Yeah. More plumbing problems

January 7, 2025 / Re-Farmer / 3 Comments

Well, this day’s plans got thrown out the window.

I did get one thing planned accomplished. While doing my morning rounds, I used the foil insulation in strategic points on the outflow pipe for our emergency septic diverter. The pump has still not been triggered to empty the grey water, so this will ensure any contact point with cold supports will not freeze.

Hopefully. At least, if it does freeze there, it would be much easier to deal with it.

Once my morning rounds were done and breakfast was had, my plan was to head outside and start searching for something we could use to shelter the frozen septic ejector.

Then one of my daughters came over to let me know the kitchen sink was clogged. They’d started doing dishes, and the skinks would not drain. They did eventually empty, but very, very slowly.

My younger daughter – the only one able bodied enough to do this – cleared things stored under the sink to check the pipes.

She found this.

Note the big crack in the brass fitting above the trap.

There was no way to take the trap off to clear the clog (drain cleaner did not work) without the brass breaking even worse.

Which meant a trip into town to get replacement parts.

That left me in a bit of a conundrum. The truck’s sensor issues are still a problem. I’d been idling the engine to get it to warm up and evaporate the moisture that is triggering the sensor, but the truck really needs to be driven. But the oil pressure gauge is at 0, and that check engine light was back on after I’d cleared the codes, yesterday. I could have taken my brother’s car, but he’s going to need that back, and this sensor thing isn’t going to go away if I don’t actually drive the truck.

But we’ve had so many things got wrong, I was really uncomfortable doing it. The truck had started fine, the engine is running smoothly, and the oil levels are good.

I ended up texting our mechanic and asked him is he was sure it was safe to drive – and to please humour my paranoia! 😄 He said yes.

I had wanted to go into town anyhow, to refill our water jugs, so I grabbed those and headed out, with a brief stop at the post office along the way. The letter mail I am waiting for still isn’t in, but a couple of packages made it, so that was good, at least.

The truck ran fine the entire trip, too.

Once at the hardware store, I got to talk to my favourite person in the plumbing department. He’s been helping me a lot!

After showing him the pictures, he gave me the parts and pieces to replace the brass T, making sure to get me the correct adhesive and explaining about putting it all together dry, first, then taking it apart to use the adhesive. We were pretty sure of the size needed, but if we were wrong, I could return the parts and get the right size.

From there, I made a quick stop at the grocery store to refill the water jugs, grab some pumpernickel bread, as the rye was gone, and ended up getting some lactose free cheese for the girls that was on sale.

When I got back, my daughter set about taking out the brass T – which turned out to have a lot more damage than was visible – then removing the trap to clear the clog.

It got rather messy.

Along with the parts and pieces, I picked up a drain clearer -, I don’t remember the proper name for it, but it’s a long flexible wire with a plastic scrubby tuft at the end. I also picked up a sink plunger. My daughter took everything apart and used the drain clearer on the pipes for as far as she could reach with it.

That got messy, too!

Then she put the trap back and moved on to putting together the new T pieces and do a dry install to make sure everything fit.

They didn’t.

It fit at the top, directly to one sink, and the bottom, to the trap. It was the pipe to the other sink that was the problem. The brass T’s fitting was almost flush, as you can see in the above photo. The new T’s fittings extended further. There wasn’t enough play in the pipe to be able to attach the T to the copper pipe.

That bit of copper pipe, meanwhile, was basically jammed into a length of PVC pipe, likely with the use of a heat gun. My daughter hoped to push it further in, just half an inch, but it just would not move.

Which meant cutting the copper pipe.

The 1 1/2″ copper pipe.

We don’t have a pipe cutter to do it. We could have used a hack saw, but the very idea of trying to cut a pipe in a crowded space – on that wiggles around, at that – was not acceptable.

Time to go back into town.

While my daughter was fighting with the new T, I had taken the time to clean the threads on the trap and was thinking it would probably be a good idea to get a new one. Just in case.

So, off to town I went!

By this time, several hours had passed, so my husband requested I make another stop at the grocery store for some heat and eats. No one was going to be making a from-scratch meal, today, that’s for sure!

I also brought along the brass T to show the guy at the hardware store. When I got there, it turned out he’d stepped out for something. I waited a while, looking at things and, after clearing it with my husband first (since it was coming off his personal budget), I picked up an indoor/outdoor security camera that screws into a light bulb socket, and has an LED light built in as well. This would go in the light socket near the septic pump, so we could monitor it without having to go up and down those insane stairs all the time! It used WiFi and an app to control and monitor it, and had a slot for a micro SD card. We have a couple of those handy!

They didn’t know when the plumbing guy would be back, so after I got the security camera, I went to the grocery store. It turned out to be really busy, and I found out why when I was asked if I wanted to collect extra points, or get 10% off.

I took the 10% off.

The plumbing guy was there by the time I got back. I showed him the brass part, and then pictures of my daughter holding the new T that couldn’t join the copper pipe.

After seeing more of the photos and how the copper pipe was installed, he was rather taken aback. That’s a pretty big no-no, and he was trying to figure out what was holding it in place. I told him, probably just friction. Why wasn’t it leaking? he wondered. I told him, that thing is NOT moving. It is completely water tight, and likely inserted with the use of a heat gun.

One thing was sure, though. I was not going to find a pipe cutter for a pipe that size. If we wanted to shorten it, we’d need to use a hacksaw.

He asked more questions about where the pipe with the copper piece led to, and I told him is was to the second sink.

Well, that gave us a solution.

He showed me a kit for plumbing a double sink. All the parts and pieces I would need, plus a few extras that wouldn’t be needed for our particular set up. He even took it out of the package and assembled it for me, how it would go under the sinks.

I talked to him about the trap, as I’d been looking at one that had a clean out opening. He agreed that would be the best. The only potential issue was the elbow part of it that joined the outflow pipe to the main drain. That part is sealed with adhesive. The U part of the trap screws onto that part and, in theory, we could remove the take off the new elbow and screw the U part onto the existing elbow, but with how old these parts are, the threads might not be the same. If they weren’t, we’d have to cut off the elbow and adhere the new one; there should be enough play in the pipe to handle losing that half inch or so.

There was a fitting that would be needed that I already had, with the parts and pieces of the new T we would no longer need, but I went ahead and bought another one. Having extra parts is always good!

This guy is such a help! It’s great to have staff that knows their stuff so well.

From there, it was home again. By this time, my poor daughter was really struggling. She may be the most able bodied of us all, but she does have other issues! Her PCOS really does a number on her joints, and she was losing her ability to use one wrist. I had suggested taking a break to have food, but since the dishes hadn’t been done, due to the sink being clogged, things to use to cook with were unavailable.

Plus, she just wanted to get it over with!

So I left her to it for a while, after bringing her what she would need to trim the length of pipe between the sinks to the right side, then started setting up the new camera before heading to the basement.

Long story short, I will probably be returning it. It simply will not connect to our WiFi.

*sigh*

It’s possible it might work somewhere not in the basement, but I bought it specifically so I could monitor the septic pump and area, so there’s no point in keeping it if I can’t use it there. There is nowhere else we would want to set up a camera that works by screwing into a light fixture.

Meanwhile, my daughter finally got to the point where we could test the sinks and see if anything was leaking.

Nothing was leaking! Yay!

Since we’ve moved here, we’ve replaced both sink drains, and installed the flexible water pipes with build in shut off valves, replacing copper pipes with no shut off valves. Now, we’ve replaced the rest of the pipes under the sinks, up to, but not including the trap.

At some point, my daughter used the sink plunger. Apparently, it did an amazing job in clearing crud out.

As we were cleaning up and putting things away – it was full dark by this time – my daughter realized she was hearing splashing noises.

That test we did to see if there were any leaks?

The water had overflowed the washing machine drain in the entry, and was splashing all over the floor under the washing machine.

We grabbed a bunch of towels to soak up the mess as best we could without actually moving both the washer and drier (there is a single step just barely in front of the washing machine, so it can’t be pulled out without moving the drier).

My daughter decided to try using drain cleaner and poured some down the washing machine drain pipe – we have an extra long, flexible funny just to access this drain without having to move the washing machine. She set a times for half an hour, before boiling water would be poured down, then took a well deserved break.

