Clean up: old hot water tank

March 25, 2020 / Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

Today, it was back to the old basement to finally do something about the old hot water tank that died on us, shortly after we moved here.

A job that didn’t go as well as I’d hoped in some ways, while better than I hoped in others! :-D

Here is the state of the tank, before I started.

You can see that the bottom of the tank is quite rusted out and falling apart. The top, however, is still quite secure. It’s held in place by 4 screws, so I thought I’d try to take those off, first.

The first challenge was to figure out what type of screwdriver to use. They were so full of grit, I at first thought I’d need a star tip, but after digging some crud out with the tip of a box cutter, I discovered they needed a square tip.

Not that it mattered. The screws immediately stripped, as soon as I tried to loosen them. They weren’t going to move.

I was able to get the access panels on the side off easily enough, since they were barely put back on before the tank was moved.

I should note that yes, I was wearing safety gear before I started.

The bottom came off quite easily, and all sorts of rotted insulation and rust started to fall out!

I had a box ready for the smaller pieces of metal, and garbage bags for the insulation. I was using the old ash shovel as a dust pan as I swept up the smaller stuff, trying as much as possible not to kick dust up. Impossible, of course, but I could at least minimize it a bit, and using a shovel for a dust pan gave me a bit of distance as I worked.

Then, I took out insulation through the access panels. It wasn’t as rotten, higher up, but still…

… lots of rust on there!

I then had a couple of problems to work around. The screws on the top weren’t going to come out. I even tried a crow bar, but couldn’t get the leverage. The tank has a seam that I hoped to pop open, but that was more solid than the rest of the tank. Even if I opened it, though, it would hang up on the drain pipe near the base.

Then I remembered something.

In my late brother’s work shop, which we are now using to store all my parents’ stuff as we clear out the house, we found a pair of cutters. My oldest bother spotted them and told me they were sheet metal cutters. So I brought it to the house, and my husband sharpened them (they really needed a sharpening!).

They cut through the metal beautifully!

Cutting where the access panel openings where made it much easier. I also cut to the drain pipe so the metal could be pulled up around it, as well as going as close to one of the screws in the top panel as I could.

After yanking on it a bit, the outer shell panel broke free from the top cap and the whole thing popped open!

So. That’s what it looks like on the inside!

The next while was spent removing more insulation, taking off the springs that held the bands in place, and pulling out some of the wiring. I was also able to basically tear off the cap without any extra cutting near the screws. The metal of the shell tore pretty easily at the screws, once it started to open up.

In the process, I discovered a problem.

That cylinder is where all the weight is – and as I manhandled it, I could hear water sloshing inside! Yes, we let it drain before it was removed, but there’s no way to get all of it out completely, without cracking it open somehow.

This thing is heavy, and I needed to get the stuff out from under it. There wasn’t a lot of space to work in, either. (You can see the box with the new well pump waiting to be installed, and the jug of water that was intended to be used to prime the pump after installation.)

The first thing to do was clean up as much of the insulation as I could, then try and get the bands out from under it. I was able to get the bottom band out, a little at a time, but would not be able to do the same at the top. I had somewhere to grip and lift the bottom, but nothing to grip at the top. The obvious solution would have been to stand the cylinder up and move it off the shell, but there was simply no way to safely grasp the rounded top and lift that much weight.

I might not be able to stand it up, but thanks to that very strong drain pipe at the bottom, I could drag it!

And this is as far as it’s going to get for now!

I honestly don’t know how we’re going to safely get it out of the house. I had hoped that taking it apart would reduce the weight more than it did, but I probably took of maybe 10 pounds of material, in total. That’s barely noticeable.

As for the shell…

I could now remove the top band and use the shovel and broom to get rid of the majority of the insulation that had been crushed under the cylinder.

Then, I folded it.

And squished it.

Into a nice, flat pancake that could easily be moved.

It was very satisfying! :-D

The parts and pieces will be taken outside through the new part basement, with its safer stairs that are right next to the entryway door! But not until more of the snow has melted and we can reach the junk pile.

