He took it for a drive, and it ran fine. No noise. Nothing.
He put it on a lift and checked it out.
No damage. Everything is as it should be.
Now, this should be good news, but I don’t understand. I told him how, just driving from the grocery store parking lot, across the road from the garage, back to his parking lot, it was knocking and shuddering so badly, I didn’t think we’d make it home. How can there be nothing, now? It’s been sitting in front of his garage since Saturday evening. What could possibly have changed?
He’s really busy, and he’s the only person in the garage, so he asked if I could leave it another day. He’ll see if letting it warm up will make a difference, and will take it for another drive when he can. So I will leave it until then.
The girls and I made a push to finish tonight and, as I write this, we now have two very pregnant cats in the new “maternity ward”.
Before we hauled out all the stuff waiting by the stairs, my daughters and I went rifling through a shed and the barn to see what we could find to use as doors.
First, we went into the shed, where I knew there were some doors that might work. We decided against them, but found some decent wood in a corner. We found a couple more pieces in the barn.
With the trellis wire left over from covering the counter opening to the unfinished bar, we figured we could build a mesh door to size.
I also started to bring some of my tools down. I’m so excited to be able to do that!!!
While in the barn, we found these.
They are actually plastic windows. They were wide enough to fit over the opening into the unfinished bar – there’s space at the top, but the cats won’t be able to get up there.
They almost fit over the opening to the old basement, but that wider part on the bottom couldn’t be covered.
My thought had been to build the wire mesh door for the bar opening, which would have allowed us to make a hinged door (except we didn’t have any hinges handy). With using one of these windows instead, hinges couldn’t be attached, anyhow.
So I found some cup holder hooks and Bungee cords. The idea was to have a pair of Bungee cords holding the window pane in place. That didn’t work out exactly as planned, as we only had one Bungee cord that was the right size.
We made do. You’ll see how in the next photo. :-D
After bringing the stuff to make doors down, the girls and I hauled out what needed to be gotten rid of. We now have an awful mess outside our main door, but cleaning that up will have to wait until the weather improves. Plus, finished the basement was the priority.
The girls started working on building the frame for the wall opening while I started cleaned the window panes, then started cleaning up the area by the stairs.
When it was time to screw the frame together, the girls couldn’t find any usable screws in any of the buckets and miscellaneous containers we kept. There were just nails.
So we ended up using the deck screws I’d taken out from the barn doors, after our vandal had boarded them up.
I’m still giggling about the irony of that.
Once the frame was screwed together, the mesh was stapled into place in two overlapping pieces. There was a possibility of a cat getting through at the overlap, though. My daughter managed to find a couple of shorter screws and we put a cross piece on the mesh side of the frame at the overlap. The overlapping parts of the mesh were then stapled to the cross piece. This closed the potential gap, strengthened the frame, and it can even serve as a “handle” on one side.
Here is how they look now.
The frame ended up working better in the old basement side of the wall. It’s braced on one side by a table, and a Bungee cord attached to one of the cup hooks is keeping the other side in place. To get through, we can unhook the cord, then slide the door to one side.
As for the window-door, until I can find another cord the same length as the red one, we’ve got a longer one diagonally, just to keep the window pane from potentially flipping over. The extra window pane is now stored in the old bar. Who knows. It might come in handy for something else.
The fun part is, we’re already using the basement as a workshop!
I’m so excited! :-D
One of my daughters took over cleaning while I found and brought more tools down, then helped finish the frame. She even mopped the rest of the floor.
I can’t even think of when this floor was ever mopped, other than parts of it at times like when my brother found the water damage shortly before we moved in and had to scrub away mold and bleach the floor and walls in the corner.
Here is how it looks now at that end.
We have set up cat beds under chairs and the old phonograph. A flattened box is there to act as a rug, and we brought in the litter box that was in the sun room, since the outside cats don’t need to use it anymore.
And here’s the rest of it!
We set up food and water bowls at the far end, nearer the stairs.
When I went into the sun room to get the litter box, Beep Beep was in there, curled up on the swing bench. That was encouraging, since we would be getting her soon. Then Big Jim came out.
He had blood all over one side of his head!
It looked like it was coming from an ear, an injury that was most definitely not there this morning. The poor thing! The blood was dry, so whatever happened, it was no longer bleeding, at least, and it didn’t seem to be bothering him. He sure wanted pets, though!
