At -27C/-17F, with a wind chill of -38C/-36F, my brother spent hours, here – most of it outdoors – getting things done.
The first thing was the no-longer frozen ejector.
When he arrived, he headed to the barn to get some stuff and I went out to join him. Along the way, I looked towards the ejector and got quite a surprise.
The tarp was gone, the sawhorse over the ejector was half knocked over, held in place only by the extension cord for the heat tape (safely secured), and the blue jugs from the liquid ice melter scattered in the snow nearby.
I don’t think my brother ever found the tarp. That part isn’t a surprise, considering the winds we had yesterday!
When we got to the basement, things there went quickly. The bypass wires on the switch was hooked up so that we could turn it on and off manually, rather than rely on the pill switch in the tank. The only difficult part was moving the emergency diverter off the pump without making too much of a mess. We knew there would be fluid in the pipe and I had a bucket ready, but there was just no way to get the diverter off and moved over the bucket without spilling at least some all over.
After the pipe to the ejector was put back, my brother and I fussed with our phones for a bit, so that we could communicate while he headed out to the ejector, then let me know to turn the pump on. We were able to make a video call, so when the time came, he had his phone set up so I could see the ejector.
The water flowing out of there was amazing! I’ve never seen it pushed out that far before (if I did when I was a child, I have no memory of it).
There was one odd thing about it, though. Instead of being pushed out in a steady stream, the bottom of the stream sprayed downwards, getting the stack pipe wet. My brother also saw water coming up from under the cap, which means the stack pipe was full, when it should have been drained by the venturi valve once water started to flow.
In the end, my brother found a piece of pipe he cut to create a little extender on the elbow piece.
He then dug around the barn and found bits and pieces to build a wind shelter around the ejector.
There’s a 1″ thick piece of rebar he hammered into the frozen ground to secure it, so the wind shouldn’t blow it away.
That rotten old sawhorse my brother dug out of the snow has sure come in handy!
All of this took at least a couple of hours, but we now have a working ejector again! No more emergency bypass draining the tank into the back yard!
The bypass is still there, though. I told my brother to leave it. I’ll take it out, put everything away and seal that opening up again, in the spring.
Then, before he left, my brother took care of a couple of other things, as well as going into their stored items.
Then he brought over one of his taller ladders.
Yup. He climbed up onto the roof to check the vent. The one warm day my daughters could have done it, one of them was in the city with me. The next day was the storm.
After clearing the area of snow, my brother ended up bringing a chimney sweep that’s stored in the barn to see if it was blocked. The non-sweep side could fit into the vent – and yes, it was quite blocked! I had a jug of hot water that he poured in, and the one jug was enough to clear it.
Meanwhile, I’d filled a sink with hot water to drain, so we could check if all was well.
All was well in the vent.
Not in the drain pipes!
The sink started to drain fine at first, and then it just sort of stopped. My daughter stayed in the kitchen to monitor while I went to the laundry drain.
Just in time to see the filthiest water coming out of there we’ve ever seen!
My daughter stopped the sink from draining. Thankfully, there was already a towel under the laundry drain, just in case, but it still took a while for the water to stop flowing. I was just heading out the door to tell my brother what happened when I heard something give, then gurgling as the water finally drained into the main pipe.
My brother thinks that the main problem is ice stuck in the pipe and suggested running hot water for a while. I suggested that clearing the vent knocked more gunk loose, too.
Thanks to the plumber installing the rubber connector in the pipe in the root cellar, this is something we can do ourselves. My brother had a few more things he wanted to do, plus take one last check on the pump (I had already taken care of the bypass and it was back to a pill switch trigger, instead of a manual trigger) before heading home. He told me that, as he was driving out here, he was seeing a vehicle in the ditch almost every mile of the way!
So we have had a major step forward, in that our septic system is up and running properly now – in fact, better than when we first moved here, thanks to getting that rag out of the back valve!
We had another step forward with my brother getting the ice out of the vent.
There’s just one step back, as our drain seems to be clogged again. We can use the kitchen sink, but it doesn’t take long before we can hear water backing up into the laundry drain.
That’s a job for this evening.
If all goes well, by the end of the day, we’ll be able to hook the washing machine discharge pipe into the drain again, and do laundry without running a hose out the door.
Shortly before 8am, we were at -27C/-17F with a wind chill of -39C/-38F
As I write this, it’s past 10:30am. We are still at -27C/-17F and the wind chill is -41C/-42F
It was probably about 8:30-9am when I headed outside to feed the yard cats and do a quick check around the house. I was definitely not going to do my regular rounds.
It doesn’t look like we lost any trees this time, though I did find some downed branches. Not anything to pick up now, but to be cleaned up in the spring.
With the cold, I had my hood up over my toque. To keep it from being blown off my head, I had to use the Velcro closure that goes across the mouth. I normally don’t use it, because anything over my mouth causes me to struggle to breathe, so I try to tuck it under my chin. It was cold enough that I had to sort of go back and forth; tuck my chin behind it to warm up, then out so I could breathe.
My glasses, of course, immediately fogged up, so I was also trying to see over the frames.
As I was going around the north side of the house, I have my usual paths to follow, which made it easier, except… well… I couldn’t really see much.
The next thing I knew, I’d tripped and was on the ground.
Thankfully, I was not injured, but this was a real problem. My knees are shot. Getting back up again is very difficult, even the few times I’ve tripped and fallen in the summer. Compounding the problem is the snow. There isn’t a lot of it, and it’s only half-packed. So I’d manage to get myself onto one knee (trying one, then the other, to figure out which one I could actually use) brace my hand onto the ground to push myself up, and the snow would give out. Next thing I know, my hand is lower than my knee, and I’ve pitched myself back into the snow again.
