November Is the Cruelest Month

Just two weeks ago the old van died--a faithful hauler with lots of gumption. The new one is slightly better, though almost indistinguishable apart from colour, which is fine with me. Winter has advanced relentlessly since Hallowe'en. It warmed enough to melt much of the snow in the city, but the countryside to the north is still in the full grip of Ullr (Norse god of snow--had to look that up!).

First Snow

The first snowfall has ended, and this is what it looks like. It snowed from about noon on Friday until the wee hours today. The sky has assumed that familiar deep blue hue; it's winter. Note: On 9 Nov. we put away the deck furniture for the winter.

Snow Time Like Now

Here is an all  too familiar scene (straight out the front door--my favorite shot!), enlivened by a substantial accumulation of snow. The white stuff was already piling up as I drove home yesterday, so that means 7 Nov. is the date for first snowfall this year. 

Several trees were heavily burdened along the English Settlement Road, and one had fallen into the North-bound lane. Ready or not, winter is here. 

Piercings

When the big Tamarack at the foot of the driveway came down, a branch punched right through the lid of the garbage bin, which is made of one-inch cedar boards. I was expecting the box to be flattened--this was not quite what I imagined.

Windstorm

While I shall always remember this day as the one on which the restoration of power after an outage caused a pet cat  to fly into a frenzy and tear my aunt's eyelid, we had some trouble as well: we returned home to find the tree I had asked NB Power to remove had snapped about 12 feet from the base! Fortunately, it fell away from the wire and across the driveway, blocking it completely. No matter. About 45 minutes later, the tree was a small pile of slash and a heap of firewood.
This summer, Jo noticed that the upper portion--most of the tree, in fact--had failed to produce foliage. There were some needles on the lower branches (visible, in their ruddy autumn tones to the left), but the top was dead. I used the online form to suggest that NB Power cut it down before it fouled the lines to the right (leading to the workshop) or across the street (a primary line). We emailed back and forth, but we returned home on Friday to find the tree down. It broke across the garbage bin and felled the driveway marker. Interestingly, we never did lose power, and the Grateful Dead--the old spruce along the back line of the property--came through unscathed.
UPDATE: NB Power declined to remove the tree, stating that it did not fall within their maintenance standards!

Meet Jack

As we wind down the garage project, I'm moving down to the cellar to prepare a footing for the post that will eventually support the beam under the upstairs bathroom.

Unfortunately, the slab for the furnace is in the way, and the ground itself is a thin layer of dirt underlain by hard shale.

That's where this unit comes in handy. It's easy to use, not particularly loud, and quite effective. I just need to rig up a better system for moving the debris out of the cellar. I think the existing fish tub on suitable wheels might do the trick. Dumping it into the wagon is still a struggle.

I'll have to give this some thought.

Web

On a frosty morning on my way to the office I chanced upon this: a frozen spider web on a picnic table outside the Library.

It has been very cold so far, but there may be a lull in our future.

Pressure Rising

Way back in late June, I think, the pressure at Diane's started fluctuating oddly. When I tried to add air to the pressure tank, it was completely waterlogged: bladder failure. I didn't get around to buying a new tank until 9 Sept., and I finally crawled under and installed it today. Fortunately, I was able to reuse all the original fittings, and I had to cut just one pipe to remove everything. Unfortunately, it was a 3/4 and I did not have a connector on hand. Fortunately, I had a 45 degree street elbow set. The new tank, in spite of my efforts to find a low profile unit, was a couple of inches taller, but it still fit quite well. No leaks and 20/50 shut-off--all's well!

Moth

This was a busy weekend. Jo shingled much of the garage, Boris put 5 cords of wood in the shed, and I installed the last two windows and painted the area around them. In fact, I've nearly finished scraping and painting the front corner of the house, another eyesore of long standing. I paused to look at this little moth, whose coloration and crinkled trailing edge seemed perfect autumnal camouflage. What a pity he chose to perch on a white door!

