repairs

A few updates, and I’m not sure about this kitten

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It was a nice, crisp and cool morning as I was doing my rounds. I made sure to get the kibble for the outside cats to soak in hot water before I headed out, so they could have a nice warm breakfast.

There is one kitten that I noticed last night; a friendly little tabby. It had been curled up in the cat bed at the bottom of the shelf in the window. While topping up their kibble at the end of the day, it basically didn’t move, while all the other cats and kittens came running as soon as they heard kibble hit tray.

This morning, it was still in the same spot, but meowing strangely. It reminded me of how eye baby used to meow, when he was pretty much completely blind and wandering around the yard.

Eye baby seems to be doing quite well, btw. The one eye is still shaped differently, but he can blink it and seems to be able to see out of it.

I was able to get the kitten out and tried to bring it near the warm food. It did not seem interested in the food at all.

It was very interested in attention, though.

I cuddled it a bit, but had to continue my rounds. As I was making my way back to the house, I could here it meowing, and found it following a couple of other kittens into the old kitchen garden. I went to pick it up and it really enjoyed being carried, started to purr and knead the sleeve of my shirt.

I tried to put it near food again and managed to free myself long enough to bring a water bowl into the sun room. It’s one of the working heated water bowls (at least I hope it’s still working!), and we will have it plugged in during the winter, so they’ll have a heated water bowl both inside and outside.

As I moved the kitten to different places, as much to get it out from under my feet as to show it where the water bowl and food trays were, it seems to me the kitten is not very steady on its feet. It does seem to be having vision issues though, as far as I could see, the eyes are clear and dilating normally.

There’s nothing we can do about it, other than monitor the kitten and see how it does. We do still have antibiotics we can give it, if it seems warranted.

Meanwhile…

My brother was finally able to get back to me on Messenger, this morning. With great hesitation, I had told him we would need help with the bathroom, as we don’t have the tools we need to cut away the rotten chip board – aspenite is the proper name for it. I never remember that, but my brother mentioned it.

He asked what tools we needed, but I honestly don’t know. What tool is the right tool to cut away the aspenite, without damaging what’s on the other side of it?

He did mention something that should have been obvious, though we hadn’t thought of it yet.

We’re going to have to take the tub out entirely. The rot extends down the wall where the water pipes are, and in the middle of the back wall.

*sigh*

That is not going to be an easy job. Not just because of the size of the tub in a rather small bathroom. This tub is old school. I’m pretty sure it’s enameled cast iron. When you first get into it, it’s absolutely freezing, but once it warms up, it holds heat so much longer than a modern tub.

Gosh, I miss being able to take a bath!

We basically went from, the taps and faucet need to be replaced, to a major repair and replacement job. The more we uncover, the more we find will need to be done.

My brother barely remembers what’s behind that aspenite. We know there’s log behind the two walls, and that there are more pieces of whatever was handy, like we found under the fake tile paneling, used to try and level the walls.

We’ve still got the fan set up on the bath chair to get things as dry as we can. Every now and then, I’ve been using more CLR on the rust stains under the taps. May as well try and clear that as best we can, while we’re at it.

As much as I like this tub, if we had the funds for it, I would replace it with one of those walk in tubs. The kind with a door on the side, and a seat at one end. This would allow both my husband and I to be able to get in and out safely, and get the hot, soaking baths that would give us at least some temporary pain relief. Especially for him, when his back starts to spasm.

A plain walk in tub with a seat starts at over $3600 at Home Depot. There are slightly cheaper walk in tubs, but they don’t have a seat which, for us, completely defeats the purpose of having one.

If we did get one, we would probably have to add more structural support to the floor in the basement. Which is not that big of a deal. I think we even have an adjustable steel pillar somewhere around the farm that could be used. The only down side of that is, it would make it harder to get at the well pump, sump pump and pressure tank, as well as the plumbing, that are all under the bathroom.