After setting up the litter pan, food and water, one of my daughters and I went outside with some cat treats. I scattered some both inside the sun room, where Beep Beep and Big Jim still were, and in the outside food bowls.
Creamsicle and Potato Beetle were quick to come for treats, and I was very pleased to see Butterscotch waddling her way over, too. We let them eat for a bit, then tried to get the mamas in.
Beep Beep was more cooperative. She jumped out of my arms as soon as I got inside, but I’d managed to open the door to the basement, first, and that’s where she made her escape to – exactly where I wanted her to be.
Butterscotch was much less cooperative.
My daughter was eventually able to pick her up, and I was manning the doors so she could get Butterscotch inside, and into the basement, at almost the same time.
Butterscotch did NOT want to go down the stairs!
It took some persuading and gentle wrangling by my daughter to get her down enough stairs that I could close the door. Then she went back to the top step, essentially trapping my daughter in the basement.
Beep Beep, meanwhile, had already settled herself in front of the chalk board at the other end of the basement.
My daughter spend the next while trying to coax Butterscotch down the stairs. When she did get to the bottom, she immediately hid in a shelf under the stairs. My daughter brought one of the cat beds, placed inside a crate to make a “nest”, and put it beside where Butterscotch was hiding. This way, we hope she’ll find the nice, soft bed and a more enclosed area she will feel safer in.
And hopefully have her kittens in.
We will now have to add going downstairs to our cat care routine. It should be interesting to see how much of a challenge it will be to keep the mamas downstairs, and the other cats upstairs. Eventually, I want to have the litter boxes for all the cats downstairs, which will mean having the door to the new part basement open all the time. That’s not going to happen while the mamas are down there, for a while.
I hope they feel comfortable and safe down there, soon!
Okay, not completely done, because there are still weird things all over the place, but that can be taken care of slowly over time, even after we’ve set up for cats. So, done enough!
I decided to make use of the remaining shelves of the plastic shelving units I got for the old part basement, with its too low ceiling.
For where I wanted to put them, I had to make an even bigger mess.
It kinda looks like the room exploded. :-/ But, it had to be done!
Here is the final result for the shelves and counters against the old basement wall.
The plastic shelf on the yellow counter will help brace the rigid insulation that’s blocking the old window. There is a heat duct on the other side. It doesn’t even reach into the window, but just has an opening facing it, but there’s enough air pressure to push against the sheet of insulation. I’ve pokes holes in it to let more air through, but having the shelf against it will ensure it can’t be pushed off.
The counter top of the yellow shelf is sagging, and I needed to get the back legs of the plastic shelf as far back as I could, so I ended up laying some boards I salvaged from around the basement, leveled with pieces of floor tiles (those old floor tiles are coming in incredibly handy!)
In the process of working in this area, I checked out the cupboard under the other shelf. I’d only looked at the other half while working here before, and wanted to see if there were more things we needed to haul out.
I found three more motors.
Why are there so many motors??? Counting the ones already moved to the barn, we’ve found more than a dozen motors, scattered about!
At this point, I think we’re just going to leave them in the basement for now, instead of hauling them up the stairs and to the barn. It’s not like the cats can really do anything to them, and they can be hauled out later in the year.
That was just one area that I didn’t expect to have to go so far into. I also cleared out the area were we’d put the van’s original door. There was a whole bunch of stuff behind the old radio, and a sheet of plywood leaning against the old basement wall with more stuff behind it, that was definitely not cat friendly.
Here you can see the part of the old basement wall that had been underground when the concrete was poured. Unfortunately, it makes for a very uneven wall, which in turn makes for gaps we’re going to have to find some way to fill.
After moving out the stuff behind the plywood, I shoved the plywood back, pushing it further behind the lilac shelf, to block off the gap behind it. There is still a gap at the top we’ll have to figure out how to cover. The old radio, meanwhile, is now right up against the plywood, I put some cardboard on it to protect the top, and tiles under the base. The car door is back, and I’ve shoved the twin sized bed frame I’d been using for some time after my husband had to start using a hospital bed.
In the process of doing all this, I found stuff, of course.
Yes!!!! I found some plumb line!
It’s not the one I remember helping my dad use, but I’m happy to have found any at all. It will be quite useful in the future, I’m sure. I made sure to tuck it into a spot that was in the open, so I can find it easily in the future.
