things to fix

Getting things done, and which is it?

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

I’m happy to day I did actually get some progress done outside.

Last night, however, I was up late doing some research on well pumps and pressure tanks.

I’ve been angsting about our well pump since we moved out here. I’ve never been able to ascertain what “normal” sounds like. Thanks go my brother, we do have a new pump ready and waiting to be installed, but no plumber has dared do it. I explain about it in this post from 2020. Basically, there was a possibility the foot valve was leaking, because the pump would start running, even when no one was using water, and they were concerned that if they switched out the pump, the foot valve could break apart. If that happened, we would have no water at all and could potentially need a new well dug.

Eventually, though, we figured out that we have phantom flush. I just happened to be on the toilet in the wee hours of the morning when I heard the water start going in the tank, to refill it. We replaced all the parts in pieces in the tank, but it was still happening. Finally, I just took the refill out of the overflow, so it filled directly into the tank instead, and the phantom flush stopped. Why it worked, I have no idea, but it did.

So with that problem “solved” (we actually want to replace the toilet, for a number of reasons), we figured it should be safe to replace the tank. We just don’t have a budget for it.

Well, in the last while, the pump sounding more and more grindy,. It runs for a normal length of time and the pressure is good. Most likely, it’s the bearings.

Which is bad enough on its own, but lately it’s been going off way too often. Every time the toilet is flushed, even if it’s been on person right after the other, using it. When someone is in the shower or the washing machine is going, it starts running so often, it may as well not have stopped in between (as I hear the pump starting up again, while my daughter is in the shower). We’re also losing pressure faster, which is always most noticeable in the kitchen, which is the farthest sink from the pump and tanks.

After looking things up, it looks like the pressure tank is starting to lose pressure. There can be a number of reasons for this, but the end result is the same. The tank can’t keep up the pressure, so the pump keeps having to turn on to refill it. Depending on the size, a new pressure tank can cost anywhere from about $200 to over $500. For the amount of water we use, we would need a somewhat larger tank (I think this one is a 7 gallon tank), I’d love to get a 20 gallon tank. That way, if we ever get those water fountains by the barn serviced, we could turn the tap on in the basement, and there would be continuous water available for any animals we might get, or even for the renter’s cows. These fountains are insulated and keep the water warm enough to never freeze, too.

But that’s not an option now, and to meet our needs, we’d want at least the same size as what we have no, no smaller.

This morning, I messaged my brother about it. The tanks I looked at all say “compatible with most deep well pumps”, but he’s the one that knows the system better than anyone living.

He doesn’t think it’s the pressure tank.

He thinks it’s the foot valve. He says it was last replaced 20 years ago.

Well, I don’t know how it can get replaced. The bottom of the well access is a concrete floor, with pipes running to the house through the side near the bottom. I don’t know how the well pipe itself can be accessed. The plumber seemed to think that the concrete on the bottom would have to be broken up. Which doesn’t make sense, if the foot valve was replaced 20 years ago. We should be able to pull it up somehow.

I’ll have to consult my brother about that.

Whether it’s the pressure tank or the foot valve that needs replacing, either way it would be a good time to install the new pump!

All these pumps and tanks are the greatest source of stress for me. Water related or septic related!

So that’s something I really would rather not have to worry about. There’s absolutely nothing we can do about it right now, either.

What I did instead was my morning rounds, after feeding the outside cats. While coming back from checking the gate, I realized I was seeing an amazing full moon, and just had to try for some pictures. I even found someplace to steady my phone against, so I could zoom in.

Now that I see the picture on my desktop, it looks so detailed, I’m wondering if the camera automatically “fixed” the photo. That was a bit of a “scandal” some years ago, and that “feature” was supposed to have been dropped.

As I was going through the garden, I checked out the sunflowers. This past frost has killed them off, so any remaining seed heads will never reach maturity. I did, however, find this one…

It is possible that this one has viable seeds in it! I’ve tucked it into the portable greenhouse for now, to dry out some more. It would be nice to try again from our own seeds. Every generation of seeds collected will be better adapted to our local climate.

While the frost killed up most of the things that were exposed (I still haven’t tried peaking under the cover for the winter squash), one thing is doing just fine.

The self seeded peas just keep getting bigger!

Once the morning rounds were done, I waited until things warmed up a bit in the afternoon before continuing with the stuff from the sun room that I had soaking over night. Most of it could be spread out, hung up or set up to dry. Except for the garden mesh. Today turned out to be ridiculously windy, so unraveling those will have to wait. For now, they’re set aside with their bin upside down over them, so they hopefully will not blow away.

That old sheet I found that was repurposed to cover garden beds sure had it’s moments when I tried to hang it on the line. Lots of clothes pins needed! Sure dried fast, though. 😄

I’m so glad I though to put that old roof panel onto the shelf shelter! This little feral kitten could enjoy a warm sun spot while completely protected from the wind.

Eventually, I got things done as much as I could until things dried. After my daughter and I get back from her appointment in the city, I’m hoping to finally put everything in bins with lids, and get them out of the yard again! I need that space to paint the isolation shelter.

The next thing to work on was that garden bed I’d started on a couple days ago.

*sigh*

With all the years of amending the soil, prepping these beds for the winter should only have taken about 15 minutes each. Half an hour, if the rocks and weeds were really bad.

Instead, I’m fighting those !$%&$! tree roots!

Where I’d stopped, last time, had a bit root sticking up and I had to use the loppers to cut that. Then I just kept working my way down that side of the bed. In the first picture, you can see some of the roots I was exposing as I worked my way down. By this point, the soil was so dense with roots, I actually had a hard time pushing the garden fork through it!

The second picture was taken when I finally got that side done. I’d emptied the rocks bucket before I started, so these just rocks I’d picked today. When I stopped last time, I had worked past the half way point, so this was from about a third of one side of the bed. That pile I raked up at the end, near the bucket, is almost all tree roots. Very few normal weeds.

