Landlady’s been on the road and came to the Gulch unexpectedly on her way back to the city. Care packages!
Judy found a place that still sells med/reg woodland BDUs, which I thought were pretty much extinct on the market. These are my favorite summer pants but I’ve worn mine down to where they’re threadbare and mostly patches. Between these two pair, one that a friend of the blog gave me late last summer and one I’ve decided to stop saving for the apocalypse, I’m back to being a well-dressed desert hermit. Or I will be when the damned cold wind stops blowing so I can go back to wearing BDUs.
The level switch in the water tank has quit working, which means I need to manually turn the well pump on and off. I speculated a few months ago that if I had a water pressure gauge in the Lair I might be able to tell when the tank is getting low. I bought one of those hose bib test gauges to test the theory, but since I’m here alone it takes months to drink the tank down to 25% so I don’t actually know if a low tank really means a lower Lair pressure. Kind of doubt it, really.
But Big Brother got tired of waiting for me, so he sent me this awesome enormous oil-filled pressure gauge that will actually show lower pressure, if any. I’m so impressed that now I’m going to have to actually install it over the kitchen sink, through that spare hole where the soap dispenser is supposed to go.
Whether or not it really does any good I’ll have the only one in the neighborhood.
BB also sent me his monthly care package, this time with lots of beans and munchies and no whimsical reading selections. BB really seems concerned that I’m not eating enough beans. 🙂 Also there’s something called Spam spread, which I have to try this afternoon just to settle my mind as to whether that’s the best idea I’ve ever seen or the worst. I do eat a lot of Spam, as you know – but really prefer to fry it first. Straight out of the can it’s kind of gross.
Plus there was another care package on a similar note…
Zoom in on that: Emergency Backup Coffee! Because 2=1 and 1=0. Backups are good. I don’t think it’s going to be used for that purpose, though, because I used to really like Dunkin Donuts coffee and haven’t had it in decades. So if it’s the same stuff I remember, I’m in for a treat.
Also there’s two packages of Flex Tape pipe repair stuff, which will save my ass at some point. Hopefully not this very winter, because screw that we’ve already been there.
Finally, yet another friend of the blog hit the Paypal button to the astounding tune of $200, removing my last non-weather-related excuse to put off replacing the Jeep’s shocks. Stay tuned, that will happen.
You guys rock. Thanks for keeping an old guy going.
Love those care package reports! You have the coolest readers, dare I say friends.
The change in PSI (with no water flowing) is determined by the change of water level in the tank. The drop from the tank to the Lair doesn’t change.
The conversion factor is 1″ of change in water level = 0.036 PSI
IIRC Ian’s cistern is 2500 gallons. There are short, wide tanks and tall, thin tanks. Let’s use a typical tank that is 91″ high.
The change in water level from “tank full” to “tank low” might be 60 inches or so. That gives a change of 2 PSI.
IIRC the Lair is located well below the tank, so you might have 15 or 25 PSI at your tap. But the difference between full cistern and empty is going to be about 2 PSI.
s: Ah. That explains why community water towers are so danged tall. Cool.
Enjoy the coffee, just keep something as a backup. I figured you needed some good coffee.
use the envelope to buy something you like.
But that fluid bubble in the pressure gauge is weird?
Cheers to Jeep’s shocks and to the sci-fi event that happens when you hit your next Patreon goal…