The Ultimate Answer to Kings

The snow finally slackened off around 10:30 and I went outside to clean off the solar panels on the ground mount. Turned out I could’ve stayed indoors…

That’s not supposed to happen. Here’s what the roof-mounted panels were like at the same time…

The ground mount panels are at a steeper angle but so were the old ones and they never spontaneously cleared themselves while it was still cold and grey. Is a puzzlement.

ED NOTE: I wrote this yesterday morning but somehow didn’t post it, and didn’t notice that I hadn’t posted it till just now. The last chapter in my latest water hassle.

A couple of cool wet days. Night before last we got our very first minor snowfall…

And yesterday I scored a new check valve even though the old one cleaned up very nicely…

It would have been a little less unpleasant to wait till this afternoon to install it, since it’s supposed to be sunny and sixty. But since it’s supposed to be sunny – and in fact the clouds cleared out overnight – that means I needed to get this thing wrapped up for maximum sunshine on the pump’s solar panel in hope that useful quantities of water will be deposited into the tank before the clouds roll in again. Which they are supposed to do this evening or tomorrow.

And of course installing an in-line valve where there already had been one isn’t the most daunting task ever devised by the evil mind of men, so it didn’t take long at all. I was just about done with the new/improved insulation…

…when I found I hadn’t brought enough duct tape. Not to despair, though…

I never leave home without duct tape, and buried in the center console was a mostly-depleted roll. Heavily infested with dog hair, of course, but otherwise fully functional.

And now I sit back and see. Tobie and I were just up there on morning walkie and the pump is humming happily to itself. Around noon I’ll see how things are going: Experience shows that a difference probably won’t show up on the sink pressure gauge until the air’s been bled out of 300-odd feet of buried pipe.

It’s really snowing out…

It wasn’t supposed to amount to anything – in fact it was forecast to have stopped by now. But I think even Mike would acknowledge that this is at least snowfall.

Two pieces of semi-related good news: This is supposed to be Senior Day at the Palace of Food in the biggish town about 35 miles away. I’m all dressed for it. And when I got up and peeked at the internet to see if an election winner had been announced, I moaned at the prospect of 2-3 hours trapped in a pickup truck with Neighbor L while she hurled curses at the gods for dooming us with the never-sufficiently-demonized Demon Trump, who’s gonna – I dunno, do something demented that’ll kill us all. Unlike those other guys who would have led us to paradise or something. Television has truly become a wasteland, it seems – after I betray the revolution and set myself up as president for life I’m gonna outlaw it.

So the good thing about this snowstorm is that it’s extremely well-timed, sticking all us geriatric hermits in our houses instead of hobbling off to get blown into a ditch – and being trapped in small spaces with other people’s political opinions. If you can call them opinions and not regurgitated agitprop.

The other good thing is that I don’t have to do it without running water…

We had about three quarters of a nice sunny day yesterday and the pump did its job admirably. The tank level is low – I really could have used another sunny day or two – but a workable amount of water is present. Late yesterday I drained the inevitable goop out of the pipe from the tank, and the sink and the toilet are fully functional once more.

So here’s me, cocooning away from the weather and counting my blessings. Hope you all are well.

Unfortunately it’s a little late. I came into the kitchen this morning, looked at the water pressure, and…

Empty tank. Yesterday there was nearly a thousand gallons in there.

Lying in bed last night it occurred to me that there was one possible leak I hadn’t thought of when I was looking for one yesterday morning. The water tank mysteriously emptied itself 13 years ago, and the fix turned out to be installing a check valve in the water hose between the pump and the tank. That check valve has been quietly doing its thing under a bunch of insulation in the wellhouse ever since.

Until now, I think.

It’s overcast and drippy today, so I didn’t expect the pump to be running but it was slightly. When I opened up the flexible pipe I was able to confirm that the pump is pumping. So that’s good. But…

That little valve was stuck. When I finally got it off the pipe it was stuck closed, but just a little fiddling convinced it to stick open. That would have done the job.