That last photo was taken from the unworked side of the bed. There were a could of bigger roots that I pulled up, but I won’t be able to get the rest out until I’ve worked the other side of the bed.

None of this was there when I planted the peas and carrots in it in the spring. All those roots are just one summer’s growth.

My mother keeps giving me a hard time for being such a bad gardener. Meanwhile, it’s the self seeded trees she deliberately left, after transplanting the raspberries they’d been growing through, that is causing me more problems that all the rocks! The roots are growing into where the soil is easiest to grow in – the soil I’ve been amending to grow vegetables in. So they’re filling the beds and taking up all the water and nutrients, and I’m not even finding it until the end of the season, after the damage is done. This, on top of dealing with drought conditions and smoke this year.

Trees are not always good thing.

One of these days, I’ve got to snag a daughter and our cutting equipment, and take down the entire row of elms and maples. Then we’ll have to find a way to make sure they don’t grow back! Otherwise, even as we build these up into high raised beds, the roots will still find their way up and into the growing zone.

It’s taking a lot longer than it should, but at least I did get some progress in today. Whether I manage to get any done tomorrow, after we get back from the city, will depend on how much daylight we have left.

Little by little, it’s getting done.

The Re-Farmer

Seriously???

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

Good grief… and it’s not even noon, yet.

Today is looking like it’s going to be a gorgeous day. It’s bright and sunny, with some cloud expected later, and we’re supposed to get a high of 0C/32F, which means things are going to be melting all over.

It’s also already been a WTF day.

First up, was finding this when I went outside to do the cat stuff.

The cat cave had been tucked into that cube, but it was pulled out like this, today.

Brussel and her babies are just fine inside, but I have no idea what happened.

Brussel did not leave her babies at any time while I did the outside stuff, even when I tried lifting the cave and discovered they were still inside. It made giving her her wet cat food more awkward. She seems fine with how it is now (I did move that loose piece of carboard aside). I was also able to reach inside and give her head scritches. She growled at me the entire time, but she did not pull away, nor did she try to attack me in any way. I got some squeeze treats to use to try and socialize her more, and I might actually be able to do that, now that the opening to the cat cave is easier to reach.

When doing the morning stuff, I go through the old kitchen (our buffer zone) and the sun room. We tie off the doors – sometimes just the outside door, if the weather is nice – so that cats can get in and out, but the sunroom has shifted. We can still close the inside door, I think, but I don’t think we can close the outside door anymore. The problem is, the rain barrel at the corner was allowed to overflow to the point that the sidewalk block it’s on was undermined and has sunk at the end. It looks like it has also affected the concrete pad the sun room is built on, which means the room continues to shift downwards at that corner. The door frame is no longer plumb, and it seems to be ever so slowly getting worse.

That’s the sun room, though, so not really that big of a deal.

Our main entry doors, however, are another issue.

We already had a problem with the door not latching properly; the door itself is splitting at the latch bolt, and the face place is loose. Sometimes, the door would just pop open on its own.

Lately, though, it’s become harder to open and close. It’s really stiff at the hinges and, when closing it from the inside, you really need to put your shoulder into it. When I was heading out today, I tried leaving through that door, but couldn’t close it from the outside. The bottom half of the door seems to be hitting the door frame. I had to go back in, shoulder it closed from the inside, then leave through the old kitchen door (we do have another door to outside in the dining room, but it is not mobility accessible for my husband, so we don’t really use it). We already know the entire frame and door need to be replaced, but that ain’t cheap!

I had just a quick run to the post office to make today, and was soon back home. After parking in the garage, I went to open the door…

It wouldn’t open.

I pulled on the door handle again…

It still wouldn’t open.

I tried one more time…

Yeah. It broke right off.

That left me in a pickle. With the console in the middle, it’s not like I can shuffle over to the other door. I ended up messaging the family, asking if anyone could come out. My older daughter answered, and I told her what happened, but I think she was already booting up and heading out and didn’t see the messages. She though I was injured or something!

Meanwhile, it occurred to me, I could just open the window and open the door from the outside. So I gave that a try.

It wouldn’t open.

I tried again.

Nothing.

When I opened the window, I noticed the door was locked; normally, it automatically unlocks when the engine is shut off. I’d unlocked it, but when I reached to the door handle outside, my arm pushed the lock down again. Once I realized what happened, I was able to open the door – just in time for my daughter to reach the garage.

So what I think happened is that I accidentally locked the door after parking the truck, so of course, it wouldn’t open when I pulled on the handle.

Instead, it broke off.

Looking into the opening with my phone’s camera light, I could see the edge of where it broke off, and that was about it.

I have since sent the photos to the garage, asking if this is the sort of work they do or not. They’re not an autobody place, so I might have to go somewhere else. I haven’t received a response, yet.

Until we can get it fixed, I’m going to have to get used to opening the door from the outside for a while.

What a bloody PITA.

The Re-Farmer

Weather whiplash, hits again!

/ Re-Farmer / 3 Comments

Yesterday, the first day of spring, was a gorgeous day!

We reached a high of 5-6C/41-43F, and it was awesome. While I was at my mothers, the truck cab warmed up so much in the sun, I almost turned the air conditioning on to cool it down. The thermometer in the sun room was reading 16C/61F and was feeling positively hot!

I took advantage of it to get some stuff done outside in preparation for today. The forecast high is supposed to be -11C/12F This is what it was like this morning, as I was getting ready to head outside for my morning rounds.

I actually waited until a bit later for things to warm up, too. The -17C/1F is bad enough, but that -27C/-17F windchill… Yikes!

One of the things I did yesterday was to finally replace the heat lamp in the isolation shelter. I had the 200w ceramic heat bulb in the new fixture, but decided to put the 250w incandescent heat bulb in, instead. Partially in anticipation of the temperatures dropping so much overnight, but also because I’ve found the light it gives off is handy. When I look out the kitchen window, it illuminates the area around it fairly well.