I used that time to set up the basins to wash as rinse as many dishes as I could fit in the dish tray. Once that was done, the dirty water could be tossed outside, since we can’t drain anything down the kitchen sink, still.

Meanwhile, my daughter was able to set a couple of baking trays in the oven for some of what I’d picked up at the grocery store for them, now that access to the oven was no longer blocked by a took kit and all the stuff that had been stored under the sink.

My daughter finally got to eat, after about 14-15 hours.

While all this was going on, I kept my brother up to date. We are at a loss as to why this main drain pipe is so clogged. We had it routered 2 or 3 years ago. The first time it had ever been cleared in almost 50 years. Why is it clogged again after such a short time? And this badly! We’ve been trying to be diligent in making sure nothing goes down the drain that shouldn’t, like grease and whatnot, and using the bacteria and enzyme pipe maintenance stuff.

We do have that commercial drain auger my husband bought for me. We just don’t have what we need to be able to open up the main line in the basement, then seal it up again properly.

My brother wondered if it was possible there was freezing happening. The pipe runs past the old basement window. That window, however, is currently filled in with 3″ thick Styrofoam insulation on the inside, and on the outside, it has what used to be a “roof” above the window, now leaning over it for protection from the elements. That entire corner, on the outside, is well sheltered.

My husband’s bedroom is right above this area, though, and he says he can hear the gurgling in the pipes, and thinks the clog is near that window. He may be partially right. However…

After the drain cleaner got to sit for half an hour, my daughter went to pour boiling water down. She poured straight from the kettle, which is 1.7L

I don’t think she got more than a litre in before it started to overflow the pipe!

Which means the clog is practically at the bottom of the drain pipe.

This drain pipe has been here since the house got indoor plumbing in the mid 70’s. While there is a washing machine in the entry now, when the new part of the house was added on, my dad had a sink installed in the entry, so that they could wash up from working in the barn or whatever, before going into the rest of the house. Basically, it was a mud room. My mother apparently hated have a sink there, so when they stopped having cattle, she put something over the sink and taps, covered it with a cloth, and put decorative stuff on it.

I found the original sink, and the counter it’s in, in one of the sheds.

When my husband and younger daughter came out several weeks ahead of my older daughter and I, my younger daughter helped my brother turn the entry into a laundry room, taking advantage of the existing plumbing, so that we wouldn’t have to go up and down those horrible stairs carrying laundry all the time.

Have a mentioned, my brother is awesome?

He has also been asking me to take pictures of various parts of the plumbing to send to him. I have no intention of asking, but I suspect he plans to come out here to see what he can do. He needs to retrieve his car, anyhow, now that it seems our truck really is safe to drive and is running quite well, in spite of a sensor telling us otherwise. My brother knows how to do this stuff, and has the tools – but they are mostly here, and scattered in different areas.

The alternative is to call a plumber to clear that drain again. Last I looked, it was a flat rate of $300 for a drain clearing plus 1 hour of time. Parts and more time extra, if it turns out to be a bigger problem. That was a few years ago, and I expect the prices have had to go up, with how much more expensive things have gotten since then. I’ve tried calling that plumber a few times since then, left messages and never got return calls. We used this company because it was the only one that had the big drain auger – they cleared the floor pipe to the septic tank, the first time we called them. This time, though, we have our own auger, so really, we could call any plumber.

But not today.

After all that fighting with the kitchen plumbing – which did turn out to be necessary, considering the condition of things under there – we still can’t use our kitchen sink.

At least the line from the bathroom to where it drops down to the septic tank is clear!

I have no idea what we’re going to do at this point. Thankfully, my older daughter was able to help with covering the cost of vehicle repairs and paying the septic guy, but that can get used up awfully fast! Just the stuff I got today is only because she was able to help out.

As for me, I am just tired. Mentally tired. So very tired of things breaking down. It’s been more than a year of one thing after another, and even when things get fixed – like the ejector, or that sensor on the truck – it’s still an issue.

This is really starting to drain everything out of me.

Not that it matters. All we can do is keep chugging along, making do with what we have.

For now, that means things like doing the dishes in basins and dumping the water outside, and having an emergency diverter attached to our septic pump to also dump things outside.

I think I need to make myself go to bed early, and try to get some rest. Thankfully, I’m not the one that had to crawl around under a sink, so I didn’t have any major exertions. Just walking around with my brother as he was checking the expeller and installing the diverter did me in, unexpectedly. It has been a long time, but at about 3am last night, it caught up with me and I got hit with Charlie Horses again. This time, both thighs, all the way around. All I did was try to roll over in bed, and that was it. Thankfully, my daughters were up and heard me calling for help, and my younger daughter was able to bring me some ibuprofen (acetaminophen doesn’t help for Charlie Horses) and stay with me. The attack – and that’s exactly what it felt like – ended as quickly as it started, which was the weirdest sensation. After all this time, going to bed now feels as risky and driving the truck with that sensor issue!

I am so tired of this.

The Re-Farmer

Well, it’s all we can do right now!

January 5, 2025 / Re-Farmer / 6 Comments

Have I mentioned how awesome my brother is?

Insanely awesome. Fantastic. Amazing. What would we do without him?

After a long drive home (I think it’s 6 hours, possibly 8), he stopped only to pick up a few things, then took their second car to our place. Once here, he went into the basement to look at things there (there wasn’t much to see, really) and change into his ski pants before grabbing his supplies and heading to the barn. Right about then, my SIL showed up. Unfortunately, she’s allergic to cats, so she can’t come into the house, and just stayed in the car the whole time, though we did get a chance to talk for a bit.

My brother looked around in the barn for a while, trying to find some copper pipe. The one corner I thought I’d seen some had a different type of pipe, but there was a length of pipe were I remembered, up in the rafters. My brother was able to reach it. It was only about 6′ long, though. We talked about finding a way to add a safety line, just in case, but its surface was too smooth.

He grabbed one of their super long extension cords that they now have stored in the barn and we headed out to the ejector with the copper pipe. Then, while I secured the end of the extension cord to a fence post, he ran the rest of the cord to the pump shack, which is a bit closer than the barn.

When he finished that, he headed to the car to get the heat gun, while I popped into the house. I’d found a piece of copper pipe in the basement that had a slightly wider part at the end, so it would hold a safety line. That way, if we accidentally dropped it, we could pull it up again.

Not that we ever needed it.

By the time I got there, my brother had opened up the ejector, taken a look, then put it all back again. When I got there, he popped the elbow off and removed the cap to show me what he found.

The first obvious problem was, the venture pipe was frozen right to the top. It should have been empty. When the pump turns off, any liquid in the venturi pipe drains to the bottom, which is about 10 or 12 feet down.

The 4″ pipe around it was also full, though not quite to the top. I stuck the copper pipe I had into the opening until I hit ice to see how far down it went, and it was about 8″ from the surface.

This absolutely should not have happened.

My brother put the pieces back and we headed to the house so install the diverter.

Before we did, we went to the corner of the house on the outside to find the opening. It was higher than I expected, for some reason. I still had the copper pipe I’d brought over with me (it made for a handy walking stick in the snow!), and my brother used it to punch a hole through the spray foam insulation.

From there, it was to the basement, to install the diverter.

Installing the diverter itself was an easy thing. First, he pushed the length of pipe to the outside through the hole.

He had drilled that hole himself, years ago, when they had to do some major work on the septic system, so my parents could still use their plumbing. This is the log part of the house, which is sitting on top of those joists – which turned out to be twice as thick as he expected! It took a lot to drill out that hole.

Once that end was through the wall, it was just a matter of removing the outflow pipe at the top of the pump and replacing it with the diverter.

A simple thing – yet I could not have done it.

I don’t have a heat gun.

After loosening the clamps on the outflow pipe, my brother had to use the heat gun to soften the plastic enough to pull it off. He still had to get pretty physical with it – I was rather alarmed to see the pump being moved around so much. I’d thought it was bolted down to the concrete! Turns out, it’s bolted down to some plywood. Which makes sense, as it would be easier to change pumps that way.

Once the pipe was free, however, black fluid started spilling out. All my brother could do was try to get as little as possible on the pump itself – and not get splashed himself! Me, I immediately went for the broom we keep nearby, to sweep water into the floor drain when there’s seepage in the spring. Once I got as much as I could swept away, my brother attached the diverter – making sure to remember to put the clamps on pipe, first! After softening the plastic with his heat gun a few times, he was able to get the pipe all the way on, then clamp it down.