Camp Fire

Agnes was intent on a fire on the beach. The summer had been dry and I was uneasy about open flames, but in the end we finished our visit to PEI with a night fire on the beach--very small, with well-seasoned wood, almost smokeless, in a pit we carefully dug. We roasted marshmallows and were surprised to find other people nearby followed our example--however, their fires were much smokier. I can remember huge beach fires from my youth, dangerous pyres with enormous logs and roaring flames. I suppose this is a fire in keeping with the times. Well, it was a dry summer.

Amazing

For the first time, we went to a corn maze. It was quite a set up, with about four acres devoted to the maze and many other attractions, including a cut-down military style obstacle course. It was faintly desolate, being the end of the season: the corn cannon was broken and some of the washers for the washer toss were missing--but I think it was one of the things Agnes enjoyed. Here's Franki, almost consumed by corn!

George Wakes Up Early

From Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat (1889):

George said that the same kind of thing, only worse, had happened to him some eighteen months ago, when he was lodging by himself in the house of a certain Mrs. Gippings. He said his watch went wrong one evening, and stopped at a quarter-past eight. He did not know this at the time because, for some reason or other, he forgot to wind it up when he went to bed (an unusual occurrence with him), and hung it up over his pillow without ever looking at the thing.

It was in the winter when this happened, very near the shortest day, and a week of fog into the bargain, so the fact that it was still very dark when George woke in the morning was no guide to him as to the time. He reached up, and hauled down his watch. It was a quarter-past eight. "Angels and ministers of grace defend us!" exclaimed George; "and here have I got to be in the City by nine. Why didn't somebody call me? Oh, this is a shame!" And he flung the watch down, and sprang out of bed, and had a cold bath, and washed himself, and dressed himself, and shaved himself in cold water because there was not time to wait for the hot, and then rushed and had another look at the watch. Whether the shaking it had received in being thrown down on the bed had started it, or how it was, George could not say, but certain it was that from a quarter-past eight it had begun to go, and now pointed to twenty minutes to nine.

George snatched it up, and rushed downstairs. In the sitting-room, all was dark and silent: there was no fire, no breakfast. George said it was a wicked shame of Mrs. G., and he made up his mind to tell her what he thought of her when he came home in the evening. Then he dashed on his great-coat and hat, and, seizing his umbrella, made for the front door. The door was not even unbolted. George anathematized Mrs. G. for a lazy old woman, and thought it was very strange that people could not get up at a decent, respectable time, unlocked and unbolted the door, and ran out. He ran hard for a quarter of a mile, and at the end of that distance it began to be borne in upon him as a strange and curious thing that there were so few people about, and that there were no shops open. It was certainly a very dark and foggy morning, but still it seemed an unusual course to stop all business on that account. HE had to go to business: why should other people stop in bed merely because it was dark and foggy! At length he reached Holborn. Not a shutter was down! not a bus was about! There were three men in sight, one of whom was a policeman; a market-cart full of cabbages, and a dilapidated looking cab. George pulled out his watch and looked at it: it was five minutes to nine! He stood still and counted his pulse. He stooped down and felt his legs. Then, with his watch still in his hand, he went up to the policeman, and asked him if he knew what the time was.

"What's the time?" said the man, eyeing George up and down with evident suspicion; "why, if you listen you will hear it strike." George listened, and a neighbouring clock immediately obliged. "But it's only gone three!" said George in an injured tone, when it had finished. "Well, and how many did you want it to go?" replied the constable. "Why, nine," said George, showing his watch. "Do you know where you live?" said the guardian of public order, severely. George thought, and gave the address. "Oh! that's where it is, is it?" replied the man; "well, you take my advice and go there quietly, and take that watch of yours with you; and don't let's have any more of it."