Ideally, we would be hiring someone to do all this and renovate the entire bathroom in the process. If we were to include installing a walk in tub at the same time, though, that would easily cost at $10,000. Probably more like $15,000 since we’d also be getting at least the walls around the tub tiled. When we looked it up before, the cost to tile the bathroom alone was in the $5000 for a room the size of ours.

*sigh*

If we had that kind of cash available, we wouldn’t have truck payments right now.

Well, we’ll figure it out.

Meanwhile, my brother plans to come out here with another load, after work on Friday, and he will take a look at the bathroom while he’s here.

So today’s priority will be working on my husband’s bedroom. I’m hoping we can set his computer up on his leatherworking desk in the living room first. Then we can start clearing and rearranging his room, so we can access the corner on the other side of the tub and look into cutting an access panel.

One of the things we need to take out of his room is my late father’s wardrobe; it matches the vanity and nightstand I’m using in my room. In talking to him about it, he said we could take the wardrobe out completely and leave it out, as he doesn’t use it very much, but we have nowhere else to put it! It’s pretty darn big.

It seems like every thing we discover that needs to be done requires something else that needs to be done to do it… which requires something else to be done so we can do that…

When my mother asked us to move out here, we knew it wouldn’t be easy, and the house wasn’t “perfect” like she claimed it was, but my goodness, we never expected it to be this bad.

Well, it is what it is. We will deal.

It’s not like we have any choice!

The Re-Farmer

Bathtub progress. Ew.

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Things are going to be slow when it comes to dealing with our water problems in the tub.

Today, we were able to cut away the bottom of the fake tile paneling, to see the damage behind it. I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect back there. Especially with the two walls that are log.

This is how it looks now.

On the one hand, that’s really gross. Especially around the taps, where quite a few bugs were uncovered. They looked a bit like pill bugs, but I really didn’t want to look too closely! Others were too small for even that much of an identification.

There were so.

Many.

Nails in that paneling! My guess is, before the tub surround was added, the paneling was coming loose from the wall, so it was very thoroughly nailed in place before the surround was installed. The problem is, the nails were very hard to see. While I was cutting through the paneling, I kept hitting nail heads in the intersecting lines. Then, as I tried to pull the paneling off, I had to pry it off more nails. Some of them pulled right out. Others, the paneling broke around it.

The back wall and the section of wall on the right are the log walls. I’m hoping that chip board managed to protect the logs somewhat. My brother had told me that shims were used to level the walls so the paneling could be attached.

I didn’t expect there to be scrap pieces on top of the chip board. I even recognize some of the pieces as scraps from the paneling used on the rest of the ground floor of the house. You use what you’ve got!

For now, we have the bath chair set up to support a box fan to dry the rotted walls.

At this point, in updating my brother about all this, I had to ask for help. We simply don’t have the tools to cut away that rotted chipboard.

I am rather afraid to find out what’s behind the wall around the pipes.

Once we get to a point where we can actually install the new taps, we will probably cover the open sections with plastic. That would allow us to turn the newly installed shut off valves, on, and we could use the shower as we get the materials we need to patch and repair. My older daughter has told me she will cover the costs, but we don’t even know what the costs will be. Plus, she’s a freelancer, so the money comes when the jobs get done. Thankfully, she has a pretty steady stream of commissions for her digital art.

With how things are going, though, I expect it will take weeks to get it done, as we slowly uncover things and figure out how bad the damage is, and what we will need in order to repair it.

Until then, we continue to sponge bathe!

Meanwhile, we’ve had a change in schedule. My husband called the clinic about his CT scan tomorrow and cancelled it. He’s in too much pain to handle the drive.

So that frees up the day though, under the circumstances for my husband, I would rather have had it otherwise.

Ah, well.

Little by little, it’ll get done!

The Re-Farmer

We have a land line again!

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The phone tech arrived about half an hour before I needed to head out, which was perfect.

I thought the phone company had our section number, like the electric company. We’ve had a tech come out before, a few years back, and there were no issues finding us. This poor guy tried to use GPS! The numerical designation for the road we are on, ends at a cross road some miles from us, then our section restarts maybe a quarter mile off. I’ve never actually driven down that section of road. When I grew up here, it never extended that far, but ended at a farmer’s field, a mile away. The “new” road was built during our decades living in other provinces.