The kitties seem to like it.

This light fixture has the guard around the bulb, too, so less chance of a cat burning themselves on the bulb!

I had to do quite a bit inside the isolation shelter. The cat bed had been knocked down to the lower level, where the litter box had already been knocked about, spilling most of the litter all over. My guess is, racoons. Thankfully, we’re using stove pellets for litter, not clay, so it will be easier to clean up in the spring. We still have the box over the opening on the bottom to keep the wind and snow from getting into the lower level. That had to be moved to access things.

Once I have some, I need to put handles on that thing.

I replaced the litter box with a new one with fresh litter pellets. It does seem like the cats have actually started to use it as intended, though with it being knocked over, it’s hard to tell for sure. When we had cats isolated in there, they were using everything BUT the litter box!

The hammock has been a bit of an issue, in that two corners are always getting pushed off the hooks holding them. Sometimes, a third corner gets pushed off somehow, too, and how that one happens perplexes me. I ended up tying some paracord across the two hooks that get pushed off all the time. Hopefully, it will be enough to keep it from happening, as the cats use the ramp to go between levels.

The heat lamp hides it in the photo, but there is a spot in the insulation on the wall next to the sliding window that has a hole scratched into it. The cats really like to use that insulation to scratch at! Even more than the actual scratch pad I made out of rope on the ramp for them to use. I did expect this top happen, but not in that spot! 😄 When the snow is gone and things are dry, we’ll move the isolation shelter away from the house and give it a thorough cleaning. That would be a good time to replace any of the rigid insulation that is damaged. The insulation “ceiling” will simply be taken off until next winter, though one piece will need to be replaced. They really managed to chew it up! You can see some of the damage above Ink’s head.

It won’t be much longer before we can stop using the heat lamps entirely.

I’m so glad we got this thing built, and the cats are making full use of it!

On the down side, today is turning into a laundry day for all of us. Yes, we’re still running the hose out the door to drain the washing machine. We still haven’t been able to use the new pipe brush to try and clear out that drain. I keep waiting until we don’t need to use the kitchen sink for a while, so we don’t get splashed when opening the coupling access, but that just doesn’t seem to be happening! So every now and then, between cycles, I pop outside and make sure the hose is fully drains, so it doesn’t freeze closed again.

We have another problem, though.

The drier isn’t drying.

We thought it was because the vent outside was too clogged, but once it was clear, it didn’t make much difference. So I though the duct might have been clogged and we checked it before starting our first load in the drier. It’s completely clear. The lint trap’s space is clear, too.

We’ll see how it works today, but it’s starting to look like we need a new drier. We already had to replace the washing machine since moving here. I don’t know how old this drier is, but it definitely has a lot of years on it.

Yes, we do have a clothes line outside, which would be handy but, with how cold it is today, it would take forever for anything to dry, and we have a lot of bedding to wash today. It’s a long line, but not that long! Originally, it was set up with three clothes lines, but there’s only one, and I had to replace that one a few years back. I do want to set up two more lines again, but we need to buy all the hardware for it, first.

Technically, we also have clothes lines rigged up in the basements, but we’d have the same problem of it taking forever to dry, though I suppose we could set up a blower fan or two. The basements are dank and dusty, though, so we’d be hanging things outside before we used the basements!

*sigh*

Well, so far, we’ve replaced the washing machine, stove, range hood, and the hot water tank (three times). I expect we’ll be needing to replace the fridge in the not too distant future, too. That and the drier are the only original appliances left.

Well, that’s part of the deal we have for living here, in place of paying rent. We take care of the place, maintain it and improve it, as we are able. That includes replacing appliances, when the time comes.

Still, I shouldn’t get ahead of myself. One of the troubleshooting solutions for what our drier is doing is to simply unplug it for 10-15 minutes. This could reset the heating elements. We unplugged it when we moved it out to check the vent. We’ll know if it worked once the first load that’s in there right now is done.

Here’s hoping!

The Re-Farmer

It’s going to be a while…

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Before I update on our whole septic pump situation, I just had to share this.

The cold hasn’t quite let go yet; when I headed out to give the outside cats their kibble and warm water, we were actually still at the coldest part of the “night”.

I was back inside when I got the above screen cap. -27C/-17F with a wind chill of -32C/-26F The south yard is sheltered from today’s wind, though, so it wasn’t feeling that cold.

If you click through to the next picture, you can see what the cold did!

I was putting kibble into the tray under the water bowl shelter, and my puffy park sleeve brushed against the solar powered light under the roof.

Brushed. Barely touched. Something I’ve probably done many a time and never noticed.

The plastic was so cold and brittle, it broke right off.

It still works, though. For now, I just draped the cord around the remains of the holder on the frame, and the light is hanging down. I don’t know how well the motion sensor will pick things up like that, but it should still turn on at least sometimes.

Today we’re looking at a high of -14C/7F, which is going to make things much more pleasant for when my daughter and I have to head out for our medical appointments. The drive is about 45 minutes on the highway, which isn’t too bad, and I’m happy to have gotten that tire check, yesterday. That’s one less worry! Tomorrow, I have errands for my mother, and then we don’t have to drive anywhere until I’m taking the truck to the garage for the engine flush/oil change/sensor replacement BEFORE we start doing our stock up shopping trips to the city. I will be very happy to have the check engine light off and the oil pressure gauge working again.

Not as happy as we will be once we get that septic pump working again.

Which, unfortunately, won’t be for a while.

My brother called last night and we talked about it. Unfortunately, his schedule is so insane, the earliest he can come out is Sunday – and he wasn’t completely sure of that, either. The alternative is to call a plumber but 1) who knows if they’d be able to come any earlier and 2) neither of us are comfortable with that. Our system is not common and, in some ways, unique. I don’t know that I’d trust someone to work on it that has never seen it before. There are just too many things that could be broken, if work isn’t done in the right sequence.