And George went home again, musing as he walked along, and let himself in. At first, when he got in, he determined to undress and go to bed again; but when he thought of the redressing and re-washing, and the having of another bath, he determined he would not, but would sit up and go to sleep in the easy-chair. But he could not get to sleep: he never felt more wakeful in his life; so he lit the lamp and got out the chess-board, and played himself a game of chess. But even that did not enliven him: it seemed slow somehow; so he gave chess up and tried to read. He did not seem able to take any sort of interest in reading either, so he put on his coat again and went out for a walk. It was horribly lonesome and dismal, and all the policemen he met regarded him with undisguised suspicion, and turned their lanterns on him and followed him about, and this had such an effect upon him at last that he began to feel as if he really had done something, and he got to slinking down the by-streets and hiding in dark doorways when he heard the regulation flip-flop approaching. Of course, this conduct made the force only more distrustful of him than ever, and they would come and rout him out and ask him what he was doing there; and when he answered, "Nothing," he had merely come out for a stroll (it was then four o'clock in the morning), they looked as though they did not believe him, and two plain-clothes constables came home with him to see if he really did live where he had said he did. They saw him go in with his key, and then they took up a position opposite and watched the house. He thought he would light the fire when he got inside, and make himself some breakfast, just to pass away the time; but he did not seem able to handle anything from a scuttleful of coals to a teaspoon without dropping it or falling over it, and making such a noise that he was in mortal fear that it would wake Mrs. G. up, and that she would think it was burglars and open the window and call "Police!" and then these two detectives would rush in and handcuff him, and march him off to the police-court. He was in a morbidly nervous state by this time, and he pictured the trial, and his trying to explain the circumstances to the jury, and nobody believing him, and his being sentenced to twenty years' penal servitude, and his mother dying of a broken heart. So he gave up trying to get breakfast, and wrapped himself up in his overcoat and sat in the easy-chair till Mrs. G came down at half-past seven. He said he had never got up too early since that morning: it had been such a warning to him.

Summer Shower

Just as I was leaving for the Island, we found that the upstairs shower was not only partly blocked (probably by a chunk of mineral deposit) but quite irreparable, as the hex screw for removing the single tap had fused to the metal shell.

While I was on the Island, Joanne demolished the closet, exposing the tap and pipes. I then spent a long morning putting in the new shower valve, spout, and shower head.

The pipes required 13 sweat-soldered joints and 6 threaded ones. Astonishingly, when I turned the water back on, nothing leaked!

At some point in the fairly distant past, I installed two compression type shutoff valves, which still work and are sufficiently sturdy to continue using. The sad part of all this is that we were in the process of overhauling the entire bathroom, so the offending valve would have been replaced shortly, could it have held together for another month or two.

Vanity

I sometimes wonder why so many projects get delayed. This is a typical case: we were advancing nicely on the garage renovations when the van failed its MVI due to bad rear rotors. I had to drop everything and fix them, which I did the same evening and the following morning.

I was quite sure that the calipers were seized, and the pads were the old style (non-ceramic), so I went for the full package: pads, rotors, and calipers.


As has become usual, I had to use the cut-and-cold-chisel approach to remove the old rotors--they were rusted to the hubs.


It was good to see the new parts in place--they do not continue to look shiny and new for long, but it's nice while it lasts. They were a little difficult to bleed--on one side the copper washer required a lot of torque before it conformed to the caliper face and made a proper seal. In the end, I felt the van braking was more responsive. Anyway, this is one reason why the house and woodlot sometimes do not get the attention they deserve!

Wasps, Bees, and Wasps

It is the time of year when wasps build their nests, and this reminded me of several encounters with winged stinging things over the years. The earliest occurred when our daughter was a mere toddler. I noticed a small wasp nest on the underside of our neighbours' picnic table at toddler head height. I thought I could remove a hazard and create an interesting exhibit by clapping a large jar over the nest and then scraping it off. I had the lid ready to hand. The first part of the operation went smoothly: I slipped the jar over the nest without disturbing it. Then I tried to scrape it off the table. This is where matters became serious: the nest was firmly, solidly anchored and wouldn't come off. Worse, I had clearly disturbed the inhabitants who poured out of their home, buzzing furiously. As I held the jar, hesitating indecisively, wasp scouts began to return to base. They found their way impeded by an adamantine sphere. Moments later, they found something much softer attached to that mysterious obstruction, and ventured on an experiment: I was stung, more or less simultaneously, in the corner of my mouth, the inside edge of my right eye, and up my left nostril. I dropped the jar and ran around the picnic table several times, to build up speed I suppose, and then rocketed across the yard homeward. By the time I reached the kitchen, my face was already unrecognizable. Joanne was very sympathetic.