I’m shitting into a bucket for the umpteenth time since committing the hubristic act of arranging my own plumbing, but in a way I feel kind of better about the whole situation. When that check valve fails it can empty the water tank fast. I was pretty sure I hadn’t gone a week or more without checking the pressure – in fact I was completely sure of it, but I’ve been wrong before. But if that check valve turns out to have been the problem it was just corrosion and karma, not negligence.

Assuming that really turns out to have been the problem, of course. The valve is soaking in penetrating oil at the moment, not that I really expect that to fix a brass valve. But if I can’t find a replacement early in the week I’ll give it a try anyway and see if it works again.

At the back of my sink is a big goofy-looking water pressure gauge, a gift from Big Brother several years ago, which can tell me when the water tank at the top of the ridge is not filling.

And this morning, probably some days late because I haven’t paid enough attention, it did exactly that.

The pressure is slightly higher when it’s cold out; this time of year before the sun beats on the dark plastic of the tank, the gauge should read about 18 1/2 psi. Instead it read 17. Not a lot of difference, which is why the gauge needs to be so big, so it’s noticeable. But it announced either an active leak or a low level in the water tank.

And unfortunately…

…the level was quite low. Continue reading →

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S I N C E 1 9 9 8

I have Isle of Dogs on DVD, just re-watched it this evening, and it’s worth anybody’s time.

Just as I began chainsawing all my new yard juniper into stovewood, I ran into a problem I had hoped would hold off a bit: My single chain went “burn through the wood” dull. Unfortunately it’s a smaller size than the few I have left for the Husqvarna. Still determined not to see if resurrecting the Husky was a viable option, and being absolutely worthless at freehand saw chain filing, I did something probably silly: I sent away for a sharpening gadget.

The jig fits the bar and chain well enough but the rotary rasps that came with it in place of real chain files were not filling me with any confidence. I couldn’t take off enough metal to put edges on the upper surfaces, and without that the thing wasn’t going to cut well.

Having gone over the whole chain in hopes of being wrong I took the saw back outside…

…where my suspicions were confirmed. It didn’t cut any better after the “sharpening” than it had before. No worse, but that wasn’t much help.

I know where I can get chain files, so I guess I’ll get some and see if this jig will work with them. Maybe it’s at least good for setting cutting angles.

Safest bet was that I didn’t clean it. And it had accumulated quite a bit of soot…

…and so it was definitely time to give the stovepipe a good pre-winter scrub.

I used to be much more diligent about cleaning the stovepipe, to the point of neurosis, thanks to that early chimney fire. Different circumstances, different stove, very unlikely to happen again. Nowadays it’s just soot rather than creosote but still. It’s bad practice to neglect stovepipe cleaning.

And it’s a lot less of a hassle since I listened to some neighbors…

…who showed me that I could greatly reduce the mess by taping a trash bag to the pipe and working the brush through that. Thanks to lack of practice I still managed to make a pretty bad mess that took a while to clean up.

Of course the bottom section is way easier…

…since I can just take it outside, put it on the sawbuck and scrub to my heart’s content.

Night before last we got a hard frost…

Then last night we got a hard freeze.

But that’s because the clouds cleared out overnight. Gloomy as hell yesterday, almost half an inch of rain. It’s substantially warmer today than yesterday and the coming week is supposed to be sunny and mostly in the seventies. Good wood cutting weather, after a nice wake-up call to get busy on it. I’ve straightened up the woodshed – there’s still two solid tiers of wood in there which is more than half of what I ever use.

And the nicest part…

The bedroom heater is working solidly, so I’ve got my winter cosy spot back.

