Being as the weather was a sunny and pleasant 68F (20C), I finished cleaning out the chicken shed. Just one of those tasks you need to to do every spring and fall. Glad that is done until sometime in October. I also took the heaters for the waterers out. I had disconnected them a while back. They were one of the best investments I have made for the chicken shed. They kept the water open all winter at much less electric cost than the heat lamps I had previously used.
I also decided it was time to take the snowblower off the garden tractor and re-install the mower. I think the snow blower weighs in at about 120 lbs (55 kg.) and is ungainly as the dickens. I can still handle it, but it won't be too many years and I will have to be smart enough to ask for help with it. I think the mower comes it at about 70 to 80 lbs. (31 to 36 kg.). It is a bit easier to handle.
I am looking forward to the the new Pandemic project starting. So far the Beta jobs I have received have been as short as 3 minutes and as long as 8 hours. Quite the range. I would guess once the project starts, they will be more uniform, maybe not.
Gasoline has been fairly cheap here, $1.44/gal for a while now, but it has been as low as $.89 in southern Minnesota. That is really cheap, but since I am not going may places but the grocery store, the pharmacy and feed mill, I may go about a month or longer between fill ups. Maybe I'll save enough to put another system in and retire one of the 8 core machines.
Hope all of you are well and stay that way.
Cheers

Son got a model similar to that. He found it works pretty good, especially as we had to shovel his roof twice two years ago. Like you he said 'Better than shoveling."
Cheers

I managed to score another 24 thread machine for about $50. I retired my 8 core L5520 machine and fired up the new machine. It turns out the on board VGA did not work (???), but it now has a video card and an adapter on it and it is happily crunching away. It has an E5645 in it, so it is not real fast, but it probably uses only a little more juice than old 8 core, but it will have much better throughput. It was easy to just shut down the 8 core, pull the live USB thumb drive, plug it in to the new machine, and it took off with a hitch. With the Linux installation, there is no fooling around with the OS tied to a particular CPU like Windows. Linux did not even care the CPU's were different, the memory was different, and the machine was an HP versus the DELL.

On another note, my baby chicks showed up in the mail 2 days ago. So far they all appear to be fine and healthy. They will spend about 2-3 weeks under the heat lamps, then when they get a bit bigger with some feathers, I will transfer them to a bigger pen. With any luck, they will be laying by mid to late September.
Well, I have to go and mow some grass, because it is turning into a rather nice day.
Cheers

Sorry, we already have three cats patrolling the area. All of them have been neutered.
Cheers

We always appreciate any contribution you make.
Cheers