The bees were more formidable opponents. Noticing a bee busy around the vent for her mother's air exchanger, Joanne asked me to pick up a suitable remedy. I returned with the usual magic foam and we gave the vent a liberal spray. The next day she went to check the filter box to clean out the casualties. The box was set in a closet, so Joanne had to mount a ladder to reach it. Her mother helpfully steadies the ladder. The lid of the box was, naturally enough, air tight and complicated to remove--or replace. As it popped open, Joanne became aware of a loud buzzing and in a flash understood the situation. She struggled to replace the lid, but bees were already flooding out. She abandoned the lid, and tried to flee, but her mother, bracing the ladder, was in her way. A confused struggle followed, which ended with the bees on one side of the door and Joanne and her mother on the other. "I think I may have got a sting!" said Joanne's mother plaintively. In fact, she had three. Joanne had seventeen. I was very sympathetic.

What had happened, of course, was that the bees quite naturally avoided the vent, which was full of dangerous foam, and simply waited for the opportunity to exit by another route. They were alive and full of fight. We returned the next day, armed with flying insect spray, and settled their hash. We then found that a full yard of the 12-inch duct was filled with comb. I scraped it out and then thought I would show the children its interesting structure. While I was fetching them, the comb disappeared! I was astonished, but there it was--gone! Then, after some loud retching from the dog, it reappeared. The dog in question, Abby, was famous for trying to eat almost anything--twist ties, ballpoint pens, bottlecaps. Apparently, an insecticide-soaked bees nest was the limit.

Finally, there was the job I did on the eaves of the back of the house. I set up scaffolding for this, because it was a fairly extensive job. I was setting up the third level of framing--the one rising up out of the picture to the left--when I jarred the wall of the house slightly. From the depths of the eaves a furious buzzing emerged, and as I strained to slip the leg of the frame over the pin, a wasp emerged from the open cavity and bounced off my cheek. I was more decisive this time: I flung the frame of scaffolding away from me, and leaped for my life as more and more wasps surged out of the eaves. I waited until darkness fell and the wasps were fast asleep, and then I returned, armed. The rest of the job proceeded without incident. Yesterday Joanne pointed out what is either an old, abandoned wasp next or a nascent one up under the garage rafters. We need a cunning plan...

Personal Vise

This is my old drill press, a Delta from about 26 years ago. I've long schemed about adding a cutting fluid dispenser, and I finally set about it in the simplest way imaginable. First, I screwed a gas tank from a lawnmower to the top of the drive belt cover. Then I ran some fuel line to a shut-off valve, and from there a longer piece descended to the work area. I fitted a tapered nozzle from a blowgun to the end. Then I ran a piece of malleable lashing wire along the last six inches and wrapped it in silicon tape. Finally, I braced the hose to the light ring mounted above the chuck. This allowed me to aim the nozzle with some degree of control. Repairing the lawn tractor's trailer gave me the chance to use it. I had to fit a longer axle for the new wheels. You can see a piece of 5/8 round stock in the cross slide vise. I ground a small area flat, pinged it with the centre punch, turned on the cutting fluid, and presto! The bit went through like a hot knife through butter! Dad would have had such fun with this....


I picked up the vise on sale at Princess Auto, and at first I was very disappointed. It was so stiff it seemed to be seized. However, I loosened the guides and eventually I persuaded it to work quite smoothly. I have to say, the light (also from PA) is also a great addition.