After looking at the video I sent him, my brother is not convinced the problem is the back valve, though that would be the first thing to check. He described how this pump works, and some work he’d done on it in the past. Some pumps use a piston to get the water flowing, which can wear out and break down relatively quickly. This pump has something he describes as a hockey puck. A disk that spins. The disk has texture on it, and that spinning gets the water flowing. This spinning disk system lasts much longer and is less likely to break. However, if the disk isn’t spinning, the pump could be running, but there would be no flow happening.

He has had to work on this before, during the years we lived in other provinces. Something had gotten caught in the disk. He had to take it out, unwrap the stringy whatever it was to clear the disk (remember, ladies: don’t flush tampons!), then put it all back together again. It has been working fine ever since.

Part of why he thinks this might be a problem is a noise he could hear in one of the videos I sent him. That noise actually didn’t start until I restarted the pump again to take the video, but the pump also has an almost grinding sound. Nothing huge, but a sort of sound I might not have noticed, if I didn’t already know how the pump was supposed to sound like. If the pump is running dry because it’s not pulling water from the septic tank, that could be the bearings getting worn out, which would make that sound.

He’s really hoping he doesn’t have to replace the pump. This brand no longer exists, and the only other brand around right now is made in China. That’s it. No one else seems to make these pumps anymore. The type of pump that is more common is a pump that is installed IN the septic tank and is fully immersed. Which is supposed to be much better, but I have a real problem with that. It would require excavating the tank to install one and, if anything goes wrong, the tank would have to be excavated again to repair or replace it. My brother that to get the tank excavated to access the pipes, back when my father was still living here, and it cost him $5000. It would easily cost much more than that, to get that sort of work done, today.

So we are stuck with the system we have.

And stuck with not using our plumbing for at least another 4 days, including today.

Oh, we can still use our water. We just have to avoid draining anything into the septic tank. It is full, but not over full. Right now, the only water going in there is when we very quickly wash our hands in the bathroom, after using the honeypot, which would have negligible effect on the tank’s level. For anything else, we use basins and dump the water outside.

Speaking of honeypots.

I’d found the honeypot seat in a shed, years ago, and I am very thankful for it. It is designed to fit over any 5 gallon bucket, which we also found. This set up is great for a rare use.

We are using this thing a LOT more often than expected.

A 5 gallon bucket is not particularly stable; not when we have a houseful full of gimps. The size and shape of a seat that fits on a bucket is also… not easy to finish up on, shall we say.

So today, I’ve been looking at alternatives. It won’t be of any help for us now, but the way things have been going, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we will need something like this again.

We do actually have a fancy camp commode in the basement that is flushable. We found it while cleaning up the basements a few years ago, with water still in it. The problem is, the base is missing, so it can’t be used. It’s not something that could be put on top of a bucket or something, due to its design.

I started looking at medical commodes, like what home care provided for my mother, but ended up looking more at camp commodes, and even just a seat on a folding stand. A bag could be hung from the stand before the seat is put on but, for our use, it would be set up over the 5 gallon bucket. The thing I really like about that one – aside from the padded seat! – is that it’s taller. Almost as tall as the higher toilet we have, which would be easier on the knees.

That’s the kicker in looking at various designs. We all have various mobility issues; even the girls. These need to be taken into consideration. Plus, we wouldn’t be using this for camping, but to set up in our bathroom for when we have situations like right now, where we can’t use the plumbing. It’s not a particularly large bathroom, though there is more space if we store the bath chair in the tub while the honeypot is set up.

I had to laugh at my brother’s reaction when he found out we line the bucket with a garbage bag. I was telling him how we are using the stove pellets we use as cat litter in the bag to absorb moisture. Then, when the bag is changed out, it’s tied off and set in the old kitchen to freeze until we can go to the dump. He found that rather horrifying. He thought we were just using the bucket, without a liner of any kind, then dumping it in the bushes. Which is what I find rather horrifying! True, that’s what we did before we got running water in the house, when we used a bucket in the basement in the winter, because going to the outhouse just didn’t make sense with so many little ones (like me, at the time). I only vaguely remember the emptying of buckets, since I was too small to have been given the job. My brother, as the oldest of the boys, would have been doing it more often.

The thing is, if we don’t use a garbage bag and instead dump the contents in the bushes behind the outhouse (where we already have a litter compost pile), the bucket would need to be cleaned every time. Which is the part I shudder at. It’s not like we can use a hose to clean it out, like we could in the summer. We’d have to dump the contents, use the bathtub to clean the bucket, go out again to dump out the wash water, then rinse it and go back out again to dump the rinse water.

I’ll just use a garbage bag, thanks!

We might need to invest in biodegradable bin liners, though, given that we have had to use the honeypot so much more often than we ever expected! If we have those, then we could use the litter box compost instead of taking the bags to the dump.

Of all the plumbing problems we have had in this place, septic related ones have been the worst to deal with!

The Re-Farmer

A huge step forward, a small step back

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Have I mentioned my brother is awesome?

At -27C/-17F, with a wind chill of -38C/-36F, my brother spent hours, here – most of it outdoors – getting things done.

The first thing was the no-longer frozen ejector.

When he arrived, he headed to the barn to get some stuff and I went out to join him. Along the way, I looked towards the ejector and got quite a surprise.

The tarp was gone, the sawhorse over the ejector was half knocked over, held in place only by the extension cord for the heat tape (safely secured), and the blue jugs from the liquid ice melter scattered in the snow nearby.

I don’t think my brother ever found the tarp. That part isn’t a surprise, considering the winds we had yesterday!

When we got to the basement, things there went quickly. The bypass wires on the switch was hooked up so that we could turn it on and off manually, rather than rely on the pill switch in the tank. The only difficult part was moving the emergency diverter off the pump without making too much of a mess. We knew there would be fluid in the pipe and I had a bucket ready, but there was just no way to get the diverter off and moved over the bucket without spilling at least some all over.