This next find was a surprise.
I haven’t seen this since I was … probably a pre-teen! I forget which of my brother’s made it. I think it was a school project. It’s modeled on a plaster cast version still sitting in the old kitchen.
It’s a keeper!
I also moved stuff into the unfinished bar area.
It’s got a bunch of fragile things that need to be protected from the cats, substances in various bottles, jugs and cans that the cats need to be protected from, and some of the stuff we found that we want to restore at some point. All we have to do now is rig up a door to keep the cats out.
Not a lot changed in this corner; I cleaned that shelf, but don’t really have anything to put in it, now that we’ve cleared the junk out. The chairs had been stored against the wall closer to the stairs, and I moved them here to open up the space there, and so they can be used. Some things, like the remaining piece of rigid insulation, will be moved out of there, as we do the last few things before letting the cats in.
More chairs were moved around that table, and the remaining shelf from the old basement got moved in to where I’d found another sheet of plywood. There are still gaps, because of the uneven wall, that need to be filled by the opening between the basements. We now need to also rig up a door of some kind between the old and new basements.
With the very odd shape of the opening, this is not going to be easy.
After this, we have to start hauling stuff out for either barn or junk piles. Once that’s out, the area just needs a quick clean up, and a filling of old mouse holes in the shelves under the stairs, and the root cellar. Then I can take our Christmas decorations out of the root cellar and move them back into this area.
We are so close to being done! But I am so dreading hauling the stuff out. Some of it is very heavy, and others just difficult and potentially dangerous to carry up the stairs. The girls and I will have to assembly line it.
But not quite yet. They’ve been working hard cleaning on the main floor, and we all need a break right now!
There is a reason I’m paranoid about vehicles, but really???
When I was driving to town, then my mother’s, then home again, the van was doing just fine. I drove into the yard to unload, then left the van there until it was time to pick up my daughter from work. The giant puddles of water are smaller than they were, but it’s still really muddy.
In fact, I could feel the van sinking in the mud as I drove through the yard gate on the way out. There are going to be some serious ruts to try and fix when things are finally dried out.
The van seemed to have trouble in the mud, and I still felt a sort of … sluggishness… as I drove to the gate. As I went through, I found myself thinking, did I hear a noise? What was that? Hmm… not hearing anything anymore.
I left early so I could play a bit of Pokemon Go and top up the gas tank. With gas prices so low, I’ve been keeping full every chance I can.
Playing Pokemon Go means driving to different spots where I can park safely for a bit, spin some stops and catch some Pokemon. For the most part, the van seemed to be fine, but every now and then, I’d hear… something. Or the van would feel… odd. Particularly when I made a left turn into the gas station, but it didn’t seem to be there when I made a right turn to leave.
By this time, my paranoia meter was in high gear!!
It wasn’t until I was driving into the pharmacy that it really kicked in. I was making a left turn at an intersection, with an immediate left turn to get into the parking lot, so basically I was making a giant U-turn. As I was turning, there was a most definite and unequivocal knocking, and a matching vibration. Once parked, I walked around the van, trying to see what might be making the noise, but could see nothing.
When my daughter joined me and we started to leave the parking lot, the knocking noise was there, and I was starting to feel a shudder. By this time, I was able to pin it down to the front driver’s side tire area.
As we drove the next few blocks, without any turns, we could still hear the knocking, though not as much as while turning. Instead of making our usual turn to go home, I drove straight to the garage. It was closed, of course, but where else was I to go?
My daughter and I got out and tried to see what might be making the noise. No luck. So I phoned the mechanic, knowing that the business number was his cell phone. Thankfully, he answered, even though he was at home. I told him what was going on (and he remembered our vehicle). Unfortunately, he was going to be closed until Tuesday, since it’s Easter weekend. That’s the earliest he could order parts. Would I be able to leave the van? Could someone come and pick us up in my mom’s car? Yes, he remembered her car, too!
I haven’t driven my mom’s car since I drove it home from the garage, last time. The differential is still making a noise, and while he recommended driving it for about 100-150km. He’d done a flush and the noise should have stopped, but perhaps the fresh lubricant needed to work its way into the nooks and crannies. I didn’t want to drive if when I had someplace specific to go, so it just didn’t happen. In fact, with my daughter’s reduction in shifts and reduced need to run errands, and not even using it to drive my mother around lately, I was seriously considering suspending the insurance. The only reason it hasn’t been done is because I wasn’t sure how the insurance office is doing things right now, and if I could do it over the phone.