Garage

Winter began on October 24 with a second heavy snowfall on the 27th. This put a stop to our garage repairs, but we've made some progress since then. We have now finished tearing off the old wood fiber tiles and sheathing the walls with fresh plywood. Now we'll add Tyvek, flashing, corner boards, window trim--and then cedar shingles.

The soffit boards look dreadful but are actually quite sound. We will give them a nice coat of paint when we reach that stage. I am still getting used to the novelty of a dry garage!

Threshold

Fitting these is annoying--"too big! too big! . . . oh dear, too small!" Oh well--part of tidying up the rough edges before my sister-in-law comes to look after the house while we are in Ireland.

The Dreaded List: Garage Roof

Lucy drew up the original Dreaded List. I'm not sure this item was on it, but the paper list has been largely replaced by a conceptual one. It's a bit difficult to see through the screen, but the garage roof was VERY rusty, and it has leaked for all of the 25 years we have lived here. Jo and I set to work, stripping off the old metal, replacing rotten boards, and laying down tarpaper on the first day; applying a plywood deck, a membrane, and edging on the second; and putting on the new metal on the third and final day. Estimates were good: we had enough plywood, just enough roof metal, and almost enough edging--we were 16 inches short! I ordered more from Gerald, plus some L-trim to connect the roof to the back of the house. The day after we finished--Tuesday--it began to rain. It was very strange: it has never been dry in the garage during rain before! After years of scheming about some form more in keeping with the style of the house, we settled on the old design: a single-pitch shed roof. We used a long ramp to draw the metal up onto the roof. Although we were careful to lift two sheets at a time to avoid buckling (they are 14 feet long), the metal is actually stiffer than the type we used earlier, and we had little trouble with it. The first day featured intermittent rain and strong gusts of wind; the air was calmer on the second day when we brought up the bulk of the plywood, and on the third day we actually had some sun.

Deckguard

I love having regular suppliers with whom I've worked for years. That way when I want to know about a product that may not even exist, I just ask: "Gerald, what can I put under a metal roof to ensure there are absolutely no leaks?" "Deckgard," says Gerald, and here it is (evening shot out the back window after a busy day):

Roofing Resumes

All winter the garage was packed with roofing materials: a great stack of  1/2 inch plywood and a pile of 14 foot roofing steel. I built a sort of drawbridge that served the dual purpose of allowing me to reach the toolbox and preventing the cars from crushing the metal. Miraculously, everything made it through the winter unscathed, and in the spring we resumed our interrupted labours. However, instead of continuing with the siding, we tackled the roof, and finished the job in three days. First, we had to strip off the old metal, creating a mound of twisted and rusty sheets to the northeast. Then we rolled down tarpaper (or as the snotty clerk insisted, roofing felt) and laid the 1/2 inch plywood over that.

I replaced only one board, and I hope I don't regret this. I'm relying rather heavily on the thickness of the wood imparting a certain strength even when it's quite, um, weathered. Anyway, here it is, almost complete.

Springless Spring

We want for a long, bracing walk today--bracing because the wind, against us both going and coming, was quite sharp. This is the view out the study window:

Snow is still the dominant feature of the landscape. We are a week into the Carbon Tax era, and six months into winter: first snowfall was on 23 Oct., so if this holds out for two more weeks--and we are getting an additional 15cm tomorrow--it will be a demi-year of the white stuff.

My Country, It Is Winter

A fine April day--and this is the view from my office window. Remember, this winter began with the first snowfalls on 24 and 27 October--snow that STILL hasn't left! Yes, that IS a snowplow at the bottom of the hill.

Spring

This is the fourth day of Spring! All night I heard ominous THUMPS as snow slid off the roof; I could not understand this as I drove home through the rain on Friday. The dawn brought clarity:

Endless Winter

Winter began with an early snowfall in October (on the 23rd and 27th) and has varied in intensity since, but always, always we get more and more snow. The workshop is buried: you could ski from the roof right into the Crick. At the height of it, the snowblower broke (twice, in fact: the blower belt slipped off the pulley, and the bead on tubeless tire popped during rough handling in the cold) and we lost our paths. We had to fight our way back, and of course the overnight lows had case-hardened the snow.


