Today’s high was warmer than originally forecast, reaching -1C/30F

Which caused some problems!

This first was something I noticed in the sunroom again. Ice on the corner of one of the litter boxes. Too much for it to be from a cat pissing over the edge. I’d used the ice scraper to clear some up when the litters in there were last changed, but now there was even more.

There was only one other place it could be coming from.

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*sigh*

Yes, those are icicles on the ceiling of the sun room.

This is not good. We haven’t had this since the new roof was installed. Great care was taken to make sure this didn’t happen again.

I went outside again to check the sun room roof. The problem was easy to see. While we haven’t had a large amount of snow this year, above that corner is where the roof from the original log part of the house slightly overhangs the slope of the sun room roof. So any snowmelt from the higher roof drains onto the sun room roof.

Now, what it should be doing is draining into the eavestrough on the sun room roof. That trough, however, is now filled with ice. At the opposite end of the down spout, a large ice dam has formed – and there’s nothing we can do about it. There is no way to safely get up there.

The best I could do was get the roof rake and remove as much snow as I could. Which really wasn’t much, but it should at least expose the ice dam to the sun. The eavestrough is a dark brown, which should warm up a bit faster, too. Ideally, we would have heat tape up there, but we’ve already got too many things plugged into the one outlet in the old kitchen. It’s got our freezer plugged into it, as well as extension cords to power the heated water bowl, heat lamps and the outlet in the cat house, which powers another heated water bowl and a heat bulb inside.

Tomorrow is supposed to have a high of -2C/28F, then the day after, we now have a forecast of 3C/37F. Hopefully, I’ve removed enough snow for things to melt at least partially clear.

In the spring/summer, someone is going to have to get up there to see where the moisture is coming through. No one – not even the roofers – figured out exactly where it was coming in before, but since we hadn’t had a leak inside the sun room since, we figured it got patched up while the new roof was installed. I did tell the roofers about the leak, and exactly where it was leaking, so they did look for a source, which they never found, and made sure the flashing was good. Still, here we are!

I had intended to break Spewie out again and continue clearing the driveway, but as I switched out the trail cam cards, I found it was too windy for the job. Plus, I could tell I was paying for the amount I’d done yesterday. I was feeling joints trying to dislocate all over the place!

As soon as I was able, I pain killered up and tried lying down.

Ha! Yeah, that didn’t work too well.

My daughter, meanwhile, headed outside to get the fire pit going, so we could do our wiener roast.

By then, it had started to rain!

She was able to get the fire started, though. It did take longer to get it down to cooking coals. She brought out an energy drink to have while tending the fire, and it actually started to turn into slush before long. When I came out to join her, I had mine in a can cozy, to keep it from freezing. By then, it was ice-raining quite a bit.

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This wasn’t going to be a day to roast weinies on sticks! Instead, I brought out a tray meant for doing smaller vegetables and such on the BBQ. Once we had enough coals, I set that up on the round grill with a dozen wieners on it, then covered them with foil to keep the rain off and the heat in. Then my daughter used her fire poker stick to pull the grill around over the coals. That’s what you’re seeing in the second picture of the slide show above.

I had some concern that the grill was too high, but that turned out to not be an issue at all. In fact, when my daughter swung the grill off to turn the wieners, they were almost starting to burn!

So those didn’t take very long at all. It was almost a shame to not have anything else to cook!

Once they were done, we swung the grill away again and let things cool down enough that I could transfer them onto the foil, wrap them up and take them inside to keep warm in the oven.

The paths in the yard were incredibly slippery, with frozen rain!

On the way back out, I grabbed a bag of hot dog buns, so we could toast them over the coals. By then, it had stopped raining, so we didn’t need to cover them with foil. It took three batches to do a dozen buns, but they toasted very quickly, so it took no time at all.

Then I took the buns in and made up some hot dogs for my daughter and I, leaving the rest wrapped up to stay warm in the oven with the rest of the wieners for my husband and other daughter. It was too dangerous for my husband to come out, even with the walker, and my older daughter was working on commissions for most of last night, so she wasn’t going to be up again for a while yet, so they had theirs indoors.

My hot dogs had cheese on them, so I wrapped ours up in two packages of foil, which we set back over the coals to warm up again and melt the cheese, flipping them part way through. Once they were warm again, we could set the grill just a bit to one side, so we could each grab a hot dog to eat, while the rest could stay warm in the foil near the fire.

We had Sir Robin hanging out with us, very interested in the smells. Even Fancy Pants kept coming around. For a cat that won’t let us touch him, he does enjoy being near us!

Once we were done eating, we just stayed out to enjoy the fire. My daughter tended it while, little by little, I put things away. At one point, I decided to check on the outer yard.

Yikes!!

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The area I cleared yesterday was downright deadly. I did not get far! In the above pictures, you can see the layer of ice, gleaming in the sun. I was going to check on my brother’s trucks with the solar powered trickle chargers, to make sure the panels were clear, but it was just too slippery. Even going back to the inner yard through the areas I’d cleared, I had to walk on sections with slightly deeper snow, so I could stomp through the ice layer and gain traction under it.

By the time the fire pit was burned down enough, my daughter had been out there for about 3 or 4 hours, and I’d been out for maybe half a hour less.

It was absolutely lovely and, in the end, a really nice way to rest and recharge for the day.

With the crust of ice on everything, I definitely won’t be breaking little Spewie out to do the rest of the driveway. We can get through it, at least, if necessary, but I’m glad I got any driving I needed to do over with, yesterday. I really feel for anyone who had to drive in that freezing rain! I think my brother and SIL are driving their grandson back home this weekend, but I don’t think that province got hit with the freezing rain, so they should be okay.

I just double checked and I was correct. We are still under “moderate” freezing rain warnings, but it’s affecting only our province.

So… that was really fun.

Now I’m going over our stock in my mind, thinking what we could do over the fire, next! I wouldn’t mind trying something like a stew in the Dutch oven, next.

Looking forward to experimenting and learning!

The Re-Farmer