Now, I’m glad I never got around to it.
While figuring out whether it was worth my trying to drive it home, he suggested I drive it around the block and see how the van behaved, then call him back.
I made it to the grocery store parking lot, across the street.
The knocking noise kicked in as soon as I took a turn, and the van started to shudder. I pulled into a parking spot and called him back, telling him it was now even worse. We spoke for a bit, and he told me that once I worked out how to get home, call him to let him know where I was hiding the key.
I called my husband to drive my mother’s car and come get us. He can barely get in and out of the vehicle and it’s incredibly painful for him, but we didn’t have much choice.
Then I drove the van back to the garage. By this point, the knocking was even louder, and I could feel the entire van shuddering. It was definitely coming from around that front driver’s side tire.
So now that van sits at the garage, waiting for Tuesday. My hope is that it’s just some mud that got into something it shouldn’t have, and that it’ll be an easy fix.
Thankfully, we don’t have to drive anywhere for another week, though my daughter’s work is going to be doing some changes with schedules. If she does end up getting new shifts, I can only hope it won’t be until after the van is fixed!
Then, maybe I’ll leave my Mom’s car there again, so he can check that noise from the differential again. :-/
For those new to this blog (welcome! Thanks for stopping by! :-) ) we have made a couple of attempts at making mead. If you want to read more about how that went, you can visit here for the first attempt, and here for the second. Both links are for bottling day, but have links to the entire process as well.
Today, I decided to open a bottle of each batch to compare them. Both of these bottles were kept in the fridge, so no additional fermentation would happen.
Both meads are very clear (any cloudiness in the photo is of condensation on the outside of the bottles), but the one on the left, bottled 6 months ago, has sediment – lees – on the bottom. All the bottles from this batch do. This means that it, potentially, could continue to ferment. Given that these are corked bottles, we don’t want that. There is a potential for bottles to explode, which is why they are being kept cold.
Mead Baby 2.0, bottled almost 2 months ago, is clear on the bottom.
The older mead is lighter in colour, too. This is likely because the honey to water ratio was lower in this batch, which was made in a 5 gallon carboy, while Mead Baby 2.0 was a 1 gallon batch. We had a 5 kilo bucket of honey for the first batch; about 11 pounds. We probably should have added 15 pounds of honey for the big carboy, but didn’t have that much. For the 1 gallon batch, we weighed out 3 pounds of honey for it.
I decided to take a hydrometer reading of both. I still don’t quite understand what it’s telling me, though the fact that these were both refrigerator cold would likely have affected the reading, too.
In pouring the mead into the test cylinder to get a reading, both meads were effervescent, bubbling up as though lightly carbonated. By the time I poured the tested mead into glasses, though, there was no carbonation left.
My hydrometer has 3 readings on it, and part of my confusion is that the scales on the hydrometer don’t match what’s on the printout it came with.
When we bottled the first batch, the Potential Alcohol by Volume reading was at only 1%. Today, it’s at 4%, which put the specific gravity reading was 1.032, and the Balling/Brix reading at 8. (My hydrometer says Balling, the printout says Brix)
Mead Baby 2.0 had an AVB reading of 8% on bottling day, and today it’s at…
…8%.
Specific gravity is at 1.062 and Balling at 15.
I should probably test them again after they reach room temperature, but… I just don’t feel like it. LOL Still, the fact that the reading changed for one, but not the other… it might mean fermentation is still happening, albeit very slowly.
So how do they taste?
The first batch has a light, almost crisp flavour and an aftertaste that I would definitely attribute to our using bread yeast. Also, it doesn’t taste like something with 4% AVB. I would think it’s closer to that 1% when we bottled it.
I don’t really like it.
Mead Baby 2.0 is REALLY sweet, almost syrupy, and much smoother. It tastes a lot like Port.
I like it better than the first batch, but… not by much.
Keep in mind, though, I don’t really like alcohol in the first place. I’m far more interested in the making of it, than the drinking of it. :-D
The flavours should continue to change with time, however. There are 2 bottles of Mead Baby 2.0 in the root cellar. One will be opened at 6 months, the other at 12 months, so I will likely do another comparison, then.