The next thing to do was set something up to the pipe outside, to get any outflow well away from the house. The big flexible hose (it’s about 6″ in diameter) he’d brought for us before was stored in the barn, so it would have been quite frozen. He was concerned about using it, as it might crack from the cold. There were some old downspouts in the barn, though, so he went to look and see what he could find that could be used right away.

While he went to do that, I got the hose that I use to clear the floor drain and access pipe to give the floor where the fluid had spilled a bit of a wash, and swept that into the floor drain (the floor doesn’t slope towards the drain properly). While I was doing that, I heard some gurgling from the filter as it drained. This was to be expected, though, with the pipes being switched. I left it for the moment, though, then headed outside again to join my brother.

I got there just in time to see him carrying to lengths of pipe, and dragging the flexible hose behind him! He had it by one end, so that it would straighten a bit while being dragged.

I was impressed that he found two lengths of interlocking 4″ PVC pipe in the barn. I have no idea where he dug those out!

I grabbed the flexible hose from him so he could carry the pipes more easily.

The next while was spent setting up the PVC pipe over the diverter hose sticking out of the house. It was very important that the PVC pipe be right up against the house, and as high as possible, so nothing would flow backwards towards the house. The two pieces were interlocked, and we added whatever we could find to support its weight, so that it would be completely straight. The ground slopes downwards there, so that part was fine. The very end had to be raised off the ground, so that there would be no chance of fluid freezing and blocking the end.

As for the flexible hose, that got pulled out further, so that the black plastic could be warmed by the sun, tomorrow. Eventually, it will be added to the end of the PVC pipe, and the outflow will be sent well into the trees.

For now, he made sure to shovel a trench of sorts into the snow, to direct any outflow that might happen before then. Unfortunately, he dug it straight towards our little Liberty Apple tree! I mentioned that it was there, and he was saying “fertilizer!” I said that if it freezes, it’ll kill it.

I have to add, though; this is a Zone 4 tree, and we are Zone 3. With this cold snap we’re getting right now, it may well have been killed off. We won’t know until spring!

Anyhow. Once my brother saw where it was, he just dug the trench more to one side.

Once we were sure of how everything was set up, it was back to the basement. The filter was primed, and the pump turned back on.

From there, my brother headed out to shut off lights and close up doors. He also moved the car they are leaving for us over to where I had set up the extension cord for the block heater. I helped out, then went over to the gate to close it behind them.

Now, we wait.

We can use our plumbing as normal for now. It will take at least a few days before both sides of the septic tank fill and the pill switch triggers the pump. My brother was already fretting that it might not turn on at all, but I don’t see why it won’t. We’ll just have to keep an eye on things and listen for the pump.

We are all, understandably, paranoid about using our water right now. Is it safe to flush? Can we take a shower? Wash dishes in the sink?

The answer is yes…

… but… are we sure?

At least we know the diverter pipe is right here. The pipes outside are wide enough that they shouldn’t ice up, but it would be much, much easier to take care of that, should it happen.

As for the ejector…

Well, I’ll be heading to my mother’s in the late morning, so I should be able to call the company that installed the ejector and tell them what we found. Everyone was saying how I could pull the venturi pipe out and bring it inside so the venturi valve on the bottom can thaw, so obviously no one thought the whole thing could be frozen solid the way it is. Something is wrong, somewhere.

What will come of that, I have no idea.

It will help knowing that the pump is far newer than I thought it was, and that it was the highest end pump my brother could get.

For now, though, it looks like we’ll have our emergency diverter set up for the rest of the winter.

It is what it is. We’ll just have to deal with what we’ve got! I’m just incredibly thankful that we had that diverter, and that my brother was willing to come out here tonight, after such a long drive, to do what he could for us.

Have I mentioned, just how awesome my brother is?

I don’t think I could say it often enough. My brother is the best!

The Re-Farmer

Power is back… for now?

December 12, 2024 / Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

Okay, let’s see how long this will last!

The power is back on again, and stayed on long enough that I turned my computer back on and will try posting this.

We’ve got another brutally cold morning. While doing the morning routine, after feeding the cats, I took the litter buckets out to their compost pile behind the outhouse. They had been in the old kitchen, which is not heated. I couldn’t empty them completely, because of the damp sawdust frozen to the sides of the buckets! Normally, I’d knock the buckets against a tree, but I didn’t want to shatter the plastic.

By the time I got back inside, it had warmed up to -25C/-13F, with a wind chill of -34C/-29F. I just checked again now, and I have three different weather apps telling me three different temperatures! I’ve got one saying it’s -24C/-11F, another saying we’re still at -25C/-13F, and another saying we are at -26C/-15F. Only two of them give me wind chills, with one saying -30C/-22F, and another saying -33C/-27F

I was supposed to pick up our beef share today, but I had already tried to reschedule last night, on seeing the temperatures expected for today. We haven’t replaced the cord on our block heater yet, so I don’t want to try driving the truck. It’s not cold enough to crack the engine block (yes, we’ve had that happen before), but I still would rather not take any chances.

With there being power issues today as well, that’s even more reason to stay home.

In the second photo of the above slide show, you can see the ice and frost accumulated on the inner door of our main entry. There’s frost on the bottom, too.

The next photo shows Caramel in the bigger cat bed inside the shelf shelter, with frost on her face. She could go into the sun room (the thermometer on the wall was reading -15C/5F), or the heated cat house, but she chose the shelf shelter.

In the next photo, you can see that even Kohl has frost on her face! The other fluffball didn’t have any frost on him at all. The insides of the windows were frosted, though. Even the heated water bowl was starting to show ice freezing near the top. After giving them their wet cat food, I scooped out most of their water bowl (the power cord is wrapped around the support on the top, so I can’t take it very far out of the shelter to spill it out) and replace it with warm water.

I noticed a corner of the plastic wrapped around the bottom was coming loose. When I checked it, I found that cats had pulled the plastic down, all along the back of the isolation shelter. So I got a cardboard box and opened one corner, to make one long, flat piece. Three sections were just long enough to cover the entire back, with one section was enough to cover the side of the shelter. I quickly tacked the cardboard in place, but after taking the picture, which is the last one in the slide show, I secured it a bit better and bent the flap, so it wasn’t overlapping the sliding door.

The water bowl in the sun room was frozen solid. It was also completely full. Normally, it just top it off with the warm water, which melts through the layer of ice to reach liquid water below, but that was not going to happen. I ended up taking it outside and chopped the ice out with a hatchet, being careful not to hit the bowl itself. The heated water bowl in the water shelter is still working fine, so they at least had that.

There was still quite a lot of kibble in the outside food trays. No surprise there, really. They would have had to be incredibly hungry to go out there in last night’s cold for food! I know for sure we hit -29C/-20C before I’d gone to bed last night.

With the power going out, we needed to keep tabs on how long it was out. With the heat lamp in the isolation shelter off, it would get dangerously cold in a very short time, and it would be hard for two small cats to keep each other warm, even with the cat bed in the most insulated corner. The cardboard would have helped some, but not enough. We would have had to take them out to join the other cats in their cuddle puddles to stay warm, as there is no way we can bring them inside the house.

Thankfully, the power seems to be staying on, now.

It did get me thinking of alternatives.

If we really needed to, we could use the fire bricks we’ve bee slowly accumulating for our future outdoor kitchen to create a radiant heater in the isolation shelter. A brick or two on the second level floor, more bricks to form a wall around, tea lights inside, and bricks on top to make sure no kitty could touch the flames. The bricks themselves would absorb heat and continue to radiate heat out, even after the candles burned out. For a small space like that, it could work.

We have the ability to do things like cook if the power goes out, but that’s all outside. With temperatures like today, it just wouldn’t be feasible.

Another reason to put a priority on building the outdoor kitchen. Even if we just had the structure up, it would give us a sheltered space for a fire pit to cook over. I’d love to find a way to have it closer to the house, but there just isn’t a good space in the inner yard for that. Too many trees and other structures. As it is, we’ve changed our minds on the outer yard location a few times before settling on the space between the pump shack and the old chicken coop.

Things to think about!

