish camp on Toledo Bend this morning to help out his buddies that live there. While possibly admirable, he literally drove into the path of the hurricane where he's going to ride out what will surely be hurricane force winds in a mobile home that is surrounded by 100' pine trees and faces due south on the main body of Toledo Bend. Awesome.
  18. Within the last week, we've had a checkered garter, ribbon snake and rat snake all in the back yard. Have yet to get a picture, but it's nice to see some variety, and I definitely think they're controlling the insect population. I just wish they'd take care of the mosquitos too.
  19. Ha! Did this come from someone in Austin? Because I'm relatively certain we framed the new portion of this house after they finished the demo. Modern stunner with a historic front facade.
  20. We just mounted it directly in the concrete. Those bulbs are pretty durable.
  21. We built ours homemade years ago when we had our place on Lake Medina. 5 gal bucket, metal halide ballast + bulb, concrete and lots of silicone. Worked like a champ for 5+ years and was still going strong when we sold the place. Kids loved fishing for catfish at night. Plus, easy to move on a variable level lake like that. Here's a forum where they talk through something similar if you're into DIY. https://fishwestend.com/forum/threads/1851-DIY-Underwater-Lights
  22. One of the best things I've done in the past couple of years was getting a trailer at the ranch. I was out on Sunday in 106 degree temps and was glad to have a place to cool down other than my truck. Same. Just bought a 12' trailer that I keep out at the ranch. I got tired of pulling my 16' trailer out there when needed. So much easier to load rocks and move brush. Not to mention the lower height for sitting and taking a break. We also use the hell out of it now for moving road base instead of a bucket at a time with the tractor.
  23. The biologist didn't come out to take a sample? He did not. We sent him pics. Deer were very healthy and none of the CWD signs were present. He said if we found another, he'd come out. Have not seen one since.
  24. That's a bummer on the CWD. What a gut punch. We haven't seen any signs at our place (yet). We did have three younger deer dead on our place last year. No signs of trauma. No bullet wounds. No signs of predator attack. Nothing. Found them both before the buzzards got them. My dad called the wildlife biologist to verify we didn't have anything funky going on, and he felt like it was most likely enterotoxemia. Basically, the deer just gorge on acorns, and it throws off their digestion. He said he was seeing a lot of that in 2019 due to the amount of acorns being produced. Makes sense because we had an insane amount of acorns on the ground last winter.
  25. The more I looked at him, I totally agree. I found a pic of the one that I shot last year (30"), and side-by-side, he was noticeably younger in the face and neck. We saw two HUGE axis at separate times last week (neither on our property). One when leaving the Llano River Saturday and another behind a high fence on 290 between Harper and Fredericksburg. The second was so big, I turned around to get a better look. He was a legit 36" and super wide. I think we're going to pass on this guy.
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