Next, I had to carefully clean up the dust and rust underneath. I wanted to make sure as little as possible could end up washed into the sump pump reservoir. I do NOT want this stuff clogging up the pump!

In the end, I used a wet mop to pick up as much as I could, because sweeping was just kicking up way too much dust.

I am so glad I was able to find these thicker masks at the pharmacy, before everyone went crazy and bought them all up. This is actually my second mask. One of the elastics broke on the first one. I have no more. I do still have some dust masks I’d found in the hardware store, but they’re not as thick as these ones.

Once I finished cleaning up the mess in the basement, I proceeded to take a shower, then put my clothes in the wash. Fiberglass insulation dust can be dangerous stuff. Especially when it’s as old and rotted out as this stuff was. When it comes time to take the garbage bags of insulation to the dump, I’ll have to make sure to keep them separate, so they go to the proper disposal area, and not with household garbage. I’ll also have to double bag them.

For now, I’m glad that the space in front of the pumps and tanks is finally clear of this thing. It’s been there for over 2 years! :-D It’ll make it much easier for when the well pump gets replaced.

I’m looking into finding a filter to install between the well and the pump. Or pre-filter, these are apparently called. I’ve found several kinds, but I can’t tell if they are suitable for use with a deep well pump, rather than a shallower well pump. The problem is that the deep well pump has two hoses, one above the other. From the looks of how they are installed, the second hose would be in the way. It would be good to use one, though. They are designed just to filter out the bigger stuff, and should help extend the life of the pumps and tanks. I’ve sent some links to my older brother, who knows this system better than anyone, and hopefully he’ll be able to tell me something, one way or the other. Or, perhaps, inform me of something better to use.

At this point, I’ve done almost as much as can be done in the old basement. The other things that need doing are little things, like getting plastic utility shelves to replace the wood shelves on bricks, and organizing.

Which means we will now work on the new part basement.

Oh, that reminds me. I was chatting with my brother about the clean up I’d done so far, and commented on the collection of car batteries down there. I said that, unless he knows if any of them are still usable and he wants them, I would probably take them to the dump for proper disposal. He very adamantly told me not to do that. It turns out that these can be taken to a scrap yard, in the same way we plan to do with our aluminum collection. They will pay by the pound for the lead in them, and each battery can bring in quite a lot. He tells me that the amount of aluminum we have is probably enough to make it work taking in.

I figure we can do that in the spring. Anything we get from the aluminum or the batteries is going to go into a tax free savings account we set up for our contingency fund, and the money will go to replacing the roof.

It’ll take a while. Based on the two estimates we got, and assuming that they will find rot under there, we’re looking at $10,000 we have to come up with. Assuming no emergencies happen before then. :-(

Ah, well. For now, we just deal with what we can.

Like figuring out how to get that beast of a cylinder out of the basement!

The Re-Farmer

Recommended: CS Brews

March 25, 2020March 11, 2020 / Re-Farmer / 7 Comments

Welcome to my “Recommended” series of posts. These will be weekly – for now – posts about resources I have found over the past while that I found so excellent, I want to share them with you, my dear readers. 🙂 Whether or not I continue to post these, and how often they are posted, will depend on feedback. Please feel free to comment below, and if you have a favorite resource of your own, do share, and I will review them for possible future posts.

I hope you find these recommendations as useful and enjoyable as I have!

When we decided to try making mead we, of course, did research, first.

Unfortunately, what we found was a lot of conflicting information.

One source would say to just mix honey, water and bread yeast in a jug, top it with a balloon, stick it under your desk and forget about it for months.

Another source would describe starting a fermentation in one container, with daily actions, racking after a couple of weeks, and basically babying the must until it was time to bottle.

Some sources recommended using basically nothing; no other ingredients than honey, water and maybe some yeast. Others would talk about the need for various additives, ranging from raisins to nutrients to various chemicals to start or stop fermentation.

It turns out, mead making is something people can vociferously disagree on, too!