In other things…

I was so happy to get that call from the new pain clinic. They have just opened recently, and my husband’s new doctor had referred him to it already. They needed to send him a questionnaire, which they normally would have mailed, but the postal strike is still going. So they wanted an email address to send it to, instead.

This is why having a corded phone on a land line is still important. We don’t get enough signal to get phone calls on our cell phones – I’m amazed I was able to make my earlier post, with how poor our signal was at the time. Far less signal strength is needed to send things in text, thankfully. At least there was a signal. Usually, there’s nothing.

Hmmm… I’m going to try something here. My current computer with the current OS has features my old one didn’t. One of those is the ability to do a video screen capture. Check this out…

This is the animated weather on my desktop app. From the colours, you can see that large swaths of Canada and the US are as cold as, or almost as cold as, the Greenland glaciers!

Thankfully, days like this will apparently be few and far between, this winter. We’ll have some cold days in the week before Christmas, but the long range forecast is now saying to expect 3C/37F on Christmas Eve, 1C/34F on Christmas Day, and 5C/41F on Boxing Day! Then stay with highs above freezing, through to New Year’s Eve!

Of course, I expect those forecasts to change, but so far, we’re not going to be getting weather like today very often. Quite the change from our first couple of winters here, when we saw entire months much like what we’re getting right now.

Funny. As I get older, I’m finding I can handle the cold a lot better than I used to, physically – but mentally, it’s the other way around!

Ah, well. It is what it is!

The Re-Farmer

A quick isolation shelter build

November 29, 2024 / Re-Farmer / 3 Comments

Yesterday, we had my husband’s prescription delivery and I headed out too early. It was cold, so I went into the garage to get out of the wind and started poking through the lumber and other left over building material my brother gave us while they were moving things out.

I struck gold.

I found a few pieces of plywood that looked liked they were the size I needed and brought them to the house, after the prescription delivery.

Today, I could have gone into the city to do our Costco shop. It is, however, Black Friday. I don’t know why we have Black Friday in Canada, since our Thanksgiving is in October. Truthfully, I was really confused about when the US Thanksgiving was, since these sales have been going on for about two weeks. Even so, this is the “big day” for sales which, for me, means, staying away from stores as much as possible! It’s not like we’d be buying anything different that we usually do, and that stuff tends to not go on sale.

I’ll be doing that tomorrow. Even shopping on a Saturday at Costco would be better than shopping on Black Friday!

So, today was a home day.

As I write this, we’re currently at -16C/3F, with a wind chill of -29C/-20F Our high of the day was supposed to be -13C/9F, but I don’t think we reached it.

With that in mind, I decided it was a good day to see what I could do with those pieces of plywood, and whatever else I could find.

What we have been wanting to do is build some sort of shelter over the isolation shelter opening. It’s a large opening and the winds can blow right in – and would blow in snow, as well. We needed something to keep the weather out. It needed to be easily moveable, but also heavy enough that it wouldn’t get blown away. The plywood I found looked like it would fit the bill for making a box that would fit over the ramp door.

All three pieces were exactly 2′ long, but one was slightly narrower. The narrower piece became the top. I made the 2′ the height of the box, since the bottom level of the isolation shelter is 2′ high. That does not count the pallet floor or wheels, though, so I knew I would need to keep that in mind, too.

The slideshow below is a couple of photos of the basic box shape.

That bit of a gap from the narrower piece would go against the isolation shelter. I didn’t take any measurements, so this was just in case it lined up with the top of the latch on the frame.

I had some lumber left over from making the garden bed cover frames, so I cut 2′ of that to join the bottom of the box and stabilize it. That is meant to go under the ramp door. I might end up removing that, though. The wood split on one side as I nailed it in place. I found a skinnier but longer nail for the other side, and ended up splitting the plywood.

As you’ve probably guessed, this entire projected was made with scavenged materials.

Speaking of scavenged materials…

I had found another piece of plywood with a perfect circle cut into it that would have made a great “door”, but it was too small to fit the front of the box.

I did, however, still have a panel of the old tub surround in the house.

So, I laid that down and used the box itself to mark out a piece large enough to cover the front completely. I decided I would use that to cover the front and make a cat flap door. You can see progress photos in the slideshow below.

One the front panel was cut out, I found the center, the marked off four inches on either side, then … I forget if I went 10 or 11 inches from the bottom. That got cut out to make the door flap.

I then cut about half an inch off the bottom, and less than 1/8th of an inch off one side. I didn’t measure. Basically, I had a piece of wood I was using as a straight edge to cut against, and it was whatever amount looked right. The main thing is that the flap had to be able to move freely in the space. With a gap on the bottom, I figured it would be easier for the cats to figure out how to use the flap, as they would instinctively snuffle at the gap to try and get in or out.

All I had to create a “hinge” for the flap was duct tape, though. So I secured that as best I could, while still allowing for the flap to freely swing in both directions.

The next thing was to attach it to the front of the box, and secure it. Slideshow below…

I had some smaller nails that were white that I bought for something else quite a while ago, and those were perfect for attaching the panel.

I used a lot of nails, since I figured cats might end up dashing out and bashing into the sides when startled.

Which is also why I added a cross piece above the cat flap on the inside. I was able to nail that into place at each end, but I also wanted to attach the panel to the cross piece, and for that I needed smaller nails.

After scrounging around through various buckets we found while cleaning the old basement, I found three short little nails.

They would do!

I’ve kept a chimney block in the basement because it’s been such a handy work surface for various projects, and it came in handy again. I set it up inside the box, under the cross piece. It was shorter than the height needed, but a piece of scrap 2×4 was enough to make the difference. The panel is now secured to the cross piece above the cat flap, where I figured it would need the most support.

I then spotted a potential problem. All of this exposed wood that’s going to be in the snow all winter. Even if we had paint, I wouldn’t have wanted to use it, as it would need time to dry, and I wanted to get this out as quickly as possible.

Tub surround to the rescue, once again.

I made a roof.

That could only be nailed down on the sides, as the nails I had are 1″ and the plywood is 3/4″, so I used quite a few to secure it. In the first photo of the slideshow above, you can see that I also used more duct tape around the edges of the panel at the cat flap, plus added another strip above the flap, just in case.

The next image shows how it looks on the inside, with the cross piece, and the last image from the back. I’d laid the top of the box to mark out how large it was, on the back of the tub surround piece. This piece has holes in it from the arm bars, which didn’t matter for the front panel, but for the roof, I made sure there were no screw holes. This time, when using the piece of scrap lumber as my cutting guide (I just used a utility knife to cut it), I lined it up with my marks, then cut on the other side of the wood, to create an overhang on three sides.

It was now done!

Next year, when we get more paint for the isolation shelter, we’ll paint the exposed wood on this, too, but there is no urgency on that, now that there is a roof in place.

At this point, I needed to get this up the basement stairs and outside. Between the unfortunate way the door is hung (it swings over the stairs instead of into the entry) and the cats, I commandeered my daughter for assistance. She helped me get it outside and set up over the ramp door, lifting it so I could slide that back cross piece under it.

I foresaw a few potential problems, once the box was in place. I’d hoped to avoid them, but nope.

In the first photo, you can see the first problem. The patio blocks are not level, and one in particular has been heaved by the roots of the elm tree in front of the house, quite a bit. It actually cracked the front panel at the corner. In the next photo, you can see that not only is it lower than the frame between floors, but not at all level.

What you can’t see is that the cat flap could only swing outwards. Inwards, it was hitting the ramp. The extra height the pallet floor and wheels added were causing this problem.

All I needed was a raised the box higher by a couple of inches. Leveling it was not going to happen, but it at least needed to be raised up and supported enough to not wobble or anything like that.

Bricks from the old wood burning furnace chimney to the rescue! I found four that had the least amount of mortar stuck to them.

It was enough. The flap can now freely swing in or out. The bricks provided a stable enough lift that there is no wobble at all, even though it’s still not level.

In the future, we need to rip out this patio and redo it so it’s level again, but there’s no point in doing that until we get rid of the tree in front of the house. Not only is it lifting the patio blocks, but there are cracks in the basement wall.

While setting up the box over the ramp, there were several cats inside the shelter, very interested in the goings on. Others had already dashed out as soon as we started fussing around the shelter.

