Picture Gallery

Oh, I see. The bucket parts are in the vertical posts holding up the platform. A truck drives up on to the ramp and somehow the bucket mechanism is connected to the truck to lift the grain. Then someone at the top directs it to whichever storage silo they want it in.

I've never seen one of them before.

For us city people, that's very interesting, 2pack, thank you!


Hey, McTag, did you take these pictures yourself? That's equally
sickening, probably combined with motion sickness.

Oooh, I'll climb up with 2pack.

One of my favourite jobs, long ago, involved (in part) climbing down the inside of bridges to water/ice level to get water samples. I loved it. Not everyone on the crew did.

I haven't trusted myself around heights and it turns out I'm right, re weird eyes, even as a kid. (Most people would be dizzy if they were you, said the optometrist, oh so long ago). But, I'm usually ok if I have some kind of railing I trust. That would never be my foot in 2Packs' shoe, though, unless I was grabbing a pole. Or a Pole.


Didn't help when a woman was killed not so long ago when a balloon hit wires (or whatever) here in Albuquerque. You're floating along in a basket and then, you're a case.

Anyway, neat photo, 2-P..

Yeah, that's basically it. In the first picture, you can see the metal grate that covers the "pit", the trucks dump the grain thru that rustyish spot, and it gets funneled down to an auger....looks like a water screw laid on it's side....you can also see a metal box running from the pit to the grain leg, that box contains the auger.

This is a much safer system, in the older setups, the auger was in an actual open pit, that was covered with removable grates....often those covers were left off for some reason....resulting in loss of limbs or life.

The thing I described as looking like a mantis, is actually called a swing auger or a portable auger....and I wasn't kidding, at night it really does look like a scene from one of those bad 70's giant insect movies. If you do an image search, you will see what I mean...and then add a couple of beers and darkness to the mix...was always a good way to scare the girls so they would sit closer.

Hey! He was dibbed ages ago.

Very true, he's our guy
, whether he knows it or not.

The only problem I see here, osso, is that he's up there on that damn tower and the only one of us willing to go up there is bethie.

Oh, well, how much harm can they do up there, in the long run, given us with snacks after they descend? We might have to work on timing.

Besides, I seem to remember liking Mrs. 2packs.

snacks, eh?

I'd settle for a peek at that old avatar

I'm just lookin' for someone to climb with - and take my photo with the elevation sign - or in front of the unusual view/angle/height.

I've got a small collection of photos of my boots framing elevation signs - travelled with friends who it turned out didn't like climbing - so the only way I could prove I'd made it to certain spots was to lie down on the ground and take a photo of my boots with the sign - otherwise it coulda been just anyone's photo.

For some reason I feel like Rapunzel....

Fear is an odd thing...everyone that knows that I climbed that grain leg just to take pictures....to see what I could see...thinks I'm either insane, stupid or both....one person said brave, but I think she was wanting something. Truthfully, I've never had any fear of heights, or really anything....except for snakes.

Sunday afternoon I was cleaning up an abandoned lot here in town {technically it's not abandoned, medicare or medicaid seized the property, and the state won't take care of it} and a guy across the street decided to clean up his yard as well. He turned over a pile of leaves that had been there since last fall and found a bunch of quite healthy nightcrawlers, my little boy was with me, so of course he ran across the street top speed and began to reap the harvest of worms. I on the other hand was a bit hesitant...they were really big...and wiggly....and they thrashed violently when handled....and I'm gonna have to stop writing about that now.

A basket case?

(Sorry about that)

May is the month where the city's Jacaranda trees are in full bloom.
They're such pretty trees...

Yes, that's my trainer in the pic.
We're sailing again on that ship at the end of next month.

Where are the jacaranda trees? New Mexico? My rhododendron bushes are looking well just now, but my camera is broken. I'll take it down to the shop today.

No, that's right here in sunny California (San Diego), and the entire city
has street after street covered with these beautiful purple Jacarandas.
Quite a sight!

Purty trees...!

Click on the pic.

A picture of my buddy cjhsa