The last time I posted about our mead making attempts, I mentioned a new resource I’d found. CS Brews. This is the YouTube channel for a larger enterprise that includes a similar channel about cooking, a website called City Steading, a Facebook community, and more.

As the website name implies, this is a sort of homesteading resource for people who don’t live in the boonies, like we do. The skills and information are, of course, transferable.

My recommendation, however, is focused on their brewing videos.

Now, this may sound odd, but I don’t actually like alcohol all that much.

Continue reading →

No-Knead Focaccia

March 24, 2020 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

My daughters were sweethearts and baked the new recipe they found. It’s the Shockingly Easy No-Knead Focaccia from Bon Apetit.

We did make one change in the recipe. We didn’t have any extra virgin olive oil. We did, however, have avocado oil, so we used that, instead.

It worked very well!

We also didn’t have the type of pan they recommended. We have 9×13 pans. Just not with high sides. So we used a slightly smaller glass pan. The dough has a second rising in the pan, and was very close to overflowing before it was vigorously poked at to deflate it.

For a recipe with no oil in the dough, it uses quite a lot of oil! And butter. The baking pan is buttered, first, then oil added, then the dough put in.

Just before putting it in the oven, more oil is drizzled over the top, and sprinkled with Kosher salt. After it’s baked, butter is melted with garlic, which is drizzled on top.

The end result is both beautiful and delicious. That salty, buttery, garlicky topping is sublime! The texture is moist and chewy, and there were some pretty large bubbles in there! Even the bottom crust has a very nice texture, thanks to the butter and oil combination.

I rather like avocado oil better than olive oil in a lot of things, but it’s frightfully expensive stuff. Costco has it at much better prices, at least.

This recipe is definitely worth trying out! It has rising instructions for both an overnight dough and a same day bread.

Now excuse me, while I go back to enjoying this Focaccia!!

The Re-Farmer

Oh, to have the life of our cats

March 24, 2020 / Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

These two are just too adorable for words!

Silly Kitties, and relentless winds

March 24, 2020 / Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

Things are warming up again. We’re actually above freezing right now.

Unfortunately, that means that any hibernating flies that have survived the cold are starting to come out and sluggishly make their way to windows.

Guess how I know that?

Go on! Guess!

Yeah. The cats have found them.

I first discovered this when I was awakened by cats trashing the top of my desk and work table, trying to get to the north window.

This is the one window that didn’t get replaced before we moved in. The new window has a nice ledge on it, due to the thickness of the log wall. This window still has sheets of plastic covering the inside to keep the weather out, resulting in almost no ledge at all.

The cats still go for it.

They don’t succeed.

I didn’t actually see a fly when the crashing and bashing first started. I just tossed the cats out, closed the door and tried to get back to sleep.

I didn’t succeed.

Finally, I got up and left the room for a bit, leaving the door open.

In the couple of minutes I was gone, Cheddar had managed to get to the window, catch the fly, and bring it to my bed. I came in to find him sitting there, looking confused by the little black dot walking around on my covers. It was funny, so I went to grab my phone to take a picture.

Which is when Dave jumped up and joined him.

He ate the fly.

They then spent the next several minutes, looking for it.

Silly kitties!

The temperature might be going up, but the winds have really picked up, too. It’s coming from the south, south-east, a direction from which we have very little shelter, it turns out. Lots of stuff being blown around.

In doing my rounds, I noticed this in one of the trees.

No, that’s not a soft filter on the image. I checked my phone after uploading the pictures and saw it. A feather from my down filled coat was stuck in my phone case, partly covering the lens! :-D

You can see the broken top of this tree, hanging town. This top broke many years ago, but usually it’s pretty hard to see among the branches it’s hung up on. It has noticeably made its way down further. There are still lots of strong branches under it, so it might take years before it finally falls to the ground. Or it could come down today. Who knows? Either way, I’ll be keeping an eye on it. If it falls, there’s a good chance it’ll land on the fence, so if there’s a point when we can pull it down and away from the fence ourselves, that would be a good thing.

While walking around, I had Beep Beep in my arms, but was also hearing the distinctive high pitched meowing of Two Face, over the wind. But where was she? I couldn’t see her anywhere.