For the cats inside, it would be an easy thing for them to figure out the cat flap. What we need to watch for is if they can figure out they can push against it to get in. If it seems that this is an issue, we can prop the flap open, or even remove it entirely. That would allow some of the weather in, but it’s far enough away from the entrance that it should not affect much more than the ramp itself.

When we have cats isolated in the shelter, we’ll need to move the box away completely and close the ramp door. Once that is closed, the box won’t be needed to keep the weather out. There is enough space beside the shelter to store the box until it’s needed again – where it can double as another shelter for the cats. We already have a small food bowl beside the shelter for cats that aren’t willing to go inside it, but it’s completely exposed. Even if it’s for just a couple of weeks while there are cats recovering from spays inside, that would be useful, as long as it doesn’t block access to the sliding door we use to refill the kibble bowl in the second level.

What I’ll probably do in the spring is add legs to the box to raise it up a few inches, so we don’t need to use bricks. The bricks we are using now will be just fine for this winter, though.

When we first moved out here and started cleaning up around the yard, it amazed me just how many bricks I was finding, all over the place.

Now that we’ve been here a few years, we’ve found those bricks incredibly handy, and I even find myself thinking, we need more bricks! 😂

So that’s one more job done for the isolation shelter. Hopefully, the cats will be fine with it, because it will make a big difference in the conditions inside during the winter. Especially when we get hit with winds from the south.

I’m rather pleased with out it turned out, and really grateful for all that scrap wood my brother gave us. The pieces may have been too small for projects my brother needed to work on, but they are perfect for small projects like this!

The Re-Farmer

We have cat food again!

October 23, 2024 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Would you look at these happy critters?

This was taken in the late afternoon. This morning, they did get the food I used the slow cooker to make for them overnight. They dug right in!

Unlike the inside cats. They turned their noses up and their cooked food! Even when the girls gave them some of the canned cat food we still had, putting it right on top of the food cooked for them, they ate around the cooked food, but left the canned cat food that was on top of their cooked meal.

So I gave the rest of it to the outside cats, after feeding them with kibble, and they dove right into that, too!

Our inside cats have gotten fussy!

Yes, I was able to get cat food today – and we even have a vehicle now!

Progress!

October 10, 2024 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Also, a cutie.

I just wanted to share the adorableness of Syndol, as he accompanied me on my morning rounds. That’s all. 😄😄

Anyhow…

Today turned out to be a rather productive day, all in all.

Our main goals for the day were to get my husband’s bed and computer set up again. He was telling me this morning how my bed is soooo comfortable – but is absolutely killing his back! He needs to be back in his hospital bed.

Which isn’t as simple as it sounds. Since the plastic covered mattress causes him to sweat, he had several layers of bedding on top to at least try and alleviate that. It took 4 loads of laundry to wash everything, pillows included.

What I ended up doing was laying out a king size cotton sheet over the entire bed, folding up and laying out the various layers of bedding as close to the dimensions of the bedding as I could get them without being lumpy, then pulling up the sides and ends of the cotton sheet to encase it all. Then the fitted sheet could cover the whole thing and hold it in place.

With this being the smallest bedroom in the house, and the wardrobe is still in it, getting this done involved a lot of shifting the bed back and forth so I could reach from both sides, layer after layer, until I could finally put it back in its corner….

Only to have to move it again, to set up one of the power bars with a super long cord that had to be removed earlier. This room has only two outlets, and one of them is in the wall the bed is against. Handily, both outlets are higher than usual. More typical of the height for accessibility in modern homes. I’m not sure why these ones were placed so high. Especially since they are both in log walls. I’m not going to complain, though!

After the cord was run under the bed in such a way as to not touch the floor (because, cats…) it was done.

Until my husband asked about some of the bedding and I realized I’d padded his mattress with bedding he preferred to sleep under.

One of them being the cotton sheet I’d used to wrap the whole bundle.

I found a replacement for that one, at least, but the covers I’d left out, thinking those were what he’d want to sleep under, now that winter is coming, were supposed to be part of the bundle.

It didn’t take much to readjust things, but it did involve having to move the entire bed back and forth repeatedly, while I did it!

Eventually, I was finally able to bring back a side table to hold the internet router, other electronics and the CPAP machine.

In between doing this, I also got my own laundry going, then cleared a spot for the girls’ bar fridge to be moved to my room, so that they can then move the wardrobe upstairs. That will open up quite a bit of space in my husband’s room.

Eventually, we had to head out for a dump run; my younger daughter came along to act as spotter again. The pit area looked even worse than last week. At least this time, she wasn’t having to kick away nails the whole way in!

While we were out, we got a message from my other daughter, asking if we were up to a trip into town. Which we were, so she transferred some funds to me, along with a shopping list.

While we were in town, she and my husband moved things off the table he uses as a desk, he set up his computer, and they got his chair in. He also moved his CPAP back, so he’s now set, even though the room is not done.

Once the wardrobe is out, we’ll be able to access the closet again. The bottom of it has storage boxes, some filled with some of my late father’s things, but the closet rod and shelf above are open. There isn’t a lot of space between the footboard of the hospital bed and the closet door, since the bed is quite a bit longer than standard, but it’s enough to be able to open the door completely and access it. There’s still another shelf and his little medication fridge that needs to be set up again, but not until the wardrobe is emptied and taken upstairs.

Most important of all, of course, is that the corner where the tub’s plumbing is, is now clear and accessible.

I don’t want to cut the access panel from this side of the wall, though. At least not at first. Once we are able to cut away the rotted aspenite around the taps, we should be able to see where best to set the access panel. Even if we just make some holes from the bathroom side, to mark the corners, we can use those as guides to finish cutting the panel out from the bedroom side. If we do it neat and tidy enough, we might even be able to use the cut out piece to make a removeable cover for the opening.

It’ll be the girls taking care of getting that wardrobe upstairs, which means that tomorrow…

Oh, my goodness!

Tomorrow I might even be able to…

*gasp*

… get some work done OUTSIDE!

😄😄😄

I noticed today that the sunchokes are starting to die back, so I might start harvesting some of those. I definitely want to get the potatoes harvested. We should be able to use both with our Thanksgiving dinner.

If we have one.

With the hot water tank managing to produce only warmish water, it makes it rather hard to keep up with the dishes. We’re rather not be boiling large amounts of water again, as that makes the entire house ridiculously humid.

We could use disposable dishes, though. I think we still have some. I forgot about that, entirely!

Speaking of hot water tanks.

In going over the manual, it looks like our bottom element might be burned out. The anode rod likely needs to be replaced, too. It might be premature, since we haven’t confirmed this, but we’ve ordered a Corro-Protec rod (not an affiliate link), which we had to do on a payment plan, unfortunately.

The main hesitation we had for ordering one earlier was being able to plug it in. There is an outlet near the tank, tucked next to a floor joist above, but it already has two things plugged into it. One, we can remove; I traced the line and it’s an extension cord that goes up into the closet in my husband’s bedroom, along with a TV cable. When my late father used this room, there was a TV set up for him to be able to watch from bed, but we don’t watch TV, and that power cord isn’t being used.

The other thing plugged into there is the well pump. The problem is, the plug for the powered anode rod is fairly large. We might still be able to fit it in with the well pump’s plug, if we move the well pump’s plug up to where the extension cord is currently plugged in, but I don’t know that there’s enough space around the outlet to fit the powered anode rod’s plug. We won’t know until we actually get it.

Hopefully, we’ll be able to get the hot water tank repaired affordably, but we have no idea when that’ll happen. It’s not like we can afford to call a plumber for that, any more than we can afford to call a plumber for the taps in the tub.

Until then, we’ll be making do with tepid water, and boiling water if we can’t get away with tepid.

It’s a good thing we only do laundry with cold water!

Still, it’ll make Thanksgiving dinner a bit more challenging to prepare!

This house is going to be the death of us. 😄😄

The Re-Farmer

Cat isolation shelter progress: the wire mesh is on, and laying down framework

October 1, 2024 / Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

I finally got to spend some time working on the cat isolation shelter today! It’s been way too long.

I decided to go ahead and put on the rest of the wire mesh on the lower level, and start preparing the upper level.

Here is a slideshow of one side that gave me a bit more trouble.

All the areas needing mesh were done, with the mesh first tacked on with staples. For the short sides, I started securing the mesh with wood lath across the bottoms. I then spent a bit of time working out how best to start framing for the clear panels that will be sliding doors, while further securing the mesh on the bottom half.

