Sheila's Brush

We had a taste of Sheila's brush--though it's long after St. Patrick's day--and some persistent low temperatures. We've been having wood fires, and we would certainly have fired up the pellet stove if there had been any pellets left.

I'll have to work on my snowflake photography--the flakes really were prominent and fluffy. Here they just seem like background noise.

Spring Cleaning

The snow is gone, it's spring, and we have been cleaning up. Apart from the vast junk heave-ho, we've been crown lifting and then eliminating the boughs; this little unit helps a lot:

It used to jam, but we've figured out its likes and dislikes, and now we cruise along for hours without incident. Like all Champion equipment, it starts readily, runs like mad, and makes an APPALLING noise! The Husky helmet (with ear protection) is NOT just for show.

April Snow

What a difference 24 hours can make. The first week of April saw lovely, gentle spring weather--followed by a substantial snowstorm. Even deep in the woods the snow was in full retreat, and then the storm came.

The sky became overcast and sullen, the colours faded away, and it looked once more like the bleak midwinter.

 The branches of the trees were clear of snow and ice, and the buds were beginning to emerge.  Fortunately, the temperatures remained mild, but visually it might as well be January once more.  Spring comes but slowly.

Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust

My BusyBee dust collection kit arrived--hoses and blast gates. There's even an attachment I can fit to the table saw. While I plan to mount the dust extractor outside the workshop, for now I have stationed it next to the thickness planer. It is not only more efficient than the old ShopVac, but much quieter.  True, it is killing me with invisible microparticulate, but at least it isn't noisy. I routed the hose so that I could still use the top rollers of the planer. As soon as I started it, chips began to swirl into the lower bin--and the planer wasn't on yet: it was pulling out shavings that the vacuum had failed to. Having done this much and planed a couple of oak boards to three-quarter inch thickness, I started tidying. At first, I simply swept; the previous attempt at drawing away the shavings had allowed many to escape and drift about the shop. I soon found myself stumbling about in the clutter; once again, so much junk has accumulated in the workshop that I cannot really move about easily. Recalling that the Lion's Club had kindly set up a scrap metal hopper, I began to look about for objects to dump. Most were made of wood or plastic, but a few items came to hand, including this blast from the past. This is the 60 amp switch from the original electrical installation.

It has a satisfying heft, and I was strangely reluctant to part with it, but I will NEVER EVER use it for anything, so out it went.  It was a product of the Electrical Manufacturing Company of Montmagny, Quebec. They seem to have changed their name in 1965, so the switch is presumably older. I also found the original distribution centre, with its six glass fuses still in place. This provided far less than the house needed, even with its minimal lighting. They managed by scabbing on an extra fused holder--a porcelain piece with two more 15-amp circuits. Finally, they ran the wiring for the range directly to the main switch, so it was fused only by the paper main fuses.  Here is the old panel, complete with handy labels. You can still read "kitchen," "upstairs," "dryer," and (rather illegible) "living room/fridge." I well remember the dance we had to do around its limitations--if the pump was on together with the stove, it was important NOT to use the dryer!  Well, we survived.

In any case, the day began with wood working but shifted
decidedly toward trash removal. I suppose that was the beginning of spring cleaning. It is quite cathartic--so many things become burdens:  the alternator salvaged from the Lada in the Canadian Tire parking lot; the front strut for the 1984 Honda, still in its package; my original thickness planer, with cracked bearings and seized drive chain. . . .

More Neutral Tones

We had quite a heavy snowfall today. Yesterday, the roads were a nightmare. I could not get up Stanley Hill--near the crest, the tires just spun, even with traction control. I did a reasonable three point turn and took the highway into Fredericton. Even on the main road, I had trouble. Ascending one of the long hills at c. 90 km, I found myself slipping while trying to maintain speed. I passed a number of accident sites.

 On the way home that evening, conditions were much better.  I had no trouble with the hills, and no one seemed to be slipping off the road. Still, speeds were generally low, and people seemed cautious.

 Today, there was a gentle but significant snowfall. All the trees had a thick coating, and the sky was sufficiently overcast to produce that generally monochrome atmosphere.   This was in the early morning--more snow arrived during the day, and when I arrived home I saw that Pat had made a brief stab at the driveway. He ran the plow up to the end and then turned and left. This was a little odd; the situation has not improved.

The dogs were quite happy with the conditions. Ollie occasionally crashed through the crust and had to bound his way out, but on the whole t he dogs were strongly pro-snow. Valla rolled about very happily, and only the possibility of extra food kept Frey from keeping his station in the trek. 

I can enjoy snow when I know it cannot last long. All of this will be gone quite soon!

The Dregs of Winter

The radio tells me that the snow is "virtually gone" in the South; we must be in the North. Here, it is still plainly winter. There are definite signs, and it has been an outstandingly gentle season (especially compared to the last three years for snow accumulation, and the three before that for cold), but Spring is merely "in the air," and not yet on the ground.  That may change very soon--the sun has definite punch and while the temperature drops sharply over night (about -10° shortly after dawn), the days are regularly above zero.

The blue of the sky is losing its winter intensity, the snow is increasingly granular from the freeze-thaw cycle, and even the little trees are poking their heads up. Here's a tiny balsam fir struggling to find some sun.

I used the 28-80 mm lens from the film-era Rebel today. Sometimes it works and sometimes it seems a little incompatible. The autofocus may be to blame.

This Old House: Pipedreams

A rather grimy theme seems to be developing.  I had high ambitions for the March Break but I ended up putting in a new toilet on one day and then on the next (I'm tempted to say, in imitation of Oscar Wilde, "taking it out again") fixing some decrepit plumbing. I did not photograph it in situ, but here's what I cut out:
It was a tangled mess of connectors and valves,
one of which was crumbling. The other was a leftover from the days when the washing machine was in the kitchen. The white patch is silicon tape--the thin-wall pipe was weeping, and the whole thing was about to crumble away. I put in a full-flow ball valve, replacing a metre of pipe in the process; the right-angle joint covered in verdigris in the foreground is where the old line meets the new.  Well, now I can stop worrying about that particular piece deciding to burst while I'm away from home.  However, maintenance, necessary though it is, is never as satisfying as building. If a repair goes well, you end up . . . back where you started.