After the pipe to the ejector was put back, my brother and I fussed with our phones for a bit, so that we could communicate while he headed out to the ejector, then let me know to turn the pump on. We were able to make a video call, so when the time came, he had his phone set up so I could see the ejector.

The water flowing out of there was amazing! I’ve never seen it pushed out that far before (if I did when I was a child, I have no memory of it).

There was one odd thing about it, though. Instead of being pushed out in a steady stream, the bottom of the stream sprayed downwards, getting the stack pipe wet. My brother also saw water coming up from under the cap, which means the stack pipe was full, when it should have been drained by the venturi valve once water started to flow.

In the end, my brother found a piece of pipe he cut to create a little extender on the elbow piece.

He then dug around the barn and found bits and pieces to build a wind shelter around the ejector.

There’s a 1″ thick piece of rebar he hammered into the frozen ground to secure it, so the wind shouldn’t blow it away.

That rotten old sawhorse my brother dug out of the snow has sure come in handy!

All of this took at least a couple of hours, but we now have a working ejector again! No more emergency bypass draining the tank into the back yard!

The bypass is still there, though. I told my brother to leave it. I’ll take it out, put everything away and seal that opening up again, in the spring.

Then, before he left, my brother took care of a couple of other things, as well as going into their stored items.

Then he brought over one of his taller ladders.

Yup. He climbed up onto the roof to check the vent. The one warm day my daughters could have done it, one of them was in the city with me. The next day was the storm.

After clearing the area of snow, my brother ended up bringing a chimney sweep that’s stored in the barn to see if it was blocked. The non-sweep side could fit into the vent – and yes, it was quite blocked! I had a jug of hot water that he poured in, and the one jug was enough to clear it.

Meanwhile, I’d filled a sink with hot water to drain, so we could check if all was well.

All was well in the vent.

Not in the drain pipes!

The sink started to drain fine at first, and then it just sort of stopped. My daughter stayed in the kitchen to monitor while I went to the laundry drain.

Just in time to see the filthiest water coming out of there we’ve ever seen!

My daughter stopped the sink from draining. Thankfully, there was already a towel under the laundry drain, just in case, but it still took a while for the water to stop flowing. I was just heading out the door to tell my brother what happened when I heard something give, then gurgling as the water finally drained into the main pipe.

My brother thinks that the main problem is ice stuck in the pipe and suggested running hot water for a while. I suggested that clearing the vent knocked more gunk loose, too.

Thanks to the plumber installing the rubber connector in the pipe in the root cellar, this is something we can do ourselves. My brother had a few more things he wanted to do, plus take one last check on the pump (I had already taken care of the bypass and it was back to a pill switch trigger, instead of a manual trigger) before heading home. He told me that, as he was driving out here, he was seeing a vehicle in the ditch almost every mile of the way!

So we have had a major step forward, in that our septic system is up and running properly now – in fact, better than when we first moved here, thanks to getting that rag out of the back valve!

We had another step forward with my brother getting the ice out of the vent.

There’s just one step back, as our drain seems to be clogged again. We can use the kitchen sink, but it doesn’t take long before we can hear water backing up into the laundry drain.

That’s a job for this evening.

If all goes well, by the end of the day, we’ll be able to hook the washing machine discharge pipe into the drain again, and do laundry without running a hose out the door.

Time to snag a daughter and get to work!

The Re-Farmer

Just a little big longer

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First, the cuteness, then the update!

We keep several cat carriers in the sun room, so the cats will be used to them and hopefully not panic as much as we are able grab the more feral ones for spays and neuters. Sometimes, I will find cats just chilling in one of them.

Especially this one. It’s a favourite.

Rolando Moon claimed it, this morning. 😊 Rondo Moon is the last of the originals, living here before we moved in, and cared for by my late father, still outside. We were willing to bring her in, and she has actually gone into the house voluntarily, then headed back outside. She has no interest in being an indoor cat!

Today is quite a bit warmer, as far as temperature goes, but I sure couldn’t tell when I did my morning rounds. It was -14C/7F at the time, but the wind chill was at -29C/-20F! The outside cats seem to be handling things well, for the most part. I haven’t been able to do a head count lately, but it does seem like there are fewer of them. There could be many reasons for that, but they move around so much, it’s hard to tell, and some show up for the food later on. I have seen cats going up and down our driveway on the trail cam, though, so hopefully they are just out visiting neighbours.

Speaking of cameras…

It looks like I’ll be returning the camera I picked up yesterday, to monitor the septic pump. It simply would not connect to our WiFi. It doesn’t tell me why. Just that it failed. We have two networks that I tried linking up to – one on our Starlink router, one on our Orbii router, which is there to ensure all parts of the house gets a good internet signal. It won’t connect with either of them.

Our septic pump still has not been triggered, so we still don’t know how well the emergency diverter will work until it does.

Meanwhile, we’re still dealing with the clogged drain to the kitchen and laundry.

My daughters tried to clear it again. This time, one daughter blocked the drain pipe for the washing machine while the other used the sink plunger in the kitchen. That thing does work really well!

Unfortunately, when my daughter uncovered the laundry drain again, gunk went shooting up out of the pipe! So the clog is basically right at where the laundry drain reaches the main pipe in the root cellar, causing anything from the kitchen to go up the laundry pipe instead of the main drain.

Once I had a chance, I made a couple of calls to plumbers. The first call, they were booked solid and new bookings are more than 2 weeks away. I had success with the second call. They, too, were busy, but his first response, when I told him what I needed done, was “definitely not today”. I asked about the next few days.

Long story short, he’s going to make us their first call tomorrow. Since they’re coming from the town to the north of us, they’ll get here around 9-10am. My younger daughter and I have our doctor’s appointments in the afternoon, but it should be done before we leave.