I actually fell three time, twice while trying to get up.
Of course, I cried out as I fell, but no one inside could hear me. After much struggling, I did manage to get up, but for a while, there was a real concern that I wouldn’t be able to, without help. Meanwhile, my phone was in my pants pocket instead of my jacket pocket, where I couldn’t get at it while lying on the ground.
In these temperatures, this was a very dangerous situation.
For the next while, as we continue to have these extreme temperatures, one of the girls will be coming with me when I do my rounds, just to be on the safe side. We’ve got two more days of this before it starts to slowly warm up again.
Meanwhile, I’m fortunate in that I just seemed to have slightly pulled some muscles. My neck and left side of my body is a bit stiff.
The girls have been plying me with tea and sustenance, so I don’t have to move around too much. I’d already taken painkillers before I’d gone outside, but I might need to take some more. I don’t think I need the prescription painkillers, though. Those are “take as needed”, but only once a day, and I save them for before bed, so I can get some pain-free sleep.
This could have gotten really bad. Thank God it didn’t!
The Re-Farmer
addendum: I just got a call from my brother. He’s on the way over right now, to switch the pipes on the septic pump! In this weather! Apparently, next weekend doesn’t work for him, so he’s coming out now. Hopefully, the roads will be clear!
… that I convinced my mother to do her errands yesterday, and not today.
The high for today was forecast to be -4C/25F – with a blizzard warning. During the night, I’d checked the weather and we had actually reached -1C/30F at 4am.
It has been dropping steadily, since then.
Temperature-wise, we’re still at a mild -11C/12F as I write this. The wind chill, however is -32C/-26F
This is what it was like when I did my short rounds this morning. (scroll through the slideshow to see a brief video)
The usual bunch is warm and cozy in the isolation shelter. In the next image, the older and more feral cats were taking shelter in various places. The water bowl shelter is more sheltered from the wind than the kibble shelter, though under the kibble shelter, which has a sheet of rigid foam insulation on the ground, plus another under the shelter floor, was a popular spot. The plastic wrapped catio was also being used, as well as the old dog house. When we get a chance, we need to open the roof and check on the heat bulb in there, as I don’t think it’s working anymore. Usually, there is melted snow on the roof above where the bulb is, and there isn’t any, even when we had the warmer days.
The sun room, however, is a very busy place. Looking out the bathroom window, not long ago, I counted 21 cats that I could see. There may have been more in corners we can’t see through the window. The thermometer on the wall was reading 0C/32F, which is likely reading on the cold side, as it’s on an exterior wall and between windows, one of which is a single pane instead of double pain.
In the video, you get some idea of how windy it was, in general. I wasn’t able to catch some of the more severe gusts, and wasn’t about to hang out outside for it! We were getting warnings of 70km/43m winds, with gusts up to 100km/62m As I write this, however were are down to 42km/26m winds.
When I got inside and started checking my local groups on FB, I found it had just exploded with posts from people describing terrible road conditions, and telling people to please stay home. Some had just arrived at their destinations. At least one described starting out, then turning around and going home, because they simply couldn’t see the road.
Soon after, one of the weather groups started posting about highway closures. Some, just sections were closed, but one highway was closed entirely.
For us, we are pretty sheltered from the winds coming from the north-northwest, and we didn’t get a lot of snow. Our odd climate bubble seems to have protected us again. We still have high winds, of course, and I even saw the sun come out briefly, a few minutes ago.
As always, when we have high winds, we are watching the trees. Especially the spruce grove, with all those dead trees. With the wind direction, though, if any do come down, they will fall away from the house. There’s really just one that is a threat to the house itself.
If my mother had gotten me to come today to help with her shopping, as she had wanted to originally, I would have had to cancel, and she would have been stuck. She is just a couple of blocks from the grocery store, though, and they do deliver, so she would have been okay for food. The pharmacy only delivers medications, though, so she could not have gotten her shopping there.
Speaking of which, I’m glad my husband’s prescription refills were delivered yesterday, too!
So we get to stay home and hibernate for the next few days. The temperatures will continue to drop, but will start warming up again next week – just in time for my daughter’s follow up doctor’s appointment!
In other things…
Yesterday morning, I’d poured more of the calcium chloride into the ejector’s venturi pipe, as my brother requested. It never filled, which means it was draining at the bottom. The level in the stack pipe did rise, but not very much. In talking to him about it, we figured that, if everything was thawed out, the fluid could possibly back up into the main pipe to the house.
Yesterday evening, after I got home from doing my mother’s shopping, I went into the basement.
I found a puddle of water on the floor, near the septic pump.
This was good news!
I checked around the pump itself, of course. The pipes and connectors were all dry. The puddle had already started to dry, so it had been there for some hours, and the only other place I found moisture was under the pump itself.
Directly under the loose and open outflow pipe to the ejector.
I found a container that I could fit under it, even though it is unlikely to happen again, but this was a really positive thing. It means that the ejector is now completely thawed out, and the the main pipe to the house is clear. The pipe itself has a slope to it, so it would always drain away from the house. Pouring in the ice melter was just enough to push the water that would always be in the pipe, back up into the basement a bit.
Which means we could set the pump up to the ejector again!
My brother was talking about coming out this weekend to do that, weather willing.
Today, I told him, don’t even think about it! We can stay with the emergency diverter for another week. Next weekend is supposed to be much better. Thankfully, he is able to work from home today, too, so no commuting in this storm! They got hit harder than we did.