From a 2017 newspaper article:

“Today marks the 35th anniversary of the death of Sir Douglas Bader and I couldn’t let it pass without this story about the RAF hero. He was giving a talk at an upmarket girl’s school about his time as a pilot in the Second World War. ‘So there were two of the f**kers behind me, three f**kers to my right, and another f**ker on the left,’ he told the audience. The headmistress went pale and interjected: ‘Ladies, the Fokker was a German aircraft.’ Sir Douglas replied: ‘That may be, madam, but these f**kers were in Messerschmitts.'”

It was supposed to be raining this morning…

…and despite there not being a cloud in the sky I rushed around getting our chores done because with the blasting wind and plummeting temperature I was reasonably sure the weatherman wasn’t wrong about the rain. It’s just that when is a problem the forecasters don’t seem able to solve. And indeed it did finally cloud up and rain a little. They were right about the lightning and thunder, when it finally got here. Poor Tobie was not in a mood to be mollified through most of the afternoon, I’m afraid.

Temperature has actually dropped into the high thirties! Which is a good ten degrees colder than it has ever gotten so far, and it’s barely dark out. Gonna be the first closed-window night of the season, and I’ll be glad the bedroom heater is working again before dawn.

Went into S&L’s place to feed their cat. There was something in her bowl. Looked more closely, and…

…she had deposited this well-chewed mouse in her bowl, presumably so it would be impossible for her meal tickets to miss. Wise choice, if I do say so.

I sent the picture to L, who responded that she had been hunting something in the house for the past couple of days.

This is one of the few bits of evidence I’ve ever seen for a housecat to make itself useful. All my cats brought mice indoors.

Tobie is a happy boy. In two weeks’ time he’ll be a spoiled boy, because…

S&L are off on an extended road trip. For personal reasons they’ve been tied to the house for years, and now they’re doing what they had intended to do with their retirement. And leaving a cat and a bunch of chickens needing periodic care, which is kind of what my former career as Gulch caretaker has devolved to. I spend more time sitting around the Lair or doing boring yard work than either Tobie or I consider quite right, and now at least we’ll be briefly getting away daily.

On the subject of bypass propane regulators…

I have three of them working at present, in settings that (since I believe they were originally intended only for house trailers and RVs but could well be wrong) they weren’t really designed for but serve in quite well. Given the relative mortality rate of bypass versus single regulators, though, I’d say the average user is better off using a single regulator if it’s not going to be a big deal when a propane bottle sucks dry…

…but it’s definitely worth the additional complexity when it’s important that the gas keep flowing. This particular regulator, with its tiny BBQ bottles, is at Ian’s propane station. If one of those bottles sucks dry it’s probably going to be while I’m taking a shower and though that would be annoying rather than disastrous, re-pressurizing the 300-odd feet of pipe to get the tankless water heater working again is a time-consuming hassle I never want to repeat. So whenever I go by I pay close attention to whether the indicator is green or red, telling me there’s an empty bottle. I use those little bottles because the station is in a fairly remote spot involving a rocky slope and that’s all the bottle the old one-legged guy wants to schlep back and forth.

This doesn’t happen very often…During yesterday’s water run I noticed that an oldish water bottle was leaking from its top rather more than was quite right.

Upon investigation, the whole top of the cap broke off in my hand. I don’t think that’s happened more than one other time in many years of lugging water back and forth. Happily I never throw anything useful away and I was able to scare up a spare cap. The bottle is just fine.

And finally…

Welcome to the Town that Runs Out of Eggs. This is the second bloody week. Except for those little cartons of brown eggs, nobody in town has any eggs. The lady at the dollar store said they haven’t had a shipment since early September.

Happily I’ll be watching over S&L’s chickens for the next few weeks so I can probably skate by but my stored supply is almost depleted – I do go through a lot of eggs – and I may actually have to break open my single #10 can of egg powder for the first time ever. Those damned things are up to $60 a crack and I’d really rather not. WTF?

Anyway, that’s all that’s been going on here at the Secret Lair. I really need to start cutting up that big pile of juniper branches in my yard. Winter is coming and the empty space in my woodshed keeps glaring at me accusingly.