The guy had driven down about 4 miles of gravel road that isn’t very high on the maintenance priority list. He said he had to drive at a crawl! I made sure to tell him where the main gravel road to get back to the highway was.

Once I opened the gate for him, I showed him where the box was on the house, and he asked where the main box was. That would be the one on the fence line by our sign, but there is another one near our secondary gate that I told him about.

He was almost completely done before I headed out!

The first thing he did was test the box at the house. Well. Almost. His first attempt didn’t work, because his test phone was frozen. !! He had to get another one and try again.

What he found was that the voltage was too high. It was definitely an external problem and one that is apparently common. He then went to work on the box at the fence.

As I was about to leave, I couldn’t see him, or his van, anywhere so we checked the phone. We had a dial tone! As I was leaving, though, I saw him parked on the sude of the road, near the box at the fence line. His van had been hidden by trees.

I pulled up next to him and we spoke for a while. He was in the process of calling the phone company. While he got our phone working, there were wires that needed to be replaced, so he was calling that in. He wanted to get that done so it wouldn’t happen again after he left.

I found out from my daughter that he was still there, at least an hour later!

It was done before I got home, though.

I’m glad I made the trip to town today. Along with a few groceries and refilling two of our big water jugs, I did find stove pellets at one of the local hardware stores. It feels strange, buying “premium” stove pellets when it will be used as cat litter! It was a bit more expensive, but not as expensive as driving to the nearest city for it!

We had some blowing snow, but the roads were still good. Looking at the weather radar, the system seems to be stalled at the border between provinces, and dropping a lot of snow! We may end up getting just the edges of it, as it passes by.

We could use the snow, but I’m not going to complain about still having milder temperatures. Assuming the forecasts are at least somewhat accurate!

Now that the phone is working again, it’s time to move the base back to my bedroom/office.

The Re-Farmer

Well, it would have worked! (video)

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Yesterday, I headed out to fix the water pipe to the garden tap. It was hot and muggy, and I had sweat pouring off my face, so if you hear me sounding out of breath in the video below, that is why!

The couplings did work. I had to use both of them.

But then… well… here’s the video.

So… that’s a write off.

In theory, I could just dig out the section between where the couplings are, and my unexpected find, figure out where the third leak is and repair that. However, the pipe is so old, and clearly splitting apart easily, it’s not worth it. It needs to be replaced completely.

So now my plan is to take advantage of end of season sales to pick up a heavy duty garden hose long enough to reach from the house to the garden tap, with slack. I am also thinking of picking up some pipe wide enough to run the hose through it. This way, the hose would be protected by the pipe after it’s buried, but if it does need repair, it can be easily pulled out, then put back in again, without having to dig another trench. It would be even easier to attach a line to one end before pulling it out the other way, do any repaires, then use the line to pull it back through the pipe.

I won’t dig up the water pipe until we have what we need to install a replacement, but I am now very curious as to just why there is that wider diameter section of pipe, and how far it extends. I’m also curious as to just how far the hose section coming out of the ground to attach to the house extends, and how it’s joined to the pipe.

Whatever was done obviously made sense at the time, and it did work for about 50 years, which is pretty darn good!

The Re-Farmer

Well, so much for new glasses… again

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Would you look at this round, round mama!

She looks ready to have a litter any day now! Way, way too early!

Meanwhile…

Looks like my tax return is not going to be used as planned.

We had some issues with the toilet being partially clogged yesterday, but I was going to fight with it after my older daughter had her “morning” shower (she works at night). I did decide to go into the old basement and check the well pump and pipes, just in case.

The first thing I saw was a bit of damp near the sump pump reservoir.

There shouldn’t be any moisture there, this time of year.

Then I heard the dripping.

We have water dripping from under the bathtub.