Wow. I was just going over this post, looking for typos, when my phone started screaming at me. Our province just issued an emergency alert for hazardous road conditions, high winds and blizzard like conditions. They are asking people in the south or our province to avoid driving, conditions are worsening, visibility is near zero, and multiple highways are closed.
We are further north than the warning area, though.
Today didn’t go above freezing, like yesterday, but it did reach a high of -3C/27F, which is absolutely gorgeous for this time of year . We need to take advantage of it while we can, though. Tomorrow, we’re supposed to have the same high of the day, and then it’s supposed to drop to a high of -23C/-9F the next day! We’re supposed to keep getting colder for a couple more days before things start warming up to above -20C/-4F again.
With that on the horizon, when my mother called yesterday about getting help with her shopping, I was already planning to call her to arrange doing it today. My mother, after telling me her fridge is sooo empty, tried to have it on Friday, because there is a social event in her building on Thursdays. I reminded her, I’m doing her shopping for her. She isn’t coming along, so she can still go visit with her neighbours! I just didn’t want her to be with an empty fridge any longer than necessary.
So that was worked out.
Before I headed out this morning, I had a little extra to do during my morning rounds.
It was time to put some pretty collars on some cats!
Here, from left to right, Colin, Judgement and Stinky are sporting their handsome new necklaces. These are not only brightly colours, but have rows of reflective strands in them. I was also able to get one on Gouda, and Nosey showed up towards the end and got one.
This is Gouda’s old collar, that showed up in the sun room after he lost it, as other cats were dragging it around and playing with it.
This colour also has the rows of reflective strands in, though with the collar being scratched until it frayed like this, I doubt they could be seen! The breakaway collar is still there, but the loop of collar on one end had come undone. This has happened before. These are the collars I’ve been able to find at the local dollar store. I still have one like it left that got buried. I just need to remove the bell and adjust the length before I add it to the others.
These are all the prepared collars. Since the yard cats earn their keep by hunting rodents for us, all the bells get removed, first. The ones on the bottom are the ones I found at the local dollar store. The bells on those ones need a pair of pliers to removed them, as the bells are on a ring that goes around the fabric of the collar. The new reflective ones have D rings for the bells. Plus, the rings the bells were on were the kind with overlapping ends, so they could be slid off like a key ring.
I’m keeping all the bells. Eventually, I plan to crochet a bunch of cat toys and will include the bells inside them.
We have one spay and one neuter booked through the rescue at the end of the month. I plan to bring a couple of collars along for the clinic to put on them while they are still under. Much easier than trying to get a collar on a mostly feral cat.
Meaning Brussel, the gorgeous fluffy calico with four boys hanging around.
Yes, she has gone into heat.
In the middle of January.
If we can’t catch her, she would be having kittens at the end of February. Way too early. The chances of survival would be almost nil.
But, how do we catch her? I don’t want to use a trap, yet, as it’s too still too cold, and who knows which cat would actually get caught in the trap. I might be able to get her closed up in the catio – she actually went into there this morning, and I could have closed her in, but she would need a heated water bowl, and there is no power available out there. The catio itself is a mini greenhouse, plus it has two box nests, one insulated, one with insulation between it and the ground, and a food bowl. Once things are warm enough that water won’t freeze, the catio could also be used as an isolation shelter, but not yet!
Brussel is one of the more feral cats but at least she does come closer and sometimes goes into the sun room. Her sister, Sprout, sometimes comes closer to house, but runs away as soon as she sees us. Sprout it one of the most feral in the colony.
Gotta work on that lady! She would be a priority over the other females right now, if we could snag her.
Aside from bedecking cats with snazzy new necklaces (the two littles that got fixed won’t be getting theirs quite yet), the other additional task of the morning was to pour more calcium chloride into the ejector. My brother asked me to pour it into the venturi pipe first, see if that can be filled, before pouring it into the stand pipe around it.
The two jugs were on the old oil drum my brother dragged over to use as a work surface. I started with the one that had only about a quarter jug left. Once that was done, I cracked open the second one.
As my brother expected, showing that the venturi valve is, indeed, no longer frozen, the level of liquid inside the venturi pipe did not seem to increase. The level in the stand pipe did increase, slowly. What would be happening is liquid at the bottom might be draining slowly into the main pipe.
It wasn’t until I was pouring the last of the calcium chloride into the pipe that I realized I was hearing an odd sound from inside the jug.
It was slush.
The liquid ice melter, had started to freeze!
Part of this is because they were sitting on metal, which would have made the bottoms a lot colder. The other part is that, while they were sitting there, the contents separated in the cold, with the water freezing at the bottom.
After closing up the ejector and wrapping it up again, the tarp, I nestled both jugs into the black plastic, on the east side of the set up, so that they would get the most sun and warmth to thaw out.
I hope we get one extra warm day on the weekend, as I expect my brother will want to come out on Saturday to switch the pipes back on the septic pump. I would then trudge out to the ejector for when he’s ready to test it, so I can message him and let him know if it’s working or not.
If it does work, we’ll have to make a point of using lots of water so the septic pump will turn on a few times and wash out the calcium chloride. The fitting at the bottom of the ejector is brass, which might corrode if it’s exposed to it for too long.
Once all that was done, it wasn’t long before I headed out to the truck to set up the OBDII scanner and make sure it is still just the sensor triggering the check engine light. I probably don’t need to do that, but I’m paranoid about having just one vehicle available.
My husband was expecting a prescription delivery today, so I left the gate open when I headed out, and the girls made sure to keep a phone handy and be available to get the delivery.
I timed my departure for when I could pick up our favourite fried chicken and wedges for lunch at the gas station – and top up the gas tank.