Oh. There she is!

Silly kitty! :-D

One of the things I was able to clean up since coming here was what turned out to be a post pounder my late brother had built. After clearing away the garbage piled on, around and even under it, I wrapped it in a tarp to protect it from the elements.

The elements, however, are relentless.

This is the worst, but not the only, tear in the tarp.

With the wind coming from the direction it was, the whole thing gets blown out like a sail.

What I’d really like to do is drag this thing indoors (which wouldn’t be easy, with 2 flat tires and a bent up trailer hitch). The only place large enough is the barn, and it’s still full of so much junk, we’d have to clear some of that out, first.

Which we might be able to do, at least a bit, this summer, as we salvage items for things like building climbing trellises for the squash we’re looking to plant this summer, or things we can use for the cordwood outdoor bathroom we’re planning to build. We might at least be able to empty one of the old cattle stalls, which it would fit in. That would be after we clean up and put a platform on the trailer frame we found and put wheels on.

Once done my rounds, I checked the trail cam files, as is my usual routine. I’m happy to say that moving the new trail cam to a different tree worked out. Our vandal was out for a walk on the road (with his wife, so he was behaving), and both cameras picked them up quite clearly. Plus, there is no longer a fence post in the middle of the frame. The low hanging tree branches don’t seem to be triggering the motion sensor much, which had been a concern.

I’m thinking of getting another camera like the new one, to replace the old one. It’s has much better quality images, plus the new cameras have a wide angle lens, which would be very useful facing the driveway gate. The old camera would do very well attached to the house, facing the feeding station. Wide angle would be of no benefit, there, making the old camera perfect for there.

Well, I guess it’s time to stop procrastinating and get back to work!

And maybe try that recipe for Foccacia bread my daughter found. :-)

The Re-Farmer

More baking, and my daughter works in a tent now

March 23, 2020 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I went into town today, driving my daughter to work. We got there at our usual 10-15 minutes early, but there were already several cars in the parking lot, and people standing by the doors. I’ve seen this before, but not with so many people. Weird.

Since I was in town anyhow, I made a quick run through the grocery store. My husband was running out of brown rice (he’s the only one who eats it) and the girls were running low on lactose free milk. There was plenty of milk, but almost no rice of any kind at all. Oddly, there were no potatoes, squash or onions. Entire sections of fresh produce were empty. I find myself thinking there are other reasons for the stuff to be gone, besides more panic buying. There was no shortage of bread or meat on the shelves, but they haven’t restocked in things like flour, sugar or yeast yet.

Still no toilet paper, either.

Thankfully, we are not in any need of these items.

Once at home, I did a couple of different breads. One was a sourdough soda bread from Alaska Sourdough, the cookbook that got me into sourdough many years ago, though I acquired my own copy much more recently.

This recipe uses 4 cups of sourdough starter, along with oil, sugar, salt and baking soda. I tried to get a video of the chemical reaction when the baking soda (mixed into a “jigger glass” of warm water) is added, but it just couldn’t capture how the mixture just… foams. It’s really quite fun to watch!

The recipes in this cookbook are hand written, and in this one, the instructions forget to mention when to add the salt! I just add it with everything else, before the soda and flour are added.

The recipe also said to use 8 – 10 cups of flour.

Eight to 10??? What’s with all these recipes that use huge amounts of flour? I barely got 3 in. I’d wonder if my sourdough starter is too thick or something, but it’s the same with non-sourdough bread recipes, too. I know we’re really dry here, this time of year, but it shouldn’t make that much of a difference!

This recipe requires just one rising, so it got shaped into loaves right away and I left them in a warm oven to rise while I made another double batch of my seedy bread. I ended up making it into a bunch of mini-loaves this time, just for fun. By the time that bread had its two risings, and finished baking, the sourdough bread was ready to go into the oven.

They came out so pretty!

While I was working on that, my other daughter came down for a break and let me know her sister is now working in a tent.

A tent?