Pretty much since we’ve moved here, the hot water tap in the tub has leaked while in use. It has gotten worse over the years. When we had the plumber here to auger the drain pipe to the septic tank, he also took a look at it for us. He thought he could fix the taps, but I’d like to replace them, so we got an estimate of about $400 for that – and that’s with us buying the replacement faucet set. He mentioned replacing it with the kind that is one lever rather than two taps to control the temperature. None of us like those things, and I’d want to replace it with basically the same style that’s already there. I told him we’d likely buy the faucet set ourselves, so the estimate did not include that. This was a couple years ago, so I would expect it to be higher, now.

The problem is that he’d have to take off the tub surround to access it – it can’t be reached from the other side of the wall, and the last time they were replaced, it would have been done from the front. The tub surround is one of those inexpensive 5 pc surrounds, where there are three flat pieces, then the corner pieces with moulded shelves. With our incredibly hard and iron rich water, it all looks like crap. No amount of scrubbing can get these clean, just like we can’t get the iron stains from the leaking tap completely off. So I have no problem with replacing those completely.

But if water is getting through enough to leak into the basement, the problem is not just the tap. It is likely the degrading caulking, too.

Which leads us to another issue.

When we finally got an indoor bathroom, my dad choose to cover the walls with bathroom panelling that was made to look like tiles. This was in the early 70’s, and there are areas of it, like behind the sink, where the panelling has been water damaged. The tub surround is mounted on top of the old panelling, which means there is caulking behind the caulking around the tub.

Chances are, the old caulking is also degrading, and the paneling under it may be molding or rotting. We won’t know until we take the surround off.

If we do end up having to replace the panelling behind it, we have another question.

What’s behind it?

Two of the walls are the original log walls; one is still exterior, while the other now has the sun room on the other side of it. The third side is the interior wall between the bathroom and my husband’s bedroom.

What we don’t know is of the panelling has something behind it, or if it was nailed directly to the log walls and joists. I know in the “new” part of the house, the panelling was nailed directly to the one long wall, and I’m pretty sure they were nailed directly to the joists on the other walls, with nothing between them and the insulation. But I’m just guessing on that, based on what little I can see from the places where the panelling has started to warp.

Talking about it with my daughters, they are suggesting not going with another tub surround at all, but to tile it, instead. Which would indeed be preferable! But is that even an option?

So right now, we’re looking at, I’m guessing, $500 for the plumber. Inexpensive tub surrounds like what we have now cost from $250 – $275 – or we could get just the flat panels for about $67 each (we’d likely need three). I have no idea at all how much it would cost if we tiled, instead. Depending on the size, they can be a couple of bucks each, or are sold by the square foot. Plus the backing material that would replace the current wall panels, plus the grout…

Then there’s the cost of the taps and faucet set (even the faucet is so encrusted in minerals, it’s affecting the seal on the shower diverter). I’ve looked around and did find a set that’s like what we have, at only $100 – and that includes a shower head. We just got a new shower head for our hand held shower, but having a spare is never a bad thing.

So…

I guess I’m not getting glasses again this year. We should, at least, still be able to get my younger daughter her glasses, since she can’t wear hers at all anymore, and her sister has offered to help with the costs as much as she can. She needs to do her taxes, too. Last year, she did them and ended up owing money – only to have it paid back, plus a return, a month or so later!

And no. We are NOT going into the funds being set aside for the replacement vehicle. That’s just not an option.

*sigh*

Well, at least this is happening at a time when we will have the funds to pay for it. The main thing is to get it fixed before water damage gets worse. The last thing we need is for the tub to fall through the floor into the basement! It would land right on the well and sump pumps.

Must. Not. Imagine. Worst. Case. Scenarios.

Too late.

The Re-Farmer

Progress: the sun room door is don… AAAAAAaaahhh!!!

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This afternoon, with the help of a daughter, we hung the replacement door back up onto the newly painted frame.

We lined the hinges up with where they were before, except further in as far as we could go. Just to be on the safe side, my daughter held the door in place while I marked the holes for the screws, then I drilled pilot holes for just the top hinge. We screwed in the top hinge, then double checked the locations for the other pilot holes and re-marked accordingly.