One thing my mother needs to get done that I cannot do for her is get cash from the bank, and she is no longer physically up to going to the bank in person. She doesn’t have a bank card (she did get one and my brother has it for safe keeping), as she wouldn’t know how to use it, nor would she trust it, so it’s cash only. My brother, as her Power of Attorney, is the only person who can do it for her. I brought it up with my brother, at her request, to see if there was some way to include me in the PoA (I do NOT want to be PoA at all!). He will have to take a day off work and make an appointment with our mother at the bank to work things out, and has no idea when he’ll be able to do that. Hopefully, some workaround be found.
We’ll figure it out.
After my mother and I had our lunch together, we went over her list and then I went to the pharmacy and the grocery store for her. I got back just in time for the social worker from the senior’s centre to arrive and start setting up their weekly event. I was able to get everything unloaded and put away, before starting time, so that worked out quite well.
My daughters, meanwhile, were also taking advantage of the warm day and have set up the laundry. No one has had a chance to climb onto the roof and check the vent yet (they climb through a window upstairs, rather than use a ladder, as it’s safer that way), so we’ve got the hose running out the door again. Since it’s going to be set up, anyhow, I’ll also take advantage of it and find things to wash. It may be warmer right now, but we still need to make sure to bring the hose in as soon as possible, before any remaining water starts to freeze, or the plastic starts to get brittle and crack.
One of these days, we’ll be able to do laundry like normal people again. 😄😄
Getting all this stuff done during the few warm days we have right now is a lot like “making hay while the sun shines” in the summer! We’re going to be hit with the bitter cold again, soon enough.
I can’t complain, though. For all that we are getting these cold spells, it’s really been a fairly mild winter. Not as mild as last year’s El Nińo winter, but still much nicer than the first few winters we had after moving here!
What the heck???
I just checked my computer’s weather app.
We are now under a blizzard warning.
We were expecting a couple of hours with snow this evening, then more in the wee hours of the morning, but this is the first blizzard warning I’m seeing! With winds up to 70km/h (43mph), they’re now saying. Looking at the weather radar, it seems that most of the system will pass to the north of us.
Mind you, the same weather app is saying the snow has already started where we are, and I see no snow falling at all, outside my window. So maybe our weird climate bubble is doing its thing again.
As I write this, our temperature is still a balmy -4C/25F, though the windchill is at -15C/5C. Still not too bad right now. We shall see!
At least the yard babies have plenty of food, water and shelter.
Normally, I’d be saying “this is what $X looks like, but I don’t have the photos, this time!
Today, my daughter and I were going to make a trip into town and then, if the truck was behaving, a trip to the nearer city to go to Walmart and Canadian Tire.
My daughter needed to go to town first, and take care of some paperwork at the pharmacy. It was coming up on noon by the time she was done, and neither of us had had breakfast, so we had lunch in town, too.
As our shopping lists had grown, my daughter suggested we just go to the larger city, instead. The nearer Walmart is pretty small and the selection isn’t as good. We decided it was worth the extra drive and did that, instead.
Our first stop in the city was the Canadian Tire, where I picked up a couple of bags of litter pellets.
It was a very dangerous trip for me.
The seed displays are up, and the garden supplies are being set up!
Including a portable greenhouse I’ve been eyeballing for a while now, that was at 52% off. I really didn’t have the budget for it yet, though. I did find a replacement snow brush for the one I broke trying to knock ice away from the tires on the truck a while back. It was on clearance, so I was able to get a much better quality one this time.
Total spent at Canadian Tire, after taxes, was $29.09
From there, we went to the Walmart. I wanted to pick up a bit more cat food and some fresh produce, plus my husband had his own shopping list on a different budget. I didn’t get a picture of the cart, as his stuff was in there, plus I shared the cart with my daughter and her own shopping. Here is the receipt, though.
I got a 32 pack of wet cat food, plus a large back of kibble, which was on my list. The inside cats don’t like the feed store kibble, so I got them this, and the feed store kibble will be for the outside cats.
I remembered to grab a package of regular facial tissues, plus a couple of square packages for the truck that fit in the console between the front seats.
Not on the list was a 24 pack of Cream of Mushroom soup that was on sale for 77¢ each. They are usually almost double that price.
We were almost out of Basmati rice, which is what my husband likes. Normally, we get that at Costco, but I picked up an 8lb bag here. Hopefully, it is a good brand.
There are carrots, which were on sales, a 2L of 3% milk, a couple of pounds of salted butter, mushrooms and bananas. I also picked up some bouillon cubes – vegetable, chicken and mushroom – and a cannister of beef bouillon powder.
I grabbed a couple of bags of pasta that was on sale, and a package of frozen fish filets for the girls. I also got a couple of blocks of cheese that are 2/$12, plus a block of lactose free cheese for the girls.
Aside from a donation, that was it. $200.25 after taxes.
I had intended to get more fresh produce and maybe some meat, but most of it just didn’t look all that good. My daughter was also not able to find some of what was on her list, so we decided to hit the international grocery store for the rest.
Which turned out to be much more productive, with a lot of sales, plus loyalty card bonuses.
Thankfully, I was able to take advantage of it.
This is what $203.03 after taxes looks like.
Along with the sale prices, this week had an extra 20% off all produce as a loyalty card bonus.
Oops. I just realized the top item is cropped off. That’s avocados. Also on the produce bonus sale were blueberries – I got 4 clamshells of those – celery, bagged salads (I got 4 bags each of 3 different types), both red and green grapes, a 10 lb bag of Russet potatoes and a couple of yams.
I got chicken legs and thighs, plus two packages of ground turkey, which were all 25% off. I also got some pork chops and locally produced smoked bacon slab. I also remembered to get some onion soup mix that I forgot to get at Walmart.