The cash desk now has a plastic curtain around it, to protect the cashiers from plague customers who won’t keep their distance. It hangs from the ceiling, and is Tuck Taped to the counter, with windows cut into it to reach products for scanning. The pharmacy counter has its own plastic wall, with a slit for the pharmacists to go in and out at one end, and a slit at the pick up counter. Customers, apparently, are still trying to stick their faces right up to the openings.

People suck, sometimes.

After I picked my daughter up at work, she needed to go to the grocery store, so we swung by on the way home. Some of the empty produce displays were no longer empty – there were onions again, though not many. Still no potatoes or squash. So very odd!

As we were going through the till, I couldn’t help but comment to the cashier about how nice it must be, to be able to clean the belt more often. She confirmed that, yes, it is! She was quite enjoying the cleanliness. Customers still try to shove things onto the belt, but at least now the cashiers are allowed to tell them to stop, so the belt can be cleaned. I remember only too well how difficult it was to keep things clean in between costumers, when I worked as a grocery store cashier!

They’re also back to single use plastic bags. This franchise had only recently made such a big deal about no longer having plastic bags and encouraging people to bring, or buy, reusable bags. Now, if people bring their own bags, they have to pack them themselves. It’s long been known that reusable bags are very unsanitary, but it took the Wuhan flu for that to finally be taken seriously. :-(

Well, we’ll be able to go back to staying home for the next few days. No plague people hiding among the deer that visit us. There is plenty to keep us busy! The only thing I’ll need to remember to go out for is to get the mail, since I’m expecting my seed order to come in soon. I look forward to starting some of them indoors.

Oh, I also broke down and ordered a bottle cutter. This is not something we can find locally. I chose a type that can cut square bottles, as well as round. I look forward to using it to help make bottle bricks! Since I already know we plan to make the walls on our cordwood practice building 8 inches think, we can get a head start on making these.

Also, my daughter found a really nice recipe for no-knead Focaccia that I think we’ll be trying out tomorrow.

Should be fun!

The Re-Farmer

Evening and morning critters, and going off the rails a bit

March 22, 2020 / Re-Farmer / 5 Comments

We continue to have frequent visits from deer in our yard. I got this photo out my window yesterday evening.

Of the 5 deer in the photo, 4 of them are a family group. One of them was part of a group of 3, two of which I could see through the trees near the old garden area, but they never came any closer to the house.

I don’t imagine there was much left at the feeding station, this late in the day, but they’re still coming by to snack on what they can find!

They are so pretty.

Speaking of pretty, check out this beautiful Potato.

Potato Beetle has gotten into the habit of dashing in front of our feet as we walk, slowing down, forcing us to step around him, dashing in front again, slowing down… then flinging himself onto the ground and rolling.

In other words, he’s trying to kill us by tripping over him. :-D

I was very late in doing my rounds this morning, and Potato Beetle was the only one around at first. That meant I got to pick him up and carry him – it was either that or constantly trying not to trip over him! – and he was very content to stay in my arms. Unlike Butterscotch, Beep Beep or Two-Face, who are in constant motion while being carried.

He so wants to come inside!!

There has been zero interest in our attempts to adopt the rest of the babies out, which is really frustrating. Two-Face is booked to be spayed later in April, which means we’re going to have to bring her inside, if only to make sure she doesn’t get pregnant, first.

But we already have 7 cats inside. It’s getting to be a problem. Part of the reason I did my rounds so late this morning is because of being kept up most of the night by cats.

Which reminds me. When topping up the outside cats’ food and water last night, we had an extra visitor in the sun room. Stinky is back! He stayed around, hidden behind the makeshift cat cave, while I was in there. Later, I could see him through the bathroom window, eating the cat kibble. When I looked again at about 2 am, he was still there and eating again! This might explain while, some mornings, all the food bowls have been completely empty, with barely a crumb left behind.

I was talking with one of my daughters this morning about the outside cats, and how we’re slowly getting them fixed as my other daughter has been able to afford it. We were talking about how the outside cats want in, but we just can’t do it.

Unless…

There is a possibility.

