Day +29 To "M" Day

Over the past couple of days since my last posting, the remaining wood has been cut, stacked, and covered. Now awaiting for the next shipment from the "Woodman". This a.m., I could walk through the center of the parking area without getting muddy, it is drying up nicely, however, we can expect some rain to fall. Each day, I am prouder of the drain system. It is staying ahead of the inflow and has to be shut down in order to have water to pump out. Working great.

Water flow should slow down a little as a cold trend is starting to set in. This morning it was cold enough to freeze the "balls off a brass monkey". Is that vulgar of me to say? Perhaps, we should investigate that saying.

On the old war ships, it was necessary to keep a good supply of cannon balls near the cannons. Since the cannon balls were round it was difficult to keep them in place on a rolling ship. However, to keep them from rolling, the method devised was to stack them as a square based pyramid, with one ball on top, resting on four, resting on nine which rested on sixteen. Consequently, a stack of 30 cannon balls could be stacked next to each cannon. The problem was how to keep the bottom layer from sliding or rolling from under the others.
The solution was a metal plate with 16 indentations, called for reasons unknown as a Monkey. But if this plate were made of iron, the iron cannon balls would quickly rust and stick to the Monkey.
So brass was used to make the Monkey, however, brass contracts much more and faster than iron when chilled. Consequently, when the temperatures dropped to far, the brass indentations would shrink so much that the iron cannon balls would roll off the monkey. Thus, it was quite literally cold enough to "freeze the balls off a brass monkey".

The "brass monkey" should not be confused nor construed the same as a "trunk monkey"

Just a thought to ponder in the event that we ever decide to rig up a cannon at the HITW in case "Blue Duck" comes riding in.