The next time we get a bucket of honey, we plan to make a batch using fruit. Hopefully, that will help resolve some of the fermentation problems we’ve had.
The girls did a wonderful job in the basement, while I was baking bread! They got the big stuff moved back to the now-bleached and dry corner, the wire mesh over the counter to the unfinished bar, and a lot more cleaning, sweeping, scrubbing and vacuuming of cobwebs. :-D
Here are the before and after shots.
The wire mesh is up, and the more fragile items, and things potentially harmful to cats, are starting to be put into here. Eventually, a door of some sort will be rigged up, so the cat’s won’t be able to get in.
The pieces of Styrofoam at that long shelf were taken out of the windows. They were put in for the winter, before we moved here. They are cut to fit so snugly – and so much stuff was in the way – that we hadn’t been able to get them out before. Now, when the insulation around the outside of the house it moved away until next winter, there will be natural light in the basement.
Also, my daughters are hilarious.
Too funny!
Also, I guess I don’t have to ask what they found while cleaning.
I don’t want to know what the “mystery meat” or “soup” was. :-D
The table, shelves and cabinet are now all cleaned up and usable again.
They also started to haul stuff outside, including all the garbage bags.
A trip to the dump soon is definitely in order!!
Since I was down there anyhow, I checked out an old radio/record player that’s against another wall.
Except the record player part is gutted.
What about the radio? I was curious, so I stuck my phone around the back and took a blind shot.
Huh. Amazing. It hasn’t been completely gutted!
I have no idea what this is supposed to look like, but I’m sure there are parts and pieces missing.
For now, we have no plans to move this thing anywhere. I admit, for me, it’s more because I don’t want to deal with all the stuff shoved behind it.
My daughter and I got a whole bunch of progress done in the basement. Unfortunately, we’re at that stage were, in order to work on new areas, we have to shove things into areas we’d already done a lot of clearing. Which means that, other than the area we worked on, the rest of the basement now looks like something exploded! :-D
The unfinished bar area is now dry, but we sprayed areas with an anti-mold agent, just to be on the safe side. So nothing has been put into there yet. I was also able to stop at the hardware store after dropping my other daughter off at work, and was able to get a roll of 1/4 inch wire mesh that we will use to block off the counter opening of the bar area. That will be put in before we do anything else in there.
Meanwhile, we emptied the back wall and opposite corner.
This is what it looked like, not long ago.
Right now, the entire middle area is almost completely blocked off with stuff we’ve set aside, including the long shelf against the wall.
We also moved the old, gutted phonograph and ancient radio, which are quite water damaged.
They are in such terrible shape!
The phonograph cabinet is at least still fairly solid, We might be able to just remove the veneer that’s peeling off and be able to restore it. The old radio… I have no idea. I’m pretty sure it’s gutted, too.
This damage would have happened shortly before we moved here, when my older brother discovered flooding in the basement from a rain barrel at the corner that was left to overflow for months of rain. The corner had even started to mold, and he’d had to move things away from the walls so he could scrub and bleach the area.
While emptying that shelf against the wall, tucked away in a corner at the very bottom, I found this.
I had hoped this was the missing filter my brother had installed the last time there were problems with the septic system. It hadn’t worked, so he took it off and set it aside, but it disappeared. It turns out to not be the one my brother had bought, but very similar. So… we’re still missing a filter that likely grew legs and walked away, along with so many other things over the years. :-(
Another thing we found was a “hidden in plain sight” sort of thing. These were sitting on top of the old phonograph.
Nothing special about these – until we flipped them over.
I’m guessing my sister drew these plans. I think she still freelances plans and blueprints for people, but these days, she uses a computer. :-D I think these might be the original plans for the shelves that now divide the living and dining rooms! The end result wasn’t quite so fancy (I love the addition of a little rotary dial telephone), but I can see how what we have now could have developed from these plans.
Once the corner was emptied, swept and cobwebs vacuumed away, my daughter worked on scrubbing and bleaching, while I worked on emptying a pair of shelves in the middle of the basement. Our boxes and bins of Christmas decorations have been temporarily moved to the root cellar, just to make space. The pile of stuff that needs to be hauled out, either to the barn, junk pile or dump, has grown quite a lot.