Among the non-food items, my daughter found some hair oil for me to try, as the oil I usually use it getting way too expensive. We also remembered to grab some wet wipes for the truck, on finding ourselves finishing off the container we had, just today. I like to keep wet wipes in our vehicles. They come in very handy!
As the day was getting long, I decided to pick up food for supper. For the girls, I could a couple of trays of sushi, and a couple of Chinese food dinners for my husband and I. Then I spotted a display of Bento meals, so I got one of those for myself, so that my husband could have the other two meals. Last of all, I got a drink for the drive home, as I was feeling pretty dehydrated.
In the end, I ended up saving $74.41 with the double sale prices, and instead of what would have been 200 points, I got 4,900 points. I like to save these up for around Christmas, as I can usually get a free turkey or two with them.
Aside from that, we got $30 in fuel before we left town for the city. While in the city, I saw the gas prices were quite a bit better, so I got a fill that ended up costing $28 and change.
So, altogether, this stock up trip ended up costing $432.37, plus about $58 in fuel.
The fridge is very full right now!
We definitely got a lot more for our money at the international grocery store than the Walmart, so I’m glad we ended up making the trip into the city. It was pure chance that we got these double sales, and today was the last day for them, too.
My daughter had her own shopping list for herself and her sister. One of the things they picked up was their favourite sushi rice.
Which they now use the Instant Pot to cook, regularly!
I’m so glad they are enjoying their early Christmas present, and actually finding it useful! 😊
Today has definitely been a good day. With all the bad days we’ve been having lately, with things breaking down or freezing or flooding or… I am extra grateful for the good ones we get!
Today was expected to be a warm on, though the forecast kept changing when it came to what our high was supposed to be. In the end, it was a glorious 3C/37F! It’s past 6:30pm as I start this, and we are still at 1C/34F It is so awesome!
Things had warmed up pretty constantly overnight, so while I was doing my morning rounds, I was able to check on the frozen ejector. My brother had brought over one of his tarps to cover it, but until this morning, I hadn’t seen just how long it was! It took a while to get it off, and I made sure to lay it out on the snow, so that I could fold it in half (black side out) for later.
After very carefully removing the elbow and cap, the first thing I saw was that the venturi pipe – the discharge pipe – inside the 4″ stand pipe was loose and could move around. My brother and I left a length of copper pipe nearby, supported by a fence post and a tree, so it couldn’t freeze in the snow, that I used to see how far down the ice was. I was able to get the copper pipe its entire length in, and never hit ice! It was the same inside the venturi pipe. I was extra careful while doing this, as the last thing I needed to do was drop the thing! It’s a few feet shorter than the height of the stand pipe, so if that hadn’t, I would not have been able to get it out again.
As for the venturi pipe, while I could wiggle it around, it was still solid at the bottom. That could have just been the venturi valve properly seated at the bottom, but I wasn’t about to force it out to find out.
This is very encouraging, though, and a very pleasant surprise. I was expecting it to still be frozen a few feet down. We might be able to hook things up to the pump again soon!
For now, I left it as it as it was and covered it back up again, tying the tarp around itself so the wind won’t blow it off. I didn’t add more of the liquid ice melter. I updated my brother about it and he did ask me to add a bit more, but I will do that tomorrow, as we were out most of today.
That was my first surprise – just how well that stuff worked!
My second surprise happened when I went to check on the truck and do a scan.
We have not been able to do much about clearing and organizing the garage since moving here. Among the things we will need to deal with are various long items stored in the rafters.
The yard cats like to go up into the rafters and use them to move around. There are shelves they climb to get up there, so I sometimes find things they’ve knocked down in the process.
This morning, I found a bundle of scrap molding and whatnot, on the ground beside the truck, along with a board. These had been in the rafters.
The first thing I did was check the truck for damage, but it seems it was missed completely!
After cleaning things up, I did the OBDII scan on the truck to make sure it was still just the sensor setting off the check engine light, then fired up the compressor to top up the tires. I was checking the tire pressures still when my daughter caught up to me, so she started topping up the tires that were a bit low.
I was telling her about finding the bundle that had been in the rafters next to the truck, when I realized.
One of the more feral kitties was up there, on another bundle – one that did not look like it could be knocked down, thankfully! – watching us very closely. Thankfully, this is not one that panics and dashes awake, leaving a wake of destruction behind. We have others that do, and I worry that they will hurt themselves in the process! Not to mention, break things.
So that was another surprise.
Once we were done prepping the truck, my daughter and I headed out. Our first stop was the post office, where I knew we had some parcels waiting to be picked up. Two of them were not a surprise; my husband got me a new pair of boots, as the right foot on the ones I have now finally started splitting. It’s always my right foot that wrecks my shoes, first! He also picked up a siphon with a rather unique design, This is something we could use to drain some of the water in the ejector – both the stand pipe and the venturi pipe – if needed. Based on what I saw this morning, the level is going down, which means it might be draining slowly from below, but it’s hard to say for sure.
There was one large but very light box among the parcels that I wasn’t expecting – at least not so soon! The replacement hose for our washer came in. They expedited the parcel, even though I only paid for regular mail! That was really awesome of them!
There was another package that was a total surprise, though.
A whole bunch of cat collars! They have breakaway collars and are reflective. We will be able to get all sorts of cats collared up as they are fixed! Right now, Syndol is the only one that still has his collar, and his winter fur is so fluffy, you can’t even see it, even though it’s bright red. I have a bunch of collars ready to put on them. Only one of them is reflective, though, so I will likely use these, instead
I didn’t order these, by the way. There was nothing on the package to say who sent them to us. There were a couple of possibilities, and I can now send a great big thankyou to M for being so very thoughtful in sending these! M, you are awesome!