The tractor shed is wholly engulfed, together with the Toilet Museum. Pat piled up a 15-foot mound behind the garage; the children would have loved it!

The porch roof is so laden that yesterday when the sun came out water was forced up under the flashing and began dripping through the half-wall in the middle. We had to climb up, break through the ice (up to six inches thick), and shovel it clear. Forecast for today: MORE SNOW!











This is the roof after our efforts:

Life Underground

This week saw some of the coldest weather this winter, with temperatures of -18 and an absolutely vicious wind. At this point, I found myself deputized to conduct an inspection of the underside of a mini-home. It looked like this:

Cramped, difficult to make anything out, and everything that might be important was hidden behind a thick vapour barrier, pierced in one or two places, by disturbing apertures. I'm astonished the water feed pipe did not freeze, to say nothing of the outside tap which didn't even have a frost-proof sill cock (at home, I installed both an internal shut-off AND a  frost-proof sill cock).  We got out as quickly as we could, boarded it back up, and heaped snow up against it (poor man's insulation). This winter seems to be filled with unseasonable tasks (including repairs to the snowblower!).

Frey Passes

This is Frey; he fell ill on Saturday afternoon, and was very weak the next morning, sleeping much of the day. On Monday morning we took him to the clinic; he had lapsed into a coma. The vet put him down. He was almost 15, a fine age for a Golden. He still accompanied us on snowshoe trips to the last week of his life, and his suffering was short. Farewell to another noble dog.

Cold with a Capital "K"

All week it has been cold, -23 at night and rarely better than -15 during the day. It is a fairly bright day, but the wind is very harsh. Supposedly, we will get the mother of all snowstorms between now and Monday (with a chance of many businesses being shut down). People were out in force yesterday, stocking up for the catastrophe. This morning, I myself went down to the village to buy a dozen eggs. Be prepared!

Alt-Death

Few parts of the engine are more accessible than the alternator; typically, it is mounted near the top and the attachment is a matter of just two bolts. Unfortunately, the lower of the two is difficult to access, and the tightly packed engine compartment of a 2011 Toyota Corolla permits a ratchet wrench swing of about 20 degrees. It took 200 of those to remove the bottom bolt, which meant that a 30-minute job took an hour and a half. Also, it was cold (though not as cold as today: -23, the frostiest day so far this winter). Anyway, the little beast is out, the new one is in, and here is the wee corpse on its way back to AutoMachinery for a core refund. And with that--and a boost from my new DeWalt charger--my mother-in-law's car is back on the road. There's nothing like a bit of automechanical work in an unheated garage in January to make you appreciate . . . anything else!

Prisoners of Winter

I wanted to catch the sunrise, but the bedroom window was frozen. I hurried downstairs, forced open the front door, but at this lower elevation, I lost the original effect. Also, there were these icicles. . . .

Winter Chimney Cleaning

I thought I noticed a fall of ash in the chimney, so I climbed up and cleaned it, the weather being relatively mild today (about 0). I mounted the short ladder (10') on the oil tank box, setting a brace into the frame to ensure it did not back off the edge, and then dug the ice out of every rung of the roof ladder. The chimney itself was not bad--a modest amount of creosote, and when  I looked up the smoke pipe from below, it all seemed quite clean. That should hold it until Spring!

Snow (Continued)

Thick flakes are falling again. We made quite a good snowshow trail out to the Five Thousand on the weekend, but this will probably bury it. It is very cold again, about -18 last night and, surprisingly, still -16 during the snowstorm. The dogs are not very interested in going outside, but I had pellets and salt to unload, so I made them. They spent most of the time shuffling about on the deck, waiting to go back inside!