Once I emptied the shelves (including taking out 2 cases of paint cans that have never been opened, but are so old, the boxes are disintegrating), I worked on a tool chest that’s basically just a big box with a front panel that swings down, clearing off the stuff accumulated at the top. I’m not going to try and go through it’s contents, but I did check out the cabinet it was resting on.
Where I found it full of various liquids, gels, greases and… mystery liquid. I’ve been putting all the small containers in a small bin I found, only to find it was nowhere near large enough.
Some of these have been barely used. I would guess they were things my late brother had made use of, which would mean they have been sitting in that cabinet for 10 years for, at the very least, 10 years.
It’s a shame to have to throw out the braided rug that’s visible in the back. I remember helping my mother make rugs like this, using strips of cloth made from old clothes and other fabric items that were to worn out for their intended use. Unfortunately, the two braided rugs I have now found in the basements had been down there so long, they got moist, and look like they started to mold.
Here is what the basement corner looks like now, before and after washing.
It’s really kind of hard to see the difference between washed and unwashed walls, but it’s there! You can still see where the mold my brother scrubbed away has stained the corner. :-(
While cleaning up, we found another outlet, on the outside of the bar counter. An outlet that we could plug in the big blower fan! So that is now set up facing the corner to help dry it.
I have to remind myself that the rest of the basement looks far worse than it really is! Once these areas are dry and we can start moving things back into their more permanent places, it will get cleaned up and organized rather quickly. The hard part is going to be hauling out all the stuff that needs to be gotten ride of, one way or another.
The girls and I were able to get quite a lot of progress in the new part basement yesterday, and I was able to get into a particular area of concern today.
Here is our progress from yesterday.
The biggest progress isn’t even visible. We were able to get all the cans of paint and other… stuff… out from some cupboards. Some of them were leaking. I got another 2 wheelbarrow loads of cans of paint, stains, and mystery tines to the barn.
We found another 6 motors of varying sizes and condition to move to the barn. There’s an unopened back of grout compound that will need to be thrown away. Moisture got to it, and it’s a brick now. We found a snowmobile suit shoved into a garbage can. Now that I think about it, judging from the size, it may have belonged to my late brother. If it did, it may have been there for more than 10 years! These things are rather expensive, and it seems a shame to throw it away, but I just don’t see how it could be safe to use after being in the basement for even just a couple of years. Dust, mold mildew… still, we just hung it up on the wall for now.
Stuff that’s going to the barn are being set by the stairs for now, as well as a growing collection of garbage bags, with stuff for the junk pile or burn barrel in the shopping cart, and broken/damaged glass in a box, so we can haul it all out at once. That is always a challenge, since we need one person to lug stuff up the stairs, one person at the doors to grab stuff and stick it outside, and one person with a spray bottle on cat duty! LOL I look forward to not having to worry about keeping the cats out of this basement anymore!
Of course, we found all sorts of things in the process of cleaning, including…
…a collection of hammers, among other tools. I also moved the hand saw collection to the other basement, to join the ax collection. :-D
Today, I focused on the “bar” my late brother had started to build when he was still in his teens, but never finished. It had been mostly cleared out yesterday, but there were still a few things to take out so I could clean the area.
Some cow bells. Because, of course. Another shoe form.
A very old racking cane and siphon hose. We’d earlier found a box with wine making chemicals and supplies, all of which had to be thrown out.
I have no idea why there are so many wine making supplies around here. My parents didn’t use them, and the only members of my family that make their own wine, do it in their own homes.
An old, beat up suitcase full of light fixtures and electrical bits and pieces. Because where else would you put what is likely broken, unusable bits and pieces?
This next case makes me quite sad.
What the labels don’t tell you is that this is a portable screen printing kit.
On the right is where ink would be spread. The roller would be loaded with in there, then rolled over the screen on the other side, which would have the design on it.
Under the screen is the surface that would hold the paper being printed.
You can see how torn the screen it – and the tape that was put around it.