If we can clear and clean up the new part basement, then find a way to make a door over the entry to the old part basement, we could do it. We could move the litter boxes downstairs, and they would have a huge amount of extra space if we keep that basement door open. The old part basement has the pumps, including the sump pump reservoir, so we don’t want to let them in there.

I guess that’s incentive to get the basements done faster!

We shall see.

Meanwhile…

Today, being Sunday, is our day of rest. Normally, I’d be in town right now, while my younger daughter is at work for her short shift. The pharmacy she works at is closed on Sunday now, due to the Wuhan Flu, so we are all home today. For a moment I thought that, hey! I could go to church! But the churches are all closed to services right now, too.

Which leads me to another topic entirely. Normally, I try to stay away from stuff like this, but this blog is about our new life here at my old family farm, and this is one of those things that is affecting us. Even as relatively isolated as we are.

I am just so frustrated about all the panic over the Wuhan Flu. People are being so stupid about it. This morning, my husband caught an article about a couple in BC that walked into a grocery store and bought their entire inventory of meat.

I have two immediate thoughts about that. The first is, who has the money to buy that much meat? The second is, why did the store allow it? Retailers have the discretion to limit purchases. Why didn’t they?

Meanwhile, I just read the updated protocols for the hospital my husband has appointments with in the city at the end of the month. His appointments have not been cancelled, but the hospital is now allowing access at only 2 entrances. The main entrance and one to the cardiac clinic, which is also the emergency entrance and the one we will be using. Everyone who comes in will be checked for symptoms and asked about their travel history.

The thing that bothers me so much about all this is the panic – largely induced by the media. I’m certainly not against precautions, but so much bad information is out there right now and, as mentioned earlier, people are being stupid about it, and their behavior is affecting everyone else, in a negative way.

Another part of my frustration is this.

We’re nearing the tail end of the annual flu season right now. While there is non-stop hyperventilating about the Wu Flu around the world, in the US alone, between October 1, 2019 and March 14, 2020, there have been an estimated 38 – 54 MILLION flu illnesses. There have been an estimated 17 – 25 MILLION flu medical visits. There have been an estimated 390,000 – 710,000 flu hospitalizations, and between 23,000 – 59,000 deaths.

(source)

And the annual flu season isn’t over yet.

This is just in the US.

I’ve found the Canadian numbers. The Government of Canada website has weekly reports. The latest report, as of this writing, is March 8 – 14, or Week 11. From that last link:

Severe Outcomes Influenza Surveillance

Provincial/Territorial Influenza Hospitalizations and Deaths

To date this season, 2,232 influenza-associated hospitalizations were reported by participating provinces and territories ^{Footnote 1}.

68% of the cases were associated with influenza A.
Of the 978 cases for which subtype was reported, 55% were associated with influenza A(H3N2).
The highest cumulative hospitalization rates up to week 11 were among adults 65 years of age and older (71/100,000 population) and children under 5 years of age (69/100,000 population).

273 ICU admissions and 97 deaths have been reported.

68% of the ICU admissions and 71% of the deaths were associated with influenza A.

With so many people coming in to be checked for the Wuhan flu, more cases are being diagnosed for the annual flu. Many cases don’t get recorded, because people just don’t go to the doctor or hospital and get diagnosed. (Side note, the annual flu strains are listed as Influenza A and Influenza B, with A having several sub categories.)

Now, please understand that I’m not trying to say that the annual flu is somehow worse than the Wuhan Flu, or anything like that. There are significant differences. The fact that the Wuhan Flu is spreading at the same time as when the annual flu was in full swing is taxing health care systems to the max. Proper care should be taken.

Wash your hands with soap and water frequently.

Stay home if your sick, if you can. My husband used to work in IT, with government contracts, so he spent much of that stage of his career in various provincial government offices. Government employees are paid by salary, not by the hour, and tend to have generous sick leave and insurance policies. Yet so many people would show up at work, sick, hacking and coughing all over the place, acting like they were some sort of hero for being soooo dedicated to their jobs, that they came in even while sick. The next thing you knew, dozens of people are having to call in sick because of that one plague person spreading their colds. If you can stay home, do it! Not just from work, but going out in general.