It’s so nice to have good surprises for a change, instead of all the “what is breaking down now??” surprises!
Meanwhile, my daughter and I ended up changing our plans and heading to the city today, and I ended up doing a smaller stock up trip. By the time we got back from the city, it was starting to get dark, so it was a much longer day than expected, too!
Not that we have any choice but to just run with the hits as they come.
With the main drain running from the kitchen to almost all the way to the septic cleared, we could finally do laundry without running a hose out the door to drain it. We did laundry all day before the drain was cleared, though, so it wasn’t until today that any of us needed to do laundry.
One of the things I wanted to do was run the tub clean setting, first, but we had a few extra grungy things in the washing machine, so that tiny load got done first. This new machine automatically adjusts the amount of water to the load, too, which is bonus.
The girls set the hose up before starting the load, but they can’t hear the machine from their “apartment” upstairs, so my husband and I were keeping an ear out. We didn’t hear anything unusual, but when I came out to check on things, I found water on the floor. It wasn’t flooding, as it has in the past. Enough that a few towels on the floor took care of it. I checked the drain pipe. It felt dry and I didn’t see wet underneath. The water and drain pipes are all framed with 2x4s, with cross pieces to keep things secure, and the lower one looked dry, too.
So we figured the problem was the discharge hose. It had been cat damaged in the past, and was taped up, but we figured it sprang a leak somewhere. My daughters taped it up as much as they could while I went hunting, ended up calling LG and ordering one in. It will be shipped by mail.
After taping up the discharge hose, the girls started the tub clean setting. After it ran for a while, I went out to check…
I immediately heard water splashing.
The drain pipe was overflowing around the discharge hose!
So I quickly paused the machine and threw a towel under to soak up some of the water – it’s a tight space and we can’t do much else without physically moving both the washer and dryer. The machine will automatically drain the tub when it’s paused or stopped, after a certain length of time, though – a protective feature so the weight of water doesn’t damage it – so we had to work fast. My older daughter came down to help while I started attaching the sump pump hose we use to drain the water out the storm door window. I got the hoses together, then my daughter started taping it while I started pushing the other end out the window on the door as fast as I could.
The water started draining while my daughter was still taping.
I dashed outside to straighten the hose out. With the tub clean setting, it was straight hot water. The water flowing through the hose melted a channel in the snow under it as it drained.
I didn’t fuss with it too much, though, and went back in to help my daughter finish securing the hoses together, then setting the rest up so there weren’t any lower hanging spots for water to collect.
Then we could restart the machine to finish the tub clean. I just checked on it again. The outside cats are VERY curious about the far end of the hose outside!
So while some water is going through the laundry drain pipe, it still must have a clog somewhere. I could even hear it trying to back up to the kitchen sink. The plumber worked on the pipe right near where the laundry drain reached the main drain pipe, so I know there is no clog near there. With the kitchen sinks, everything has been flowing fine.
But we still can’t drain the washing machine.
Wherever the clog is, the washing machine drains faster than the water can get past the clog.
Which has to be either in the P trap, which was replaced a couple of years ago, or in the short length of pipe from the P trap to the main drain pipe. I don’t think it’s the P trap that’s clogged, but I really don’t think it would be in the short length of pipe to the main drain pipe. Mostly because I could hear water backing up to the kitchen sink, so obviously, water it making it through to the main drain.
So why is it not only backing up and gurgling in the kitchen sink, but also overflowing the laundry drain? That’s a LOT of water to get backed up!
We’ve been diligent about following the maintenance instructions the plumber gave us, too. The pipes should be getting clearer, not clogging up.
I just don’t get it.
Meanwhile, we’re back to doing laundry with a hose out the door.
As I write this, we are at -23C/-9F with a wind chill of -29C/-20F. That wind chill has actually improved a bit but tonight we’re expected to get wind chills of -34C/-29F.
When I headed out this morning, it felt even colder. I did manage to check on the ejector, just enough to make sure the heat tape is still powered and doing its thing. I didn’t uncover it or check on how the melt is going, as I did not want to risk shattering the plastic taking off the cap and elbow in what was -35C/-31F wind chills at the time.
In a couple of days, though, I’ll probably unwrap it completely, to help it warm up! We are in for some temperature whiplash over the next while.
Yeah. We’re expected to go from -18C/0F to 2C/36F overnight. We’ll have a couple of mild days after that, then drop right back down again.
Looking at the monthly forecast, the next cold snap is supposed to last about a week, then we’ll be warming up at the end of January.
I hope it does warm up at the end of the month, because we now have two cats booked through the Cat Lady, one male one female (whichever ones we can catch). Which means we’ll have to close up the isolation shelter for 2 weeks again, keeping the other cats out.
A lot of them basically live in the cat shelter right now and hardly leave. Between the heat lamp and their body heat, it must be pretty warm in there!
Meanwhile, I’m waiting until Wednesday, when it’s supposed to go above freezing, to do any driving around and some errands.
I am getting really tired of this cold – and this is far from the coldest winter we’ve had since moving here! I’ve spent most of today drinking tea and eating hot soup, because this house just doesn’t really warm up in the winter.
That is -23C/-9F with a wind chill of -35C/-31F. I took this screen shot after I came inside, and it was actually colder than when I first headed out! In fact, even as I was about to take the screen shot, I saw the wind chill drop another degree.
Brutal.
I did manage to do a bit of shoveling and going around to make sure various solar panels were clear of snow. The ones for the lights in the kibble and water shelters were completely buried.
When I got to the gate to brush snow off the trail cam solar panel there, I had to get these pictures.