First pallet of fuel for D&L’s extremely hungry pellet stove.

Used to be there were three of us to do this. Used to be we were all ten years younger. L is thinking about replacing their main stove with a propane-burner. I did not try to talk her out of it.

So the tankless water heater in Ian’s Cave went operational in late 2020 or early 2021, can’t remember which. Neighbor D, who’s been running one for a long time, said “You have to flush them with strong vinegar regularly or they’ll get clogged with crap and not work. I’ll show you how.” Then he started having all sorts of health problems and injuries and we never got around to having that meeting. I didn’t forget about it, exactly, but did what I always do when I’m supposed to do something I don’t know how to do – I procrastinated.

So years pass, right? And this is starting to prey on my mind. When – inevitably – something vital breaks in Ian’s complex and unbelievably expensive water system, leading to the loss of that wonderful shower, I really don’t want it to be my fault.

By coincidence, since this had been on my mind, I got an email from Big Brother saying, in effect, “Hey, you know that tankless water heater? You know you’re supposed to flush that from time to time, right?” And I metaphorically glared up at heaven and said, “Fine. I’ll get off my thumb.”

Turns out it’s really easy. The kit I bought for it would have been painfully expensive before I went on social security, but now it isn’t and it’s a one-time purchase.

A small amount of Youtube research showed me how it’s done, and I was happy to see that – to my surprise – the heater really does have the needed fittings. So this morning Tobie and I went to do the deed.

I hung around long enough to ensure that nothing would leak or fly around the room or burst into flame while the pump was running, and I intended to stay for the whole session. But Tobie has decided he really doesn’t like Ian’s Cave for some reason and becomes intrusively agitated when he sees me sitting down and making myself comfortable. So I took him home and came back a few minutes later, ensuring that – since the water heater had been in service for something like four years without flushing – it got the whole 45-minute treatment.

And to my surprise…

…nothing visible was flushed out of the heater. Wow. I mean I knew that little water softener is doing its job – if it weren’t, I’d need to clean or change the shower head several times annually. But I guess it’s really working.

So anyway, I have the kit and I’ll stock back up on strong cleaning vinegar, and flushing the water heater will henceforth become part of my annual Bidding Tearful Goodbye to the Shower for the Winter ritual.

Neighbor L wants to use her tractor, which hasn’t been touched since D’s accident almost a full year ago. Wait, that’s not true: She got rid of the horses in early December so it hasn’t been used since then. Anyway: It was going to need some work before she could use it.

So yesterday I went over and pulled out the battery, put it on their charger then came back this morning to see if it was any good. That meant I got to play with this toy…

…which mostly hangs on a hook in the powershed because even when I have reason to test an old battery I usually forget I own a load tester*. But this time I remembered. Anyway the battery tested good, to my surprise, and so I put it back in this morning. Then she worried about tire pressure, which meant I got to play with another toy that’s always in the Jeep…

Boy, portable power tools have entered a new generation since small lithium batteries became affordable. I’ve kept a tire inflator in the Jeep for over ten years but it was always kind of a pain to set up and take down. This one is entirely handheld – and programmable! Set and forget.

The tractor started right up, then Tobie and I came home and I got to work on what I was supposed to be doing this morning…

…rebuilding my old sawbuck, which in the years since I last used it had pretty much fallen to pieces. I had to completely replace half of it.

And when you’re 2-by lumber in Joel’s yard at woodcutting season, and you’re not part of a tool or a structure…

…you’re going to find yourself cut to stove lengths and consigned to the woodshed.

When that was done, and since I already had the generator out…

May as well do the annual maintenance. Which in this case only consists of changing the oil, cleaning the air filter, and looking to see how the spark plug is getting along. Used to be I’d do this in early December or whenever I was definitely done cutting wood, then drain the fuel and put it to bed for the winter. But now that I have a good system-sized battery charger the generator won’t get mothballed – in fact it’ll move into the cabin once it gets cold. So may as well do the maintenance while it was on my mind.