We might finally be able to do laundry without running a hose out the front door! That would help fill the septic tank faster, triggering the pump, so we’ll know how the diverter is working, too. It should be fine, but still… I’ve become as paranoid with our plumbing as with our truck!

I asked for some idea of what the bill will be. He said it depends on a few things, from how long it takes, to which machine he ends up using, etc., but might be as low as $150. I figure it will cost at least $300, but we’ll see.

So we have one more day of not being able to drain water down the kitchen sink.

Hopefully, this time, it will last!

The Re-Farmer

Yeah. More plumbing problems

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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

It’s brrrr out there!

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Our 10th day of Christmas is working out to be a cold one!

As I write this, we are back down to -22C/-8F, with the same wind chill of -33C/-27F that I was walking in, earlier today.

It could be worse. We could be Regina! They are at -31C/-24F, before wind chill!

We are currently under ongoing extreme cold warnings but, thankfully, we will be warming up over the next few days, so it’s really just tonight that’s expected to be severe like this.

I am glad that the truck it plugged in, though! 😁

In other things, I believe I’ve found the cause of our septic pump problem. Potentially. I went down to the basement randomly to check the pump, and found water pooled under the filter. The filter itself was pretty full, though. I couldn’t find the actual source of the leak, but I believe it is under where the pipe from the tank screws into the filter housing.

I ended up messaging my brother about it, as he installed the filter after we moved here – and the pump itself, the last time that was done. I’d told him we were looking into replacing the pump, and could only find one at a specific hardware store. Turns out, the nearest location is the one he’d bought this pump at, and he bought the most powerful pump he could get. Which is interesting, because when I showed a picture of our pump to one of the staff to show what I was looking for, he took a closer look at the label and commented that it wasn’t very powerful. I don’t know how long ago it was replaced – probably closer to 20 years ago. The newer pumps would have improved quite a bit since then, I’m guessing!

As for the filter, after I described what was happening, he told me this had happened before. A different filter had been installed at the time. My late father had noticed problems with the septic pump and my brother could not find the source. He ended up hiring and excavator to check the pipes to the tank, and they never found the problem there, either, though they did find some things that were loose that shouldn’t have been! That was fixed, at least. The plumber ended up having to leave without finding the problem, because he’d been here for so long. In the end, my brother took out the filter (it had been installed by another family member) and just put pipe back – and it worked fine again!

So when he got a new filter after we moved here, he went and got the best filter he could find. It’s a Jacuzzi pool filter, and pretty solid.

Well, I guess even the best stuff will wear out eventually!

This is not something that can be repaired, though. The entire filter would need to be replaced. I don’t know where my brother got it from, other than “in the city”. I don’t even know if they still make the same style of filter anymore. I’ve done a quick search and the closest I could find to what we have is attached to a pool pump – and it’s the pump that’s being sold in the image, not the filter. It may not be available anymore.

Replacing a filter, at least, would be more affordable than replacing a pump. Plus, it’s something we could do ourselves.

If we can find one, and I sure as heck am not going to be driving around looking, in this cold.

My daughter and I have joint medical appointments on Wednesday, which is supposed to be warmer. The hardware store that carries the septic pumps has a location just a couple of blocks from the medical clinic. I might want to pop over after our appointment to see what they have.

For now, I just want to stay home and hybernate.

The Re-Farmer

What a gorgeous day!

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As I write this, with less than an hour to sunset, we are at 3C/37F. I was just outside, getting a few more things done, with no coat on, and it was awesome! The only down side is that, with everything melting, some things were a bit slippery.

I will get to that part in a bit!

My SIL had let me know last night that she and my brother would be coming out this morning to park their truck here for the winter. They expected to be here around 8:30 am, so at 7:30 or so, I headed out to feed the outside cats and do the morning rounds, and open the gate for them.

When I came outside with the cat food, there was a set of headlights at the gate!

By the time I put kibble out in all the food bowls, including the isolation shelter, and added some warm water, they were in the yard and my brother was parking the truck. He got a solar trickle charger for the battery, so he wanted to make sure the windshield would get the most light for as long as possible.

So I went to my SIL, who had followed in their car, and we had a nice visit. A rather longer visit than expected, as my brother kept finding one more thing he wanted to do before they left.

As I was walking to their car, though, I saw that my SIL had started it again, and moved it a few feet. An odd thing, since she wasn’t in the way of anything, and they weren’t leaving yet.

It turned out that our vandal had showed up, driving every so slowly as he passed the open gate at our driveway, trying to see what was going on! They’d been there less than 5 minutes! How did he know they were here? He lives nearby, but not THAT nearby!

As we chatted, with me standing in the open door of the car, we saw him again, coming back the other way. We knew he was coming before we could identify the vehicle, because we could see headlights through the trees, slowing down as they got closer to the driveway. By the time we could fully see his vehicle, he was driving at a crawl. I just stood there and openly watched him. I don’t know that he recognizes either of my brother’s cars, since both had to be replaced in the years since we moved here and he lost his mind. With the trail cams set up, he’s been behaving, but in the last little while, I’ve been seeing him more often. All of the activity that’s been going on in the past couple of months, from stuff being moved here to the excavation and repair of the expeller, must be driving him nuts.

When I had the chance, I called my mother to warn her, he might show up out of the blue again. She’s sick with a cold right now, so after telling him what’s going on here is none of his business, she can also tell him to go away because she’s sick.

Anyhow.

I had a good long visit with my SIL before they were finally ready to leave. I had to switch out the trail cam cards, so I went ahead of them to close and lock the gate behind them. On changing the card, though, I found that the new batteries we’d put in were at 2%!

So, after finishing the rest of my morning rounds, which included giving the isolation babies a can of wet cat food and getting more warm water to top up all the water bowls, I grabbed some fresh batteries and headed back to the camera.

I figured I could change the batteries there, since it wasn’t so cold that I needed to come inside while I was doing it. This camera has a battery case that pops out, but in order to do that, the camera has to be removed from its holder. I did that, took out the case, then set the camera on top of its post so I could have two hands to change the batteries out.

