Month: February 2020

Morning progress

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We’ve had a bit of progress regarding our septic pump problems so far.

This morning, bathing involved using basins, then tossing the water outside. Meanwhile, I did my rounds, as usual.

Check this out.

See that dark spot in the middle of the bird bath?

That’s water that isn’t frozen! 😀

Some of the water that got into the basement drained into the sump pump reservoir enough to trigger it. Which means that, outside, there’s a melted patch in the snow.

The cats like it.

Beep Beep tucked herself right in there, and Two-Face came over to investigate. Beep Beep didn’t like that!

Who won?

Two-Face won! 😀

I also called the septic company again. While talking to the guy, he asked where we were, including our driveway marker number.

I drew a complete blank. I couldn’t remember our own driveway marker number! I could sort of remember it, but not really…

Only later, when driving past it and looking, did I realize I had the numbers reversed. The cross road number is at the beginning, not the end.

Still, he had no problem finding us. He’s been here a few times before. I had time to drive my daughter to work, get some cash to pay him, and even start shoveling a bit before he arrived. Thankfully, that big, heavy truck can go through pretty deep snow without getting stuck, though I did shovel a couple of paths while I was there.

While he was pumping out the tank, I talked to him about what was happening. He could see no problems off hand. I even remembered to ask about the float, since one possibility is that the float was stuck, but it was working fine.

So that is all done.

I later went into the basement, which is drying quite nicely right now. One of the things I noticed last night was that the old laundry sink was full of water, so I made a point of checking it.

Sure enough, it was slowly draining.

Gosh, that’s disgusting.

Now, with the tank empty, we actually need to get water in there for the weight. While I was downstairs, my husband flushed the toilet – and I saw water burbling up into the sink!

Nothing came out of that pipe, though.

So what it looks like is that water first started backing up into this sink, while the laundry was being done. Then, when it filled to a certain point, it started backing up out of the pipe, instead.

If there is a clog causing this, it’s somewhere near the pump.

But why would a clog in the pipe cause the pump to stop working? It gets triggered by the float outside.

I don’t know, but when my brother gets here to replace the well pump, we’ll be able to look more closely.

Fingers crossed, it’s just a relatively minor fix that we can take care of ourselves!

The Re-Farmer

Seriously???

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This evening, I got a call from my brother, saying he would be coming over tomorrow to install the new well pump he found for us. Yay! He would need to pick something up along the way, though, and could I get measurements of the pipes for him?

So I went into the basement to see if I could get that for him and…

There was water, all over half the basement.

WTF?

The side of the basement where the laundry used to be has a drain in the floor, but it was covered over with plastic, so I took that out and water started to slowly drain into there. Unfortunately, there was also mostly dissolved toilet paper in the water (no solids, thankfully), and I didn’t want that getting in there. So we had to be careful.

Where, however, did the water come from?

Here.

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This and that, and the car saga continues

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What a beautiful day today!

As I write this, we’re at -1C (30F) right now. The sun is shining, the skies are clear, and we’re supposed to be warm like this for the next couple of days. On Sunday, we’re even supposed to go above freezing! From the long range forecasts, we are going to get chilly again, but none of the deep freeze we’ve had for the last while. Spring is in the air!

It definitely makes doing my morning rounds much more pleasant.

Things have not been pleasant for all, though, as I noticed when I saw Big Jim walking around this morning.

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A perfect fit

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I made myself a hat today.

I’d made myself a ponytail hat last winter, but forgot it at the clinic during one of our doctor’s visits. No one turned it in to the lost and found. I finally got around to making a new one. 🙂

I used two strands of medium weight yarn and a 6mm hook. The main body of the hat is just half-double (hdc; known as a half-treble in the UK) worked in a spiral. To figure out where to put the opening, I just kept putting it on my head until it was long enough to reach where I usually wear my braid, then did a chain 4, skip 4 stitches to make the opening.

Warm hats are, of course, a necessity for this time of year, but most hats irritate the heck out of me. If they’re long enough to cover my ears, they get into my eyes, and every time I move my head, the back of my hat gets pushed up. My ears get uncovered and the hat gets pushed into my eyes. My long hair, of course, also gets in the way of having it sit right on my head.

The joy of making my own hats, is that I can figure out how to work around that.

Along with the opening to pull my braid through (which then helps keep the hat in place), after a few more rounds, I switched from hdc in the back to dc (double crochet, or treble/triple crochet in the UK) on the sides, and sc (single crochet, or double crochet in the UK) across the front. The end result is a wavy edge with longer sides that snuggle warmly around my ears, while the slightly shorter back doesn’t get pushed up when I move my head around, and the even shorter front doesn’t get into my eyes, but it still long enough to keep my forehead warm.

I probably should have done this at the start of winter, rather than the end, but it’ll do the job just fine! 😀

The Re-Farmer

Change of plans

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It’s a statutory holiday today, in most of Canada. February didn’t have a statutory holiday until a relatively few years ago (different years for different provinces), and it’s one of those holidays where each province got to pick it. It is not a federal holiday. Depending on where you live in Canada, today is Family Day, Islander Day (in Prince Edward Island), Nova Scotia Heritage Day, or Louis Riel Day (in Manitoba).

My plans for the day was to do some bread baking and some housework, and otherwise just stay at home.

This morning, my mother phoned.

Change of plans! 😀

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A new path, and comparisons

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What a lovely day today!

Okay, according to The Weather Network, it’s -17C/1F with a wind chill of -27C/-16F, but I’ve been outside for the past while, in full sun and sheltered from the wind, and it was feeling downright tropical out there! Unlike yesterday, this morning I had all sorts of cats to greet me while I did my rounds.

On the down side, when I got to the van to head into town, I discovered a frozen present on the roof, all down the side door of my van, and even on the ground, from a cat in the rafters. I saw Nicky the Nose in there earlier, when I double checked to make sure the van was plugged in. Nasty bugger shat all over our van!

Ah, well. I meant to get a car wash before taking it in to get the brakes done, anyhow. :-/

Heading to town today, we were glad to find the roads had been plowed of drifts – though my daughter did have to fight one to open the gate! The high winds we’ve been having have really hard packed the snow. It was still blowing a lot on the roads, coming almost directly from the north, but here at home, we have trees, and the house itself, blocking most of the north winds. There’s just that one gap between the maple and spruce groves that acts as quite the funnel!

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