The photos do not do it justice. Those are the largest sundogs – rainbow or otherwise – I’ve ever seen. You can just see a hint of a complete halo.
Sundogs and halos around the sun or moon happen only in extremely cold temperatures. The stronger and brighter the sundogs, the colder the temperatures.
Needless to say, I did NOT check the ejector. I wasn’t going to uncover it and expose it to this cold. With the bright sunshine, the black tarp should absorb some heat, while protecting the heat tape around the ejector from the cold. The heat tape has all sorts of safety features to keep it from overheating, and is just warm enough to keep pipes from freezing. It wouldn’t take much for temperatures and wind chills like this to basically negate anything it’s accomplishing. I’ll see what the conditions are like this afternoon and decide if it is worth slogging out there to uncover it and check things. We’re only supposed to warm up another degree for the high of the day, but if the wind chill drops, that will make the difference.
On a completely different note, today the girls tested out the Instant Pot with rice for the first time. All the recipes and instructions are for Jasmine or Basmati rice. The rice they prefer is a sushi type rice that usually needs to soak in cold water for half an hour before cooking. I got them an Instant Pot cookbook and they looked at various rice recipes, but the chart that came with the Instant Pot said for 4 minutes for all plain white rice (longer for brown rice). They went with 4 minutes, and it seems to have worked fine.
Once they were done with it, I tried it out myself for the first time, to make a beef stew. I found a basic recipe, though I had to substitute a couple of things – carrots for rutabaga, for example.
The cookbook then said to set the pot to manual for 18 minutes.
Our model of Instant Pot doesn’t have a “manual” setting. It does have a rice setting, which put the time at 12 minutes. It has a meat/stew setting that put it at 35 minutes.
We both used the “pressure cook” setting, which seems to be the equivalent for “manual” on our machine, as it allowed us to select heat levels and time ourselves. The stew is cooking as I write this – oh! it just started beeping! – so we shall see how it turns out.
It smells amazing, that’s for sure!
Time to see if I can have myself a nice hot bowl of stew on this cold, cold day!
We also had no way of knowing how or why we were wrong!
My brother, saint that he is, came out today to work on both the frozen ejector and the septic pump problem.
My SIL dropped him off, as he would be taking their car that they loaned us, back. The first thing he did was head to the ejector – he was here for an hour before we even saw him! He set up a low power heater around the ejector and covered the whole thing with a tarp to hold what little heat there was.
When I came out to join him, I was surprised by how much is was snowing. There had been no snow at all when I did the morning rounds and opened the gate for them. We ended up having what felt like a light snow, though it was actually heavier than it seamed, it was so calm out, the whole time.
He had spent yesterday evening running around all over the city, looking for the parts and pieces he needed for the septic pump. With the water leaking out of the filter, he concluded that the back valve was leaking. The pictures he asked me to take and sent to him helped a lot, as he couldn’t quite remember the details on the pump.
Once he did as much as he could around the frozen ejector, I helped him bring in his tools and supplies into the basement.
He came well prepared. A habit he got into when he would come here to fix things for our late father, because all Dad’s tools were scattered all over, or “borrowed” by our vandal.
First, I need to explain what we were wrong about.
When we first started having issues, I was thinking the pump itself was the problem. I thought it was about 20 years old and, which all the plumbing issues we had and with it running dry for way too long at times, I was thinking it was wearing out. It was even starting to sound worse.
I was wrong.
My brother replaced the pump only about 10 years ago, got the best pump available at the time, and he had full confidence in it.
The company that installed the ejector also thought it was the pump, with not enough pressure going through the venturi valve, causing the ejector to freeze.
He was… partially right. There was low flow, so low pressure, but it wasn’t because of the pump.
Other thoughts from various people, including me:
– that there was an air leak somewhere in the pipes from the tank to the pump. – the O ring was failing – the pipe from the house to the ejector was starting to get filled with gunk – gunk from inside the pipe to the ejector was breaking loose and clogging the venturi valve – the ground around the venturi valve was too saturated (which may still have been a contributing factor)
While it sounds like we’re talking about two problems – the frozen ejector and the septic pump problems – once we set up the emergency diverter, we got more of a sense that the problem around the pump lead to the ejector freezing. Thawing the ejector is its own problem.
With the water draining out of the filter, my brother conclude that the back valve was broken and wanted to replace it.
He was half right.
He was going to replace a whole section of connectors and a bit of pipe, removing the original back valve completely, and installing a new one, in line.
I’ve actually uploaded a bunch of short videos, because photos could not do it justice. Here is the first one. Here, the section of pipe and elbow connectors has been removed, but not the back valve.
That is a BIG chunk of fabric! The fact that the pump worked at all with that in there is amazing!
With that filter installed after we moved here, we know it had to have happened before then. I don’t know when the other filter was finally removed, because it never worked. My guess is the fabric got into the pipes somewhere in that time between filters.
The only way I can think of how that got into the system is either by getting flushed down the toilet somehow, or it fell into the tank at some point when the lid was open.
It could well have taken years to get sucked into the pipe and work its way through all the elbow connectors. There are three on either side of the filter, and even when there was just a straight pipe before this filter was installed, the elbows were still there.
Then, once it got through the pipe, it got forced through the valve, where it could go no further.
Upon removing the fabric, my brother looked over the valve, and it was undamaged.
So he just put everything back together as it was, with fresh Teflon tape on the threads.
One of the other things he did was set up the switch by-pass. Right now, we have a switch on the wall to turn the pump on and off manually – but the pump won’t run unless the pill switch in the tank is high enough to trigger it. He’d set up the wiring before, but they were tucked behind the switch plate. He set the wires to they were now outside (after I turned the breaker off, of course) and connected them, so that when the switch was turned on, the pump would run immediately.