The clear panel, which still needs to be cut to the sizes I need, is a quarter inch thick. The wood lath is also a quarter inch thick, though individual pieces have variations in width, so that will work out perfectly for sliding channels.

For this side, I added long, vertical pieces of wood that would both secure the wire mesh on the bottom, while also starting to form a frame around the opening that the clear plastic will be covering. This is so that the panel will slide towards the back, over the section that’s insulated and covered.

If you click through to the next photo, though, you’ll see my problem on this side.

The floor boards were placed flush with the edge on the other side. A couple of boards were slightly longer. When covering the section on this side, I took advantage of that and rested the first piece of wood lath right on top of the parts that stuck out, then worked my way up.

There was no way a door panel could slide across with those there. Mostly, it was the one piece that stuck out the furthest, but a second piece had to be dealt with, too.

Thankfully, I have a pull saw with a very thin and flexible blade – a Bear Saw, which I think is a model, not a brand. You can see how flexible the blade is in the next photo of the slideshow. I was able to saw off the parts that stuck out, then use a rasp to take off any bits that were left.

In the last photo, you can see the rest of the framing in place. Some of this will be hidden from view when the sliding channels are complete.

For the sliding door’s channel, I will need to set pieces across the top and bottom, positioned so they will be flush with the panel. I’ll need to find the thickest and straightest pieces for this part!

I am pretty sure I’ll need to add more framing pieces, but I won’t be positive until I have the panels as a guide.

I’ll probably give a bit of extra space for the panel at the top, so it’s not too snug – but not too much space, or it’ll wobble when being opened and closed. Once those pieces are fixed in place – and I’m sure the panel can slide over the covered and insulated section unobstructed – two more vertical pieces will be added that will overlap the top and bottom of the panel, holding it in place.

If we need to remove the panel for some reason, it can be slid right out one end.

The rest went much more easily.

This is the front section.

The mesh for this section was just a square, but I made sure not to secure it too high. There needs to be enough space for the clear panel that will cover the front of the top level to have the overlap it needs to be screwed in place.

Here is the second short end.

The covered section is over the opening to the second level, so there are no floor boards at the bottom. The bottom piece of wood covering the insulation was lined up with the horizontal frame piece, which made the whole thing slightly lower than the cover on the other side. That gave me room to put a long piece of wood lath across the top as well as the bottom. The rest was done pretty much the same as the other side.

That was it for today. Tomorrow, we need to get the table saw set up so we can cut the clear panel pieces.

Once the clear panels are in place, the door/ramp on the bottom will be installed. Last of all, the roof will be assembled. I have some handles I can add to the sides to make it easier to move it around, too. They were meant for something else, but are needed here, more.

After that, it’s done until we can pick up more paint! With or without paint, though, we can bring it over to the house and set it where the cats can start checking it out and getting used to it.

We’ll need to pick up more heat lamps so that we can have one to set up inside the upper level of the isolation shelter during the winter. Even with insulated walls, the plastic room and clear panels have no insulation. They may be good for passive solar heat during the day, but not very good at night!

I just checked online and the lamps I had in my wishlist are on sale right now, so I’ve just ordered a pair of clamp lamps and a pair of ceramic heat bulbs. I think we still have a timer laying around, too. If it has a light sensor, we can set it up like the one in the cat shelter, so that it will automatically turn the heat on at dusk, then off during the day.

Hopefully, the cats will get to enjoy the shelter soon. Especially the ladies we’re building it for, and their post trap and spay recovery period!

The Re-Farmer

It’s a good thing I’m flexible!

September 19, 2024 / Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

Today started off as an open day. No appointments, no running around planned… It was a day to catch up on things around home.

Which is mostly what happened!

My day started off sluggishly. With thunderstorms on the forecast, I got up and fed the outside cats before any potential storms, then went back to bed.

Well. I tried to. I finally gave up.

There was one errand that did have to be done, though. We were running out of kibble for the outside cats. I was considering where to go to get enough to last a week that would be in budget, and was thinking a trip to the feed store in my mother’s town might be in order. It was either that, or Walmart, but it’s not worth the cost of gas to get just a bag or two of kibble.

While I was checking Facebook while having breakfast, I caught a share from livestock supply store I follow, even though I’ve never been to that store. They are just outside the town to the North of us, and I’ve simply never had cause to find them. From the photos shared, they just got new pet inventory.

Including 40 pound bags of cat food.

In two different brands we haven’t seen before.

I decided to give them a try, heading out in the early afternoon. After finding the place, I asked about the kibble and got prices, then checked the rest of the store out.

I will most definitely be going back there for other things in the future!

Of the two brands of cat food, I chose the less expensive one, though even the more premium brand was a slightly lower price that the 40 pound bags I was getting at the feed store in my mother’s town. While looking around I noticed they have live traps of various sizes. They had the size for cats that I was looking at in Canadian Tire – at a better price, too! The rescue was going to lend us a trap, but I think the last person they lent it to is still ghosting them.

On the way back, I stopped at the post office, expecting some packages for my husband. Nothing was there, though. I just looked up the orders and they changed from arriving by 8pm today, to “now expected by September 26”.

Ah… I see why now. They’re being sent by Purolator, not the mail. They’re apparently in the city, but delayed “due to external factors”, whatever that means!

After I got home, I made a point of giving the outside cats a light feeding with the new brand of cat food, to see how they like it.

They all but inhaled it!

I guess this will be a brand we’ll get more often! The only down side is that this town is in the opposite direction of anywhere we normally go. So we’ll still be getting kibble at the feed store in my mother’s town, but special trips to this place for kibble will also happen.

While considering my issues with the cat isolation shelter and the materials I wanted, in contrast to the materials I have, I remembered something.

I do have clear plastic.

We found two of what looked like some sort of sliding door to me, in the barn. We’d brought them to the house, cleaned off years of dust, then put them in the basement. When we were still letting the cats down there, we kept the “bar” area closed off for the breakable stuff, and used one of these as a door to the entry.

I decided to bring one of them over to the cat isolation shelter and see.

I don’t know if it’s Plexiglass or Lexan or what. What I do know is, it’s big enough to cover the top front of the isolation shelter – and there should be enough left over that I might be able to cover a section on each side, too. Perhaps not as a sliding door, as I had been considering, but at least as a window on each side.

I’m really loathe to cut take the frame off and cut it up, though. It’s really well constructed.

I decided to think on it while working on the catio hammock.

I brought out a black plastic mesh, measured and cut it to size, then used steel strapping to secure it in place.

Syndol approves!

Once that was done, I had a nice piece of left over mesh.

The Crespo squash that’s hanging inside the bean trellis and breaking the cross piece with its weight needs a hammock.

So I threaded some ties along two sides of the leftover piece, and set it up.

The ties are attached to the metal supports on the A frame trellis. I tried to lift the squash up at least a bit, in the process, so get some of the stress off the broken cross piece. I used Mason’s line as ties, as it was thin enough to thread through the mesh. It’s strong, but that squash is going to get heavier. I may need to supplement them.

We’ve got some cool nights coming, so it was time to get the eggplant and hot pepper bed set up. I picked up clear table vinyl table protectors for the job. I got two for the garden and two for our dining table.

It’s a good thing I had four, because I needed them all.

The bed is 9′ long and 3′ wide, so I needed a minimum of 24′, plus overlap. I thought I could get away with three of them, but that only gave me about 20′

In the end, I decided to use some clear Gorilla tape I picked up, and connect the sheets in pairs.

The kittens were very interested in what I was doing!

The wind made laying them out so the ends to be taped together were on the sidewalk, and all nice and even, quite a challenge! I got it done, though.

While I was working on this, I started getting messages from my SIL.

She and my brother were going to make a trip out to drop stuff off today! They had a small trailer to haul out, and were going to load up as much other stuff as they could in the process. I was surprised that they would make the trip out after my brother got off work, given how quickly things are starting to get dark, but they still have a lot they need to bring out here. She kept me up to date on their progress, as she was able, while I continued with the preparing the vinul.

Once the pairs were taped together, it was time to wrap the box frame over the eggplants and peppers.

When we had it wrapped before, we made a point of covering the length first, and having the overlap at the ends. I recall the wind really seemed to catch on those ends. This time, I decided to centre the vinyl sheets at the ends, and have the overlap in the middle of the long sides.