As you can see in one of the photos, the entire frame looks like it’s pulling away from the wall! It was like this when we moved here, and the gap doesn’t seem to be getting any bigger, so I don’t think it’ll be a problem. At least not any more than anything else is! :-D

Also, we only had the old screws available, since none of the new screws we have were the right size, and there were only 6 of the same type. So each hinge is missing 1 screw! I still drilled the pilot holes, though, for when I pick some up.

Of course, as soon as we got the top and bottom hinges secure, we tested the door, just in case.

Aaannndd…

Really???

The door was hitting the frame again! It had to be forced closed!

We decided to finish hanging the door, though. Once it was in, I tested it again, which is when I noticed this…

The door latch was now higher than it was before.

Keep in mind that we did NOT raise the door when we put it back. The hinges were lined up with where it was hung previously. The only change was mounting them further in the frame than it was before. Apparently, that was enough for the door latch to be about half an inch higher than it was before!

Using where the blue paint marked the frame as a guide, I went back to trying to reduce the wood in those spots. I used the shaver, a chisel, a rasp, and even some of my coarsest sandpaper. For some of the tools, it was hard to get right into the corner. Time and again, I tested the door, and it still was hitting.

Finally, I started shaving wood off the door itself. That wood is so much softer than the frame, I could do in moments what took several minutes, and a variety of tools, to take off the same amount of material.

I took these photos when I figured I was done, but then went ahead and took off more material. Just in case!

I also gouged out more of the hole for the latch. After testing the door again and again, I finally put the latch plate back on.

That mark on the inside of the frame by the latch plate?

It turned out part of the door handle assembly – I just looked it up and now know it’s called a “rose” – hits it. So I used sandpaper to gouge out a recess there. That wood is also very soft compared to the frame pieces I’ve been fighting with!

The door now closes, easily and properly!

In fact, it’s probably the smoothest working door in the entire house right now!

I had one last thing to attach.

The stop chain!

I started screwing it in where there were pre-existing holes, but realized the bent part of the plate was extending beyond the wood, and the door would be hitting it. While moving it over, I noticed the plate for the chain on the inner door had only one screw holding it in place, so I fixed that, too.

Now, there is no chance the door will bang open too far. It doesn’t even hit the shelf behind it anymore, which means no risk it’ll hit the window. I can now move that shelf to the other side of the door, in front of the cracked window.

Tomorrow morning, I’ll be touching up the paint that I scraped off, including the door; thankfully we still have some of that blue left.

Once I was done hanging the door, I just couldn’t help it.

I stood there, opening it and closing it again, and giggling to myself. :-D

I am easily entertained!

This door was so much more of a problem to replace than we could have imagined!

The Re-Farmer

Replacement door: hung

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The replacement door to the sun room is back up again!

Of course, things went wonky in the process. At this point, I expect nothing else!

I don’t know if you can tell, but we ended up adding yet another piece of wood under the bottom hinge. The gap there was still massive. And yet, none was needed at the middle hinge!

Of course, the door didn’t quite fit, even after all this. We still needed to force the door over the threshold. We’d had to do that with the old door, to a certain extent. It wasn’t as noticeable, and I think that was partly because the door was already starting to fall apart before we moved here.

Using the blue paint scraped off the door as a guide, I used whatever tools I could dig up to smooth out the side piece. I tried one of the planes we found in the basement. It was a bit big for the space, but it would have worked, except the plate was loose, which is when I discovered the frame holding it was cracked.

We didn’t find it that way. The cats had knocked it off the shelf I’d put it on.

*sigh*

I carved out a recess for the latch plate and deepened the hole for the latch itself until it could finally catch and stay caught. I also began chiselling, carving and rasping away at the outer edge of the threshold until the door could close without being forced.

Well. It still kinda needs to be forced. There is still an issue with the hinges. Understandably, there is a lot of stress on them. I’m trying to think of what I can do to fix that, and not a whole lot comes to mind that is feasible.