Also, wash your hands with soap and water, frequently.

If you can’t stay home, take precautions. That’s where those masks come in handy. Masks aren’t there to prevent you from catching a virus. They’re there to keep you from spreading it to others if you’ve got it yourself.

Wash your hands with soap and water. Frequently.

Keep your distance from other people – stay out of each other’s “personal bubble”.

Wash your hands with soap and water. Frequently.

Sneeze into tissues. Cough into a tissue or your elbow.

Wash your hands with soap and water. Frequently.

Don’t lick your fingers before handling money, paper, etc. That is a MAJOR problem in retail. An astonishing number of customers slobber all over their fingers to better grip their cash or cards, then hand their germ riddled item to some poor part time cashier, who doesn’t have sick leave or insurance, and can’t afford to lose any hours due to illness. Keep your spit to yourself.

Oh, and…

Wash your hands with soap and water. Frequently.

Seriously. It doesn’t take much care to reduce the spread of germs. It’s not like they can get around on their own.

(Do visit this post, Why yes, I am an Infectious Disease Specialist, by Insanity Bytes for an excellent read.)

The frustrating thing is not that people are taking the Wuhan Flu seriously (panic behaviour being another issue entirely). It’s that we DON’T take the annual flu just as seriously.

Every year, before flu season, people are given the exact same information for precautions to prevent the spread of the flu.

Every public washroom in places like grocery stores, gas stations, restaurants and department stores have posts with instruction on hour to wash your hands properly. Seriously. People need to be told how to wash their hands.

And people don’t do it.

So many just use the bathroom and leave, without going near a sink.

It’s disgusting.

It gets people sick.

How many people would be protected, every year, if we kept up these basic hygiene practices, all the time? Especially at risk people, such as those with preexisting health conditions or the elderly.

How many productive hours would not be lost?

How many lives would be saved, every year?

Right now, we’ve got people panicking over the Wuhan Flu, with the media whipping it up to a frenzy. Emergencies are being declared. Economies are being shut down. Yet, we have the equivalent of the Wuhan Flu, if not worse, every year, around the world.

Again, this is not to make light of what’s going on right now. It’s just so frustrating that it took something like this for people do engage in simple behaviors we should be using all the time.

Of course you just know that, once this is over, many of the same people who went into a frenzy of toilet paper and hand sanitizer panic buying (all those survivalist and prepper sites are certainly being vindicated right now!), or doing things like buying up the entire inventory of meat in a grocery store, leaving nothing for those who actually need the food, will probably go back to business as usual; going to work sick, coughing all over their co-workers, and not washing their hands with soap and water throughout the day.

Sometimes, humans really suck.

The Re-Farmer

Clean Up: old basement progress

March 21, 2020 / Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

I was able to get a few more hours working on the old basement today.

Honestly, I should probably be using those hours doing housework, but that’s depressing. :-D Cleaning the basement may be really gross at times, but once it’s done, it’ll stay done for a very long time.

It’s a psychological thing. :-D

Today, I finally got to the water damaged shelf.

The containers at the bottom, with odds and ends in them, simply got moved to the other basement, to join the other stuff there we’ll need to sort through and figure out what to do with. That big plant pot will hopefully be big enough to transplant our umbrella tree into. I just have to find a drip tray for it, though the umbrella tree will likely spend the summer outside again, so I’ve got time for that.

Through the shelf, peaking from behind the chimney that used to be hooked up to the old wood burning furnace, is a really big baking pan. Too big to fit in the oven, so I don’t know why it’s here. I later cleaned it up and set it aside. I’ll be using it as a tray for when we start seeds indoors.

Dismantling the shelf was certainly interesting. Just look at the size of those nails! (In case you can’t make them out, they’re about 4 inches long, and those were what held the shelves to the sides.) For part of it, I ended up using a big flat head screwdriver to pry pieces apart. I had thought that some of the boards might be salvageable, but… nope. This will all go to the burn pile.