The box frame has a wire topped frame on top, and I was able to use that to hold the top of the vinyl in place, wrapping the excess over the top of the box frame and into the middle. The wire topped frame, however, isn’t secured in the center, and it starting to twist and bow out. We’ll need to set a line across and pull it in, but not today.

After the vinyl was in position, I used paracord to secure it to the box frame around the top. That one I made very tight, since it needs to not move at all. I added more paracord around the bottom and the middle, to keep the wind from blowing it around. Those are snug, but we will still be able to move the vinyl to reach into the bed, then tuck it back under the paracord again when we’re done.

The only problem is that the box frame has a cross piece in the middle. With the excess vinyl sitting on top of it, I could see the wind was going to be a problem. In the end, I ended up just using more clear Gorilla tape to secure the vinyl to itself on the inside. Hopefully, that will work!

With my brother and SIL on the way, when that was done, I went to open the gate for them. I think took advantage of the situation, grabbed a pair of loppers and the wagon, and headed to the end of the driveway.

If you click through to the second photo in the above slideshow, you can see my first wagon load. That’s all poplar saplings, spreading through roots. They were starting to obstruct visibility as we leave, making it hard to see if any vehicles are on the road, coming towards us.

I did three wagon loads like that!

While I was working on that, my SIL kept me updated. Then ended up driving into a storm with the rain coming down so hard, they had to pull over. When the could finally start driving again, they stopped at a gas station in town along the way to check on things before continuing on.

They still hadn’t arrived when I finished my third wagon load of saplings. At that point, it was getting hard to see the stems I was trying to cut!

My brother may have driven through torrential rain, but we got nothing all day, save a few spatters now and then.

After tossing the saplings on the burn pile and putting things away, I realized I hadn’t taken a picture of the wrapped garden. If you click through to the last image in the slideshow, you can see how that looks. Should we expect to get an actual frost, we can toss a cover on the wire frame on top. For now, the vinyl will act as a sort of greenhouse, keeping them warmer as our daytime temperatures start to drop. The open top should keep it from getting too hot. This bed has the only plants we have that like things quite a bit warmer, even during the day.

The real test will be how it holds up in high winds.

With my brother soon to arrive, and a smattering of rain starting, I headed into the garage to see what I could do on the isolation shelter.

I cut lengths of wood lath to use to secure the mesh on the bottom level, against the frame. I was just putting the last nail into the front section when they arrived.

It was pitch black out by then, and I ended up using the flashlight on my phone to help them see to open up the back of the trailer and unload the piece of equipment that was on it. That went into the barn, while the trailer itself got parked to the side.

Then they back the truck up to the barn and we unloaded it, assembly line style. That sure made things go very quickly!

They even had a couple of things they knew I could use in there, and I was very grateful for them! Those went into the garage.

We worked quickly to unload, and then they had to leave right away. They had a long drive home, and my brother still has to get up for work tomorrow. His job has him working with people in time zones around the world, so sometimes the hours get very unusual!

Before they got home, though, I got another message from them. They forgot their wooden ramp on the ground, that they were supposed to take home with them. My brother was concerned it would get rained on, so I went back out to put it in the garage.

It’s 16C/61F out there right now, and absolutely gorgeous. I’d be sleeping outside right now, if we had the set up for it!

Meanwhile, in the middle of all this, I got a voicemail message from home care about my mother. For some reason, they called my cell phone number. I was in the garage at the time, so my phone never rang. I started listening to the message as I went into the house, and promptly lost the signal. I had to go back outside to listen to the full message!

My mother was getting her first home care visit at suppertime, to help her with her medications. They will be coming in the morning and at supper, then one more time for her before-bed medications. The person calling me wanted to make sure to tell us that they wouldn’t have someone available for a supper and before bed visit this Sunday.

So I made sure to call my mother right away. It turns out they had called her, too, but didn’t mention to her about the day they wouldn’t be able to come. As we talked about her meds and the times, she started to get mixed up with things, and confused. I’m so glad we were able to get her to allow home care to come in to help with her meds!

The next thing will be the meal prep visits. Those are supposed to be every two weeks for bulk cooking. We’ll have to have some idea of what they can and can’t do for that, and plan my mother’s grocery shopping accordingly. Usually, I’ve been helping her with her groceries every week or so – sometimes, my sister is able to do it for her. With the bulk cooking every two weeks, that will change things, but I don’t know how, yet.

We’ll figure it out.

Meanwhile, I am now scheduled to go to her place tomorrow. She’s need to go to the bank this time – the one thing I can’t do for her – so she’s going to have to climb in and out of our truck.

I’m still amazed that she can do it. When we got the truck, I thought for sure, it wasn’t going to happen. With her car out of commission right now, we don’t have much choice. We do have a foot stool for her, and I have to give her a bit of a boost, and she manages it!

Still, it’s something we want to do as little as possible!

With that in mind, it’s time for me to finish this up and get to bed. It’s coming up on midnight right now!

Until next time, I hope you have a fabulous day! Or night. Whatever time it happens to be for you as you read this. 😁😁

The Re-Farmer

More progress on the cat isolation shelter

September 7, 2024September 7, 2024 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I’m glad I was able to get work done on the cat isolation shelter today! I’m hoping to get more done tomorrow, too, but we shall see.

Next week, I won’t be able to get much of anything done.

On Monday, I’ll be taking my mother to a hospital in the city. Thankfully, she found the letter they’d sent her about the appointment. We now know that this test was something her previous doctor had written her up for, before he moved to another clinic. I believe that makes it more than a year, waiting.

I will have to go to her place quite a bit earlier, so I can go over the letter and figure out where we need to go. She’s supposed to arrive half an hour early, for time to register. This hospital is where the heart clinic is, but that part of the hospital can’t be accessed from the inside of the building. My husband and I had to go through the emergency entrance. Where my mother’s test is going to be will be in the main part of the hospital, but it can be so confusing to find places, they sometimes have volunteers available to act as guides and take you straight to the right place. Other times, we follow colour coded lines painted on the walls.

On top of that, this place is right in the middle of the city, across the river from downtown. I’m going to have to drop my mother off at the main entrance, find somewhere to park, then come back for her. With my husband, I often found myself parking blocks away, as the parkades were all full, as well all the nearest streets. I’ll need to factor in the time that will take, too.

It’s going to be an all day thing.

Then, a couple of days later, I’m taking my mother to an eye clinic, then the day after that, we’re bringing a male cat – whichever one we can catch – to the vet clinic to get snipped.

All that driving around isn’t going to leave much time to get things done at home, including working on the cat shelters.

It had been my intention to see if I could reinforce the mesh that is popping loose on the catio with the steel strapping I have, but I couldn’t find it. So no progress on the catio.

I got quite a lot of progress on the isolation shelter, though!

Here is a slideshow of things at the end of the day.

In between other things, I opened up the roll of 3/4 inch welder wire and cut off a piece to cover the back of the bottom level. At this stage, the mesh is held in place with a few staples. I’ll be covering the edges with wood lath to secure them, later.

I started cutting pieces for the lower level door/ramp to size, and prepared to cover the back of the upper level. I’ve decided I will cover the back first with some rigid insulation. It will probably get scratched up by cats, but that won’t matter too much. The sheet I was using today already has cat damage on it. I cut a section of insulation to size, and will then cover the whole thing with 4′ pieces of wood lath to secure it.

Once I measured and cut and prepared what I needed, I started painting, which you can see in the second photo. The first thing was to cover the edges of floor pieces that weren’t pre-painted, as they were not supposed to be exposed before I had to make changes to the floor plan. The scratching post/ramp to the second level got its ends painted.

In the next photo, you can see the pieces of wood lathe that got painted. Only one side of those need to be painted.

The pieces for the door/ramp need to be painted on both sides. I didn’t have room on the saw horse for all the pieces, though, so I found things on my work table that could support the door/ramp pieces as they dried.

The other thing I did was build the insulated cat “nest”. This is the box that is made to fit under the shelf on the second level. Once it was assembled, and the insulation secured, I framed the entrances for both the insulated and uninsulated boxes with pieces of wood lath. This is not just to them look more finished and pretty. We will probably be adding some sort of cover over the openings that will keep the weather out, and give a potentially frightened cat someplace cave-like for them to hide in. My husband has some leather that he will cut to size to cover the front. Part will be kept solid to be attached to the top of the opening, while the rest will be cut into strips that a cat can push through to get in and out.