*sigh*

It fell into the snow, opening as it fell, and landed right on its innards. Even the memory card sprang out into the snow when it landed. When I picked it up, there was sticky snow all over the inside – some even got into the space the battery case goes into!

*sigh*

So I took that in and set it up where it could melt and drain. I had to quickly do something else, and my daughter was sweet enough to change out the batteries for me. After trying the whole thing off with paper towel as best I could, I left it while I had my breakfast.

When that was done, I put everything back together and tested it out. With no power for so long, the date and time had reset to default – 2022! – so I hit the menu button to reset it.

Nothing happened.

I tried again. And again. And again.

The menu would simply not come up. It was in set up mode, and I could see it was functioning. The screen was working find, and I could even see the seconds on the time changing. I just couldn’t do anything with it.

So I took the battery case out again and left it to dry longer, then headed back outside to get some things done.

The first was to fix the wind damage on the catio.

The first image in the slideshow above shows how it looked before I started. The vinyl tore at the cord that is wrapped around the whole thing, but that cord is also what kept it from getting blown off even more. In the second photo, you can see where, even in the back, the vinyl was torn loose from the push pins holding it in place.

I picked up some foam mounting tape, with double sided adhesive, to help with the repairs, and also had some clear Gorilla tape, to tape the torn section together. I removed a number of push pins, first, then added the mounting tape to strategic sections of the frame. The mounting tape won’t stick to the wood very well – especially when it gets colder – but the vinyl will stick to it. This way, when the push pins are added back, they vinyl shouldn’t tear away anymore, and it will still be easy to remove in the spring.

In the third picture, you can see where the mounting tape was used in the front and on the door, but I also included it at the back, where the sheet was torn loose from the pins.

Once the vinyl was being held in place by the mounting tape, I got out one of the dollar store dining table protectors I’ve been using for this and set it up right on top, starting at the door, pinning it along the top. It was long enough to just reach around the corner at the back, so that edge got taped to the old sheet. Once that was taped, the push pins were added back, then the excess vinyl on the bottom was tucked under the bottom of the catio. Then the cord was wrapped back around and tied off again.

I had to kick away the snow that was added along the bottom of the shelter, so the last thing to do was get a snow shovel and put that back. The door, one corner and one end now have a double layer of vinyl.

The cats were really, really liking it.

I took some video after I was done, starting from the back of the catio.

Stinky REALLY enjoyed being in there! The vinyl creates a pretty decent greenhouse effect inside, so it’s pretty warm in there, too. At least during the day.

The next thing to do was patch up some tears in the isolation shelter, from the cats trying to get in.

Before I started, I took advantage of the fact that there is now an insulation ceiling and lifted the roof to drain off the melting snow and slush. With how uneven the patio blocks are, the slow slope of the roof is pretty flat, instead, so it doesn’t drain much at all, and I didn’t want to take a chance of any water getting inside. There is quite a bit of overlap in the roof panels, but until we can properly seal the edges in the spring, water can still get in between and potentially cause problems.

Next, I cut away some of the more tattered pieces of vinyl and removed some of the pins. I then cut pieces out of another dollar store table protector to create the patches.

At one corner, I taped the patch in place, but ran out of tape, so I used the last of the foam mounting tape to hold the other patch in place. Then the pins were put back. There is still one tiny corner near the back that is torn, but I no longer had suitable tape to hold a patch in place.

I had to be really careful while doing this job, though. It was warm enough to melt the snow, but the patio blocks were cold enough that the water was trying to freeze again. Water on ice is not a safe combination!

The isolation babies were quite interested in what was going on. Especially Kohl.

I’m glad she’s warmed up to me again, because she wouldn’t let me touch her for the past couple of days!

Stinky really wanted to go inside and join them!

No luck touching the male, but he did sniff at my fingers!

Not that Kohl would let him get close to my hand. She really, really wanted attention!

That done, I decided to take out the cat bed in the lower level, since I’d seen Kohl had used it as a litter box, yesterday.

It looked like they used it as a litter box for the rest of the night, too!

I got it out and cleaned it off in the snow as best I could and set it aside. Then I changed the litter box by grabbing another one, getting it ready with pellets, then simply switching them out. The lest time the ramp door was open, the less chance the isolations babies could escape!

The litter box was well used, too, so they probably didn’t start using the lower level cat bed until it got unpleasant to use the litter box.

With today being to warm, we’re taking advantage of it to do laundry. My daughter and I replaced the leaking hose extension on the washing machine, then set it out the storm door window. With the washer already set up for laundry, I grabbed the cat beds from the shelf shelter, too. These were the ones we took out of the cat house and weren’t sure if we were going to bother washing them. The cats are using them in the shelf shelter, though, so I figured I may as well do a load of just outside cat beds, once our own laundry was done. The shelf shelter beds are getting pretty tattered, but they’ll be nice and clean and fluffy again, soon.

As I was finishing up inside and getting ready to head it, I spotted this adorable one, on the isolation shelter roof.

Someone is happy the snow was cleared from the roof!

I thought this was Magda, but it wouldn’t let me come close, got scared and ran off. Magda is a mostly socialized cat that lets us pick her up and cuddle her. So now I’m not sure.

I did get another chance to pet Kohl, though, and this time she let me pick her up and check her incision. It is healing very nicely!

As I was finishing gathering the supplies to take them inside, I started hearing something that sounded off.

Like someone driving really, really slowly at our driveway. So I tossed everything into the house, then went to check.

This time, our vandal was driving his tractor. Once again, very slowly driving past our driveway, staring down our driveway the entire time. So I just stood there, in the open, watching him as he finally turned his tractor around and drove off. He had the snow blower attachment on his tractor which is rather odd, since we don’t have enough snow to use something like that right now.