That shopping cart came in handy. :-D

Yay! It’s done!

That extension cord plugged into the outlet goes up through the floor, and into the master bedroom, along with a TV cable. There’s no longer a TV there, but the extension cord still comes in handy!

When we’re finally able to renovate, this chimney is what I want to have removed and replaced with a dumbwaiter. :-) That will make it so much easier to move things from floor to floor!

With the space opened up, I though I might set up a table here. Some time ago, I’d noticed a sturdy looking wooden table top leaning against the wall just on the other side of the opening to the new part basement. No sign of any legs, though. While I was clearing things in the new basement, I found – along with the hand pump and other things I uncovered – a set of legs that looked like they might belong to this table top.

So I brought them over.

They were, of course, extremely dusty, so I gave all the pieces a good cleaning. This table is clearly home made. I’m thinking it may have been made by my late brother. He did have a wood lathe and could have turned those legs himself.

Unfortunately…

The holes the legs were meant to fit into had crud in them. Only one of them was clear. These two were the worst. I was able to scrape most of the glue and residue out with a utility knife, but that was it for now.

So the legs were definitely made for this table, and the ends would normally have fit into the openings. With all the crud in there, they wouldn’t go all the way in.

I decided to set it up, anyway, in a different area.

I lured my daughter away from some commission work to give me a hand in setting it up on bricks, to protect from any future flooding. (The water on the floor was from the still wet table top and legs.)

I just had to set up my mother’s “thou shalt not steal” sign. Too funny!

Once it was set up, I hammered the table top down, using a piece of scrap wood to protect the surface, to try and get those legs into the openings as much as possible. They barely moved! Which meant that this is a very, very wobbly table.

Just to be on the safe side, because I KNOW I’ll forget and lean on it or something, I made up a warning sign. :-D

After this, I was able to start working on the other side of the basement.

There isn’t a lot that has been added to the space, but it’s big stuff, so it’s filling up fast!

The remains of a wooden chair got pulled apart (the legs were already falling off!) and added to the shopping cart with the rotten shelf pieces. The garden hose we’d used to help clear the access pipe to the septic tank got rolled up into a 5 gallon bucket I’d found, so it’s all nice and neat and tucked away. In one of the pictures, you can see some hoses behind what looks like black pool noodles. Those are old aquarium hoses. I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to use them again, since I’ve not been able to find a source to replace a broken hose connector for the filter of our big aquarium. Still, just in case, I cleaned them up, then found another bucket I could roll them up into. I even found a lid to keep the dust off them.

Here is how it looks now. When shifting the broken hot water tank, to move out the box the new one came in, I discovered there was still water in it that had started to drain. So that got moved over the drain trough next to the old hot water tank we replaced shortly after moving here. The next time I work down here, it will be to dismantle at least that one tank, as it’s way too heavy to haul up the stairs as it is. The newer broken tank is pretty light, so it might be easier to take it outside as is. I still want to dismantle it. I would really love to see if I can tell why it broke after only about 2 years.

There is still stuff that needs to be sorted through, but that is for another time. Of course, there are always odd finds. There were so many buckets of various sizes, but only one had a lid on it. Given what I’ve been finding elsewhere, I feared it might have something else for the special disposal pile.

Nope. Just this.

No clue what these are for, but I assume they were cut to size and kept protected in the bucket for a reason, so I’m leaving them until I can ask my brother if he knows what they’re for. There were a few other little things that joined the collection of rotted wood in the shopping cart, and one thing that was definitely a keeper. The temporary grave marker used for my late brother until the memorial stone was installed a year later. It’s just a simple board cut into a cross at the top, with my brother’s name and dates engraved on a little brass plate. It’s got some moisture damage on it, but that’s likely from the year it spent outside than any damage here in the basement. My oldest brother made it, and I definitely don’t want to loose track of it.

I’m rather pleased with the progress made today.

Hhhmmm. I suddenly can’t remember if I turned one of the lights off. One last trip to the basement, and I’m done for the next while! :-D

The Re-Farmer