I hadn’t intended to paint the cat boxes, but since I was painting things anyhow, I painted them, too.

Tomorrow, I will flip the things that need to be painted on all sides, including the boxes, and finish painting them, then continue working on the back of the shelter. I should be able to start adding wire mesh to the sides and front of the shelter, but not until after I’ve secured the scratching post/ramp in place, and then added anything else I can think of. Once the wire mesh is in place, Nothing more can be build into the bottom half, so I need to make sure I’ve done everything I want, first.

I still haven’t decided how to make the access panels into the top half, nor how to finish enclosing it. I really hoped to be find some clear plastic panels for parts of it, at least. Not just so we can see inside, but so any cats inside can sit in the sun and look out if they want. Plus, depending on how we position the shelter, it can add passive solar heat.

That is something else I want to make sure we can do – heat the upper half of this! I’d like to be able to hang a heat lamp off the frame somewhere, or even the centre support for the roof, and run the cord out the top somewhere. If we are going to have mostly feral cats isolated in there for a couple of weeks in the winter, we most definitely want to have a heat source of some kind in there.

That’s one thing about the clear plastic roof we plan to put on there. It will be thin, so it will have almost no insulation of any kind – but it can also be a source of passive solar heat on sunny winter days.

This whole thing is a complete experiment, and a learning experience, that’s for sure!

The Re-Farmer

Cat Isolation Shelter Progress – with many goofs!

August 19, 2024 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I am so, so tired!

I’m glad I set up shop in the shade of the garage to work on this, because even in there, it got so very hot!

I got progress done on the isolation shelter, but also discovered some things I neglected to take into account. I am definitely getting tires, though, as I made some pretty silly goofs today, too. Nothing that couldn’t be worked around, but still… Yikes!

I won’t be able to do much on it over the next few days, though. I will be heading out over the next three days, and while I might have time to do something before I have to leave, I don’t want to be getting covered in paint or sawdust or getting all sweaty before I need to go out in public!

Anyhow.

The first thing I needed to work on today was adding the verticals. They are not needed, structurally, but they will be needed to attach things to, whether it’s a door or access panel, or to support the welded wire, etc.

I’m not going to go into too much detail right now, but gosh, some of them were a pain to put in! I had painted the cut ends, and on a couple of them, I had to sand the paint off to get them to fit. In others. I actually had to use the miter saw to shave off some of the wood.

I did want them to be very snug, and most of them were. I used a piece of scrap wood and a hammer on some of them, to tap them into place without damaging them.

Then I had to cut out a chunk from the floor board that was to go against the back wall.

I don’t really have the tools to do that properly, but I managed.

That was my first goof.

I measured out the hole to fit around the vertical, forgetting that the board was not intended to fit flush with the back, but flush against the next board. So I ended up cutting a deeper opening than needed.

Ah, well. It’ll still work.

After setting the long floor boards across the back half of the shelter, I realized something else I didn’t take into account. I’d added an extra, narrower, board that straddled the center line, with the vertical 2×4 placed in the middle, the 1×4 boards fit exactly in between the new vertical and the outside frame.

The long, narrow board could no longer fit.

A 1×4 could fit, but there was nothing to support it at the vertical.

After debating it for a while, I ended up attaching one of the triangle blocks I’d made out of regular 2x4s (not the true to size 2x4s) and attached it to the horizontal bar, to support a floor board, and I just had to cut one of the pre-painted boards a bit shorter. That worked out fine.

But I was then left with a gap.

If I cut a new floor board to fit the space between the two “floor joists”, I’d have to just barely trim off a bit at one end, to fit around the corner post. That would leave a gap between the frame and the front horizontal piece. Or the wide board was cut to fit between the frame could still be added, with a corner cut out to fit around the front vertical piece, but that would leave a gap between it and the next floor board.

At that point, I decided to leave it and work on other things while I decided what to do next.

Which was to make a shelf.

I had a short length of true-to-size 2×4 that I could cut in half with opposing 45° angles to make shelf brackets.

I had piece of 1×8 board that I’d brought from the barn some time ago, with plans to make a shelf against the garage wall. It was pretty damaged and needed to be scrubbed down with water. I was able to cut a 4′ length, and the most damaged part will be the underside.

At that point, I decided to leave a large gap in the floor at the front, but to add a small shelf under it that a cat could use to access the second level like a step. So I cut a piece to fit, and will use a couple of 2×4 triangle blocks to support it.

Then, since I had to wait for the board I scrubbed to dry in the sun, I started working on the “nesting box”.

I measured the space under the shelf that will go across the back, as I wanted to make the box to fit under the shelf. It was 11 inches, so I decided to make the box 10.5 inches tall.

I took some of the 12.5″ long pallet wood pieces I cut yesterday, picking out the least damaged ones, and cut them to 10.5 inches. The longer pallet wood pieces are 13.5 inches, so that would be the length of the board.

After some consideration, I decided to make the box 3 of these boards deep. I had some scrap 1x2s and I cut a bunch to match the width of 3 boards to be used as cross pieces. I was going to make 3 short sides and two long top and bottoms, so I cut 8 cross pieces. The idea is that the cross pieces would be on the outside, and rigid insulation would be cut to fit in between them.

I started by using cross pieces to join the shorter boards using glue and nails. All those finishing nails I’d sorted out of the pile the cats spilled on the garage floor came in handy, but I had to watch not to grab any that were too long – after accidentally nailing it to the table with my very first nail!

After the two side pieces were done, I was going to do the same thing with the 13.5″ pieces, but realized I could just attach them across the top and bottom of the short pieces, using the same cross pieces.

Which worked perfectly fine…

Except…

Yeah, I goofed.

With the longer pieces attached this way, the whole thing is now higher than will fit under the shelf.

No matter. It can still be used. It just won’t fit under the shelf across the back.

I also decided it will be a “summer” nesting box, and not have insulation added. I’ll make another one – this time, one that will actually fit under the shelf – another day.

By then, the shelf board was dry, so I painted the new pieces, as well as the shelf supports that were already attached, then went around finding spots to touch up. After the painting was done and put away, I added a back to the “nesting” box.

I still wasn’t sure how to do the front. This is supposed to be a closed up, cozy space for a nervous cat do feel secure in – but also fully accessible. After showing the photos to my husband, he suggested leather. He has some really thick leather that he isn’t able to use for the projects he had in mind that I can use. A piece cut large enough to cover the front, then cut into strips or flaps that a cat can easily push through, would work just fine!

The inside of the boxes will also get something soft put inside. We’ll just have to make sure whatever we put into the insulated box is breathable, since the insulation will hold in moisture as well as warmth.

Once the shelves and boxes are built, I need to work on the door and access panels. I took measurements of what will be the main door/ramp in the front, but I have absolutely nothing suitable to make it with. There was one thing I thought I could salvage, but it’s full of nails that won’t come out, and it’s not worth it to cut them, either. Of all the things I have that are large enough, they are too thick and heavy. I might have to get creative with the lath that I picked up, but that is really thin. For a door that will double as a ramp, it would break too easily, I think.

I’ll figure something out. I’ll have a few days to think about it. Since I’m going to meet with the Cat Lady in the nearer city tomorrow, I might do some window shopping and look for inspiration.

So that is my progress on the isolation shelter for today. I still have to track down some half inch welded wire for the open sides, and figure out what to use for access panels on the second level. What I’d really like to do for the upper level is enclose it more. The question is, how to do that, and still be able to see inside. None of the salvaged windows I’ve looked at will work. Ideally, I’d just use some Lexan or Optix (both handle UV light better than Plexiglass), but even Optix is pricey.

Ah, well. We’ll figure something out.

As long as it gets done before we start trapping cats for spays and neuters!

The Re-Farmer

The Re-Farmer

Sometimes, you need to go back, to go forward.

figuring things out

Yeah. More plumbing problems

Well, it’s all we can do right now!

Power is back… for now?

A quick isolation shelter build

We have cat food again!

Progress!

Cat isolation shelter progress: the wire mesh is on, and laying down framework

It’s a good thing I’m flexible!

More progress on the cat isolation shelter

Cat Isolation Shelter Progress – with many goofs!

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