I checked the trail cam again after that, and its still not working right, so I switched up trail cams to make sure the driveway is covered.

I also went looking through my Amazon shopping list, where I have several solar powered cameras with battery back ups saved. After looking through them again, I ended up ordering two of a cheaper one that had a higher rating, and lots of very positive reviews by Canadians. Including some mentioning how well the solar panel was able to keep it powered, even in winter.

No idea when we’ll get them, though, since the postal strike it still going.

By the time everything was done and I got the cat beds in the laundry, I really, really didn’t want to go anywhere. I was supposed to go to the dump, then the feed store, but when I checked their hours I discovered the feed store had already closed for the day. They close really early on Saturdays!

So… no feed store. We’re still good with kibble for the outside cats, so a few days wait should be fine.

Tomorrow looks like it will be a quiet, indoor day for us. We’ve got snowfall warnings for 10-20cm/4-8in of snow, starting around noon and continuing through to Monday. It’s not a lot of snow, but I’d rather not drive in it if I don’t have to.

We’ve got a few milder days ahead of us, then a couple of colder one, before it starts getting mild again. We are no longer getting temperatures above freezing in the forecast for the week before Christmas, though, so who knows how things will change over the next few days.

For now, I’m just glad to have been able to take advantage of today’s lovely weather and get those outside jobs done!

Meanwhile… we have a fluffy kitten in the isolation shelter that needs a name.

Any suggestions?

The Re-Farmer

Well, I didn’t get the progress I intended…

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But I did get progress!

My original plan for today was to get a garden bed ready to plant garlic in.

I ended up going into town, instead. My daughter’s transfer from PayPal went through, and she sent me the funds for two new heat elements for the hot water tank. Then, since I was in town anyhow, I make a quick stop at the grocery store to refill our big water jugs.

We still don’t have hot water, though.

Using the large socket set my brother loaned us, we first tried a practice run on removing the anode rod from one of the old tanks.

It would not come loose, no matter what. The socket wrench in this set had an extra long handle, so torque wasn’t the problem. It could also slide so that you can grab it from both sides of the socket.

Nothing.

This was an old tank that died a year ago, so perhaps that was part of the problem?

The current hot water tanks’ breaker is off, but I still double checked before setting it to drain completely. After a while, we tried to take out the original anode rod.

Nope. It was not moving. We also had the extra challenge of the tank trying to spin around, but not being able to hold it in place as easily as with the tank was wasn’t right up against a wall.

So that got set aside. I’m going to have to ask my brother for help with that.

We popped open the panels to access the elements, but ended up not doing anything. I just don’t want to take chances with anything electrical and, since we need my brother’s help anyhow, it would just be easier on my mind to leave it for him.

What I could do, though, was start setting up for the powered anode rod. It came with a 12 foot power cord. That was long enough to reach the outlet the sump pump is plugged into. I set up hooks to hold up the cord along the floor joists for the bathroom floor, while also keeping it away from the various water and drainage pipes, and still have a bit of slack at either end.

At times like this, it’s handy that the old basement’s ceiling is more than a foot lower than the new basement. Short little me can reach without any problem!

Meanwhile, we were kept up to date on how things were going for my brother and SIL. By the time they loaded the two trailers, their truck and their friend’s SUV, it was past 4pm by the time they could leave!

I made sure the gate was open for them. Then, when it was getting close to the time I expected them to arrive, I headed outside. I wasn’t going to be able to start preparing a garden bed to plant garlic in, but I could at least work on the small bed the Crespo squash was planted in. The A frame trellis, with its cross piece broken by the weight of a squash, and its netting was still there. I got the A frame parts and pieces unsecured and set with the stakes from the beds in the main garden area. Once all of the stakes, posts, nets, ties, etc. are gathered up, they’ll be sorted and bundled before being put into the old garden shed for the winter. There are a lot of broken bamboo stakes this year, but I might be able to use some of them for other things.

Once the stakes used to make the A frame trellis were set aside, it was time to clear the net of squash vines and pole beans. That took the longest to get done!

Once the net was bundled up and set with the rest of the stuff for winter storage, I pulled the rest of the squash vines out of the bed. The compost ring is, handily, right beside this bed.

I was just pulling the supports for the peppers in the bed beside it, when vehicles and trailers pulled in. By the time I set the supports aside and joined them, they already had one trailer backed up to the barn, both sets of doors open, and were already unloading.

With the four of us working together, unloading went very quickly, all things considered. Still, with two trailers and both vehicles loaded, we lost light quickly.

We got to enjoy another beautiful sunset, though!

Not as brilliantly orange and red as yesterday, but still very dramatic and gorgeous!

With the possession date on their sold property coming up fast, they just put everything into the barn, even though some of it will need to be moved out to their storage trailer and the old bread truck that will become a workshop. My brother is going to have to sort through and organize things later one. That’s going to be a huge job!

Even with all this going on, they had us in mind. Yesterday, we had the extra lumber that they gave us for our small building projects, as well as a heated water bowl from when they had dogs. Today, it was traps! They have two live animal traps. One is smaller; they used it for squirrels getting into their sheds. It’s big enough for a small cat. The other is a larger, two door trap that’s the next size up. After putting those in the garage, I made sure to message the Cat Lady. She was going to lend us a trap so catch the feral females for spaying, but the last person they lent it to hasn’t returned it. Now, we have two! That will come in very handy over the winter. The goal is to trap and spay as many of the feral females as we can before they go into heat in the spring.

If all goes well, the cat isolation shelter will get good use this winter!

Once everything was unloaded, they had to leave right away. Hopefully, tomorrow will be their last loads out here – at least, the last ones that need trailers to haul out!

Which means my goal of getting a garlic bed prepared and planted has been shifted to tomorrow.

It’s supposed to be warmer tomorrow, anyhow!

Another delay, but considering it meant getting that much closer to having hot water again, plus helping my brother and SIL out, it was worth it!

The Re-Farmer