I suspect this door won’t last very long, but it’s the best we can do right now, and at least there’s a working door!

I still need to work on smoothing out the frame some more before we paint it. I have been eyeballing some tiny little planers at the hardware store that would be perfect for the job. I might just have to spring for one.

I will be so happy when this job is finally done.

The Re-Farmer

Garden rain barrel, done!

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This morning, I emptied the can of Plasit Dip on the cracks in the rain barrel.

Yesterday, I found a couple of hoola hoops at a dollar store in town, and this afternoon, I dug out the role of window screen mesh we found while cleaning out the basement. I hadn’t quite figured out how I was going to attach the mesh to the hoops, and decided to just sew it on. The only problem with that was holding the mesh in place, so I ended up applying the WeldBond glue I’ve got to the hoop, then laying the mesh I’d cut to size on top of it.

Made a real mess on my hands, pressing it into place, but thankfully, the glue washes off easily.

After it had set long enough, I then just sewed the mesh on with a needle and thread.

It’s a bit on the light side and I want to figure out how to add weight to it. With the screen directly on the top of the barrel, any weight on the hoop could potentially tear the screen. I’ll probably just put a board across the top.

Here are the areas I sprayed with the Plasti Dip, both inside and out. I even sprayed areas that I wasn’t sure was cracked, or just a deep scratch, just in case.

That big crack at the top? It’s actually sealed. I didn’t think it would work, but with enough layers, it filled the gap! Most of the seal on that one is on the inside layers.

After giving the inside of the barrel a quick rinse, it was time to fill it and test out the seal.

As of tonight, it is completely waterproof. When I do my rounds in the morning, I’ll see if it held up through the night.

I’ll also be able to water the garden using water that has had a chance to warm up, instead of ice cold well water. :-D

The second hoop is currently sitting in the basement with the mesh and some glue. Tomorrow, I’ll use needle and thread to attach the screen securely, then put it over the rain barrel by the sun room. It’ll be nice to use the water from there, and not have my watering can’s head get clogged up with leaves and other debris. :-)

It took a while to get the garden rain barrel to the point it could be filled, but I think it was worth it to keep adding more layers to the cracks, with lots of time in between to cure.

It may not be pretty, but it’ll do the job! And that’s all that matters. :-)

The Re-Farmer

What a job!

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My brother, being the wonderful person that he is, came over to remove the rusted out screws on the trailer frame with an angle grinder.

I told him about the box for an angle grinder I’d found in the garage. The one with human teeth in it. He figures that is probably the strangest thing we’ve found, since moving out here! Though I admit, there are some things that are still competing for that top spot.

I had to pop over to the house while he was working on the trailer frame, and he was done by the time I came back! I did find one that he’d missed, though, so I was able to get a picture of him working on it. :-D

He also removed the remains of old lights at the end, and cut the bolts of a piece in the corner that had been twisted completely around. That corner that you see? Where those squarish marks are? There used to be a sort of bumper there, with a piece on the frame below the bolt hole at the very end. The piece is still there. It’s just now on the inside, instead of the outside.

Some of the old screws he took off still had their heads on them. They were hex screws. Totally the wrong kind of screw for the job.

After he was done, he showed me how to use the self drilling screws I picked up, and we took measurements. Exactly 2 sheets of plywood will fit on there, but we will need to cut openings for the tires and make some sort of fenders.

It is now ready for cleaning and rust removal and, if all goes well, painting.

Then he surprised me.

He had ulterior motives for coming out. He didn’t drive all that way just to take off a few screws for me.

The shed next to the barn, where we found the table saw, has holes in it. I believe it was last year, or maybe our first year here, I’d helped him cover holes on one side, but we weren’t able to do more at the time.

It’s been bugging him, ever since.

We still have sheets of metal roofing in the barn, left over from when the barn itself, and other buildings, had them installed.

Note the piece of equipment with the board leaning on the tank. I’ll have more to say about that, later.