This thing was in pristine condition when we acquired it. It was one of many things that were left behind in the old house my parents got – I believe for the cost of moving it – and moved into the yard, where it is now being used for storage. I made the mistake of taking this case, and a box full of wrapped up printing blocks, to the Industrial Arts teacher in high school. He is the one that put the tape around the screen, and “cleaned” it with whatever solvents they had in the class (there was an old style block printer that we used to make “business cards” as a class assignment). As for the printing blocks, they were covered in grease that he cleaned up, then wrapped them in paper. Well, it turned out that grease was protecting the surface of those blocks, and they have since degraded horribly. I doubt they can be restored. I doubt this screen print kit can be restored fully, either. :-(
Another item I had to clear out turned out to be a surprise. I knew it was there, but…
… what I didn’t expect that 1) it hadn’t been cleaned since it was last used and 2) that it would still be full.
That’s right. When I tried to move it, I found it unexpectedly heavy. Then it started to slosh.
*shudder*
I don’t know how many years this has been sitting here.
I’m really hoping the liquid is just water or something, to serve as weight to keep is steady, because that’s just a hole on the bottom. It doesn’t lead to a basin or reservoir.
At least it is still sealed shut. There’s no smell or leakage.
We’ve found some pretty icky stuff since we moved in and started cleaning up. The worst so far had been old cat poop in a corner of what was my mother’s bedroom, and cat litter on the floor under a dresser. My dad hadn’t had a cat indoors for years before he went into the nursing home. The girls had also found a mouse skeleton behind a shelf upstairs. I think a used, dirty portable toilet filled with liquid now joins the list of most horrifying things we’ve found in the house since moving in.
*shudder*
There were many other things found as well, including glass lamp shades – one still in the box it was bought in – more paint cans and various other odd bits and pieces.
This is what the bar looked like, after I emptied it.
Yes, I was wearing a mask and gloves!
This was the main area of concern.
There is water damage. The wall the plywood is covering is the wall to the old part basement, so this would be from when it had flooded in the past, soaking through to this side. This is also one of the few areas where we found mouse feces.
Which meant extra care needed to be taken to clean up this area. Brushing and sweeping, vacuuming and finally a cleaning with bleach.
Here is how it looked when I stopped.
I now have a fan set up to dry it.
We have a moldicide spray that we’ll use on that plywood wall, too.
Once it’s all dry, we’ll use this to store things we want to protect from the cats, but don’t want to store in the old part basement. We’ll be making a “door” across the front, and I hope to pick up some wire mesh tomorrow, that we can use to cover the counter area to keep the cats out.
If all goes well, we will finish this tomorrow, set up some “nesting boxes” and a litter box, then bring in Butterscotch and Beep Beep.
I saw Butterscotch while I was doing my rounds this morning. She even allowed me to pick her up and carry her over the muddy areas. She is still pregnant, so we might be able to get this done in time, after all!
Just a little bit closer to being done!
The Re-Farmer
addendum: The girls and I talked about the portable toilet, and the two things behind the lid; one of which is an opening, the other looks like it can be squeezed down on. We thought it might actually be a flusher, so I went down to check the status of the floor, and stopped to read the label on that portable toilet. Sure enough, this is a flushing toilet top. It’s missing a part; there is supposed to be a chamber under it.
Which would actually have come in handy when our septic backed up. More comfortable than a honey pot!
If only it had been cleaned and emptied after its last use…
I love how he’s got his face smooshed into his own leg.
And no, he’s not as soft and fluffy as he looks. He’s even softer and fluffier!
I was also finally able to get to the mail today and found a gift from a dear friend.
She sent me yeast!
The top packets are from the one time I was able to find some locally. I’m not a fan of the quick rise instant yeast. It may be more convenient, since it doesn’t need proofing and can be added in with the flour, but I’m a bit more old fashioned about that. Traditional, you might even say. Teehee. I made a funny. Well… I made myself laugh, at least. I’m a goof. I know it. :-D
My dear friend actually found some traditional active dry yeast. These have the larger granules and require proofing. I can’t even really say exactly what I’m seeing or tasting different about using this yeast, compared to the instant yeast. It’s a combination of feeling slightly different while working the dough, a difference in how it rises, and subtle differences in taste and texture in the end result. I just like it better.
One of these days, I want to try the even older style wet yeast. No hurry on that. From what I’ve seen, they come in bricks the size of a pound of butter. I’d have to be planning on a whole lot of baking, to use it up quickly, before I even consider picking any up.
So now we have a bit of a buffer in case, for some reason, we can’t use our sourdough.
M, you are such a sweetheart! I miss you dearly. <3
The Re-Farmer 