Before starting work on the pump, he ran it to drain the tank. It had run not that long before, so there wasn’t much in there, but he wanted to make sure it was empty before he started taking off pipes and draining what water was inside the pump itself. He was going to need to test it again later, so we had to run water for quite a while, just so he could have something in there to test the pump with, once everything was back together.
It takes a long time to fill that tank.
Eventually, though, we got it to the point where he could turn the pump on and test it out.
At the very end, you can see a sudden change in the flow. That’s when the tank was empty and the pump had to be shut off immediately.
What a thing of beauty. Everything was flowing well – just like when it was installed!
Which makes me think that piece of fabric was stuck flat against the inside of a section of pipe somewhere between the filter and the pump, because that filter and pump were working great at the start, and for quite some time after.
We’ve had other problems with the system that, in retrospect, were probably caused by that piece of fabric moving down the pipes a bit further, then a bit further, then a bit further.
There was absolutely no way anyone could have known.
Oh! I just heard the septic pump turn on as I write this. I’d checked the filter earlier, and it was completely full, and I know it’s pumping fine and faster than it has in probably years!
The only down side is the vibrate-y noises from where the emergency diverter makes contact with things.
Wow. The pump just turned off. That took less than two minutes, easily!
What an excellent pump.
I am so happy to be wrong about that pump!
Once that was done, my brother disengaged the bypass, so the pump would only turn on when triggered by the pill switch. My brother wanted to test it again, but it would take a while I left a tap running in the old laundry sink, next to the pump, but I made sure the rest of the family knew to use water, flush toilets, take showers, to fill that tank enough to test it again.
Then, it was time to head outside and work on the ejector.
In the first photo, you can see the fluid level is quite high, because my brother had poured in about half a jug of liquid ice melter – calcium chloride. This won’t damage the plastic pipes, but there is a brass fitting at the bottom that could potentially get corroded, but that would likely take a long time. Once things are thawed out, we can hook the pipe back on and anything down there will get flushed away when the pump sends fluid through.
In the next photo, my brother is using the heat gun on the copper pipe to try and get the ice inside the venturi pipe – the discharge pipe – thawed more. It had been frozen to the top before. When we got there and my brother started this, it was down about 2 inches. By the time we stopped, it was down about 4 or 5 inches.
We spent quite a bit of time out there in the falling snow, using the heat gun and the copper pipe and the calcium chloride to get more of it melted down. There was no way it was going to be thawed out completely, though.
For that, we used the heat tape that came in the mail yesterday. That’s the blue you can see in the third image. The glass tape that game with it wouldn’t stick, buy my brother brought electric tape that he kept in a pocket inside his jacket to keep it warm, and that worked. We ended up using the heat tape box to hold the sheet of metal roof out of the way, as it rests right against the pipe. Being frozen to the ground and covered in snow and ice, we can’t move it away. My brother dug through his tools in the barn and found something to bend it back.
The cap and elbow were put back on the ejector, but only loosely. We want to be able to pop them off easily to check on how it’s melting.
My brother did some scrounging and dug an old, rotten saw horse out of the snow to put over the ejector. This would keep the tarp from having contact with the ejector itself. The last thing we want is for it to snap off the elbow or something in the wind.
Last of all, the tarp was wrapped around the whole thing – black side out to absorb warmth from the sun (whenever we get sun next) and tied off a bit. If we get high winds from the south, it might still get blown off, but it can’t be tied down too tightly, or I’ll have trouble checking on it.
All of this took quite some time, with a few trips to the barn or the garage, etc. to find things we needed. At one point, I needed to go into the house. As I was leaving, I caught a light whiff of septic, so I went around to check on the outflow pipe.
The septic pump must have just shut itself off by the time I got there. I could immediately see a whole lot more snow had been washed away. In some areas, the flow goes under the snow, creating gaps in the snow above in places. While there was no water coming out of the outflow pipe, I could see through one of the gaps, water that was flowing fast. The pump was definitely working well!
Before he left, my brother checked the pump in the basement one more time – the filter was full to the top and the filter basket was floating, just like it should be – then checked the outflow pipe. He was surprised by the direction the water was flowing, but I wasn’t. There’s a reason I have a retaining wall at that end of the old kitchen garden!
Now that this is fixed, and we’ve had the clogged drained fixed, we need to use our water. Especially in the kitchen and laundry. We still need to set the washing machine drain hose back into the pipe – no one has needed to do laundry yet – and I plan to do a machine clean cycle. That uses straight hot water. We’re also going to keep up the drain maintenance routine we’ve already started, plus what the plumber recommended we do with the kitchen sinks every few days. Last night, I even flushed out the access pipe to the septic tank in the old basement floor with the hose, to make sure that second bottleneck was still clear. Having the laundry draining into the septic again should actually help keep that clear, too.
By the time my brother left, he’d been here about four hours, with a brief stop for lunch, working on all this!
My brother is allergic to cats, so I had lunch with him in his car.
Meanwhile, he can return all the parts and pieces he never needed to use, and get his money back!
We’re still blown away by finding that piece of fabric stuck in the valve. So utterly unexpected.
The fact that nothing was damaged by it is pretty amazing, too.
So we were all wrong about what was going on, and that’s just fine! With some of the possible causes, this is one of the easiest fixes there could have been.
As for the frozen ejector, it’s hard to say how long it will take for the calcium chloride to work its way down to the bottom. Then my brother will need to come back and switch the pipes so we can test it out and, hopefully, be able to leave it.
We might not be using the emergency diverter all winter, after all!