—-
*The reason for my usual Freudian slip is that battery testers used to be terrifying desk-sized things with big carbon resistors that hummed menacingly in use and I half expected the one in the dealership I worked at to be the cause of my demise. This one doesn’t do anything more scary than move a meter needle so I really ought to get over it.

Last month I bitched about having to patch yet another pair of everyday pants. Shortly afterward I got an email from a regular reader, bragging that his wife had an uncanny ability to find like-new pants at the local thrift store and that she had just brought home more than he would ever wear, and would I like some?

This morning I was overwhelmed with a huge box filled with cargo pants, some of which look like they’ll fit as-is. I’ll have to throw a fashion show for Tobie this evening to see what fits and what will need to be hemmed up, but it does look like there are some winners in that stack.

There was a bunch of other stuff in the huge box, odds and ends many of which will be of use in the fullness of time. I appreciate the gift!

It’s that time of year: Do you close the windows at bedtime or leave them open? Pajamas or commando? Place your bets. This morning I bet wrong and woke up cold. Yeah, the temps would be back into the eighties before noon but at five ayem it’s a bit chilly in here. I looked up at the thermostat and saw the temperature was only a couple of degrees above triggering the bedroom heater, and I took that opportunity to reassure myself – I cranked up the temperature to 60^o just so I could enjoy listening to the quiet “foop” of the heater lighting up. Yup, still works. Hoorah! But it’s going to be a while before I really trust it again.

Yeah, I turned the pilot off after repairing the heater early last month. Then a mouse tried to build a nest inside the firebox – again – and I was faced with the choice of covering the outside vent with plastic and duct tape for a short time or just keeping the pilot lit till winter, and I went for the simplicity of that second thing.

Man these things are small…

It’s a testimony to the efficiency of disc brake design that you can stop well over 200 pounds of ebike and rider with tiny little brake pads you could hide in your fist. I got these in the mail today, and though I was supposed to be working on something else I really wanted to play with the bike because I’ve never actually had – or maintained – a bicycle with disc brakes. So I went ahead and replaced the front pads, those being the easy ones, and considering how much adjustment I’ve had to do to keep the front brakes working I was surprised to see that there was still a fair bit of pad material left on the old ones.

I’ll replace the rear ones at the same time I replace the worn rear tire, which will of course be a rather more involved process. But at least now I’m confident I know what I’m doing.

Finally – look what else I got this week…

That’s Neighbor L’s old dryer. Yeah, I know, the gas doesn’t work. That’s okay, I never planned to connect it to gas. The important thing is that the air fluff setting still works. So when I take my rough board-like towels down off the clothesline I can toss them into this gadget, and half an hour later my towels are all soft and fluffy like a normal person’s. Works nice! Life gets more luxurious by the month here at the Secret Lair.

…and the only remaining question I had about the new chainsaw, involving battery charge duration, has been answered…

…it lasts longer than I do.

We got this much wood into the yard this morning…

…and the battery still shows two bars.

One serious limitation on the amount of time I can work with it, though…

The charger can’t even start working on the battery until it’s cool – which after a morning in the sun plus whatever heat the discharge built up, it definitely isn’t.

It’s a delusional bush.

With very few virtues as firewood, except that it lives for centuries by dying in sections, so that it isn’t necessary to cut and stack green wood for seasoning, and it’s free. But getting relatively straight and girthy wood is a matter of hunting for it and slashing away a lot of twigs and wood too twisted to split. Kindling is easy; firewood is hard.

So Tobie and I have scouted our little corner of the Gulch and found five or six sites that will score wood worth cutting and dragging home to be chopped into stove lengths. And in the next several days we’ll work on developing a pile of it in the yard.

An electric chainsaw works SO much better for this than a gas saw. It’s lighter, and it only runs when you press the switch so you don’t spend half your time starting and stopping the engine. Wish I’d had one of these a decade ago.