My brother has once again saved the day for us.

It’s been a day full of activity.  The younger of my brothers, who lives by us, came by this morning and took his freezer out of the Old Kitchen  (the original kitchen; where the old wood cook stove still sits) to his place. This means, once we clear and clean things out a bit, we can move the freezer we are using out of the corner it’s in, and into the spot his was in. Then we can actually access the thing.

Shortly after, the girls and I hit The City to pick up some things. Along with more supplies for cleaning up the upstairs, they’ve picked up paint chips.  This is the one area that will get painted, and soon.

At the same time, they caught a whole bunch of Farfetched in Pokemon Go. Yay!

We pretty much just got home when u got a call from my sister. Her husband was coming out to help my younget brother, so she wanted to know if it was a good time to drop by with some boxes I asked for, and she could visit. So that was our afternoon. She was generous enough to bring over some frozen venison for us, too.  Mmm.

Meanwhile, the girls got a truckload of packed stuff into the shed and managed to drag a giant frankenshelf down the stairs and into the Old Kitchen. Sure glad the freezer is gone!  Then they got more stuff cleaned and packed from upstairs. There are a few more odd, heavy things that need to come down.  I am so happy I have such strong, burly daughter’s. Lol

Then, my brother the meister fixer came by, even though he had to go to work early in the morning.  He was perplexed by our lack of hot water again. All he could think of was that the thermostat needed to be replaced. Clearly, the tank could heat the water, but just wasn’t managing it all the time.  It made no sense. He was going to get some replacements and they came over in the evening.

So while the rest of us visited over a pot of tea (even my husband was able to visit for a bit before he had to lie down), my brother got to work.

In the end, it turned out there was nothing wrong with out hot water tank at all.

It was the breaker.

For some reason, it was working only intermittently.  So while it was in the on position, there wasn’t necessarily any power getting through.  There was enough getting through to heat the tank overnight, but once it was being used, there wasn’t enough to maintain the temperature. Plus, once we turned that second thermostat back up, the extra power demand likely was too much for it.

He didn’t have a spare breaker, so he switched the breaker from one for a wall heater we will likely never use.

I would never have thought of the breaker as the problem.

We have hot water again.

I love my brother.

The Re-farmer

Well, the hot water saga continues.

It’s gone again. And I don’t know why.

We had plenty of hot water this morning, as usual, but by this afternoon, it was gone.  It’s almost 6pm as I write this, and all I’ve been getting is barely tepid water from the hot water tap.

Today was a non-productive day.  I fell asleep on the bed the girls are using and ended up napping for hours.  My entire body is aching, and I was really looking forward to trying for a bath.  We even found a drain stopper for the tub.

We needed the break, but I don’t know that it benefited us anything.

The Re-farmer

We had a wonderful visit tonight with my oldest brother and his wife, whom we have not seen yet since our arrival.  They were the ones who had managed to do so much before we arrived.  Looking at what the state of things are now, we readily acknowledge how much worse it was before, and really appreciate their hard work.

This brother is a real meister fixer, just like our dad was.  He can put his hand to just about anything and be able to do it, build it or fix it.

Well.

During the visit, the problem of our hot water came up. It’s a perplexing one, since the tank is obviously working enough for us to have hot water in the morning, but once it was gone, it was gone for the rest of the day.

So he and I checked it out Continue reading →