On the left is what we put on last year. We actually dragged them out from a pile outside the barn, and one of them had a piece cut out of it.

On the right, my brother has already covered one hole with a short piece. None of the pieces we had were long enough to cover the whole length, so he put short pieces along the bottom, first, so there would be an overlap.

The scary part was having to go to the peak of the roof and unscrew that top cap, so he could slide the panels under it. He screwed a scrap of plywood we found in the barn down first. There was no way he could have climbed to the top without it.

This was interesting.

There are three types of shingles on here, and so much of one type has blown away, we can see what are likely the original shingles.

What an interesting diamond shape! That roof must have looked great, when it was new!

Here is how the roof looked, at the end.

Bits and pieces, cobbled together, but who cares what it looks like? No more gaping holes!

My brother is just screwing down some pieces of metal we found in the barn that could be used as top caps. After that, he put in more screws as far as he could reach from the ladder, so the winds won’t catch and blow them off.

It was very, very dangerous up there. That ladder on the right was the best place to get up there, but there were tree branches in the way, making it even more dangerous. Once he was safely at the top, I went and grabbed a saw and cut away almost half the tree (one tree at the base, two trunks up the sides).

I’m keeping that wood for future carving!

My brother is really, really awesome. We spent hours out there, working on it, and I couldn’t do much more than pass him things, and hold the ladder for him.

Remember that piece of equipment by the building?

Thanks to ladder holding, I was looking at it from angles I hadn’t, before. I asked my brother if he knew was it was. It belonged to our late brother, and has been sitting there for at least 10 years.

After looking it over, we figured it out.

It’s a boiler system for steam cleaning.

The boiler itself is pretty amazing.

There should be a cover on that round opening.

Just look on the date on that thing!

It had to have been salvaged from somewhere. I wonder if my late brother built it? He certainly had the skills to do it.

The fuel tank is actually part of the trailer frame! On the left, you can see the fender over one of the tires.

Both tires are flat, which is why this end is resting on the ground.

The white tank in front would have held the water. It was most likely used to steam clean culverts or something like that.

That boiler isn’t the only old object of interest we talked about.

As we were putting everything away and getting ready to leave the barn, my brother pointed at a metal object on the floor and told me to make sure to keep that. I had no idea what it was.

It turned to be part of an antique hand pump for a well. A wooden handle would have been attached to it. I was told there was another one, but my mother had sold it to a scrap dealer, years ago.

*sigh*

After all this, my brother couldn’t even stay for lunch. Our mother was expecting him, and by the time we were done, he barely had time to come into the house and say hello to the rest of the family!

Have I mentioned my brother is amazing?

I don’t know what we would do without him! No one living knows this place better than he does! And certainly no one else in the family has the tools, skills and knowledge – not to mention physical ability – to do stuff like this. It’s been many years, since I was physically able to go up on a roof like that! Of course, being a woman of ample proportions, I would have gone straight through a roof in that condition, with or without a sheet of plywood to climb on!

So that was a whole lot of hours in the sun, but the job is done. My brother figures, this probably added about 10 years to the life of the building.

Well. On this side, maybe. The other side probably won’t last that long, and I think we’re out of metal roofing material to do that side, anyhow! It doesn’t get the brunt of the weather, though, the way the side we covered did.

What a job!

While I may not need to do it this year, I should cut the rest of that tree down. It would be a shame to work so hard to preserve the shed from the top, only to have it wrecked from the bottom. The tree is growing right out from under a wall!

Little by little, we’ll get this place fixed up.

The Re-Farmer

This and that, and the car saga continues

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

What a beautiful day today!

As I write this, we’re at -1C (30F) right now. The sun is shining, the skies are clear, and we’re supposed to be warm like this for the next couple of days. On Sunday, we’re even supposed to go above freezing! From the long range forecasts, we are going to get chilly again, but none of the deep freeze we’ve had for the last while. Spring is in the air!

It definitely makes doing my morning rounds much more pleasant.

Things have not been pleasant for all, though, as I noticed when I saw Big Jim walking around this morning.

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