When it hits the fan…

August 8, 2018August 8, 2018 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

… the fan eventually gives out.

After some 40 years or so, our bathroom fan gave out. Yesterday, our electrician friend came by to take a look. I had asked him if he could install the fan my husband bought, and how much it would cost.

It turns out the motor for this fan is still manufactured.

So he took it out to take home and see what he could do with it. It’s likely unfixable, but he would be in the city today and would look for a replacement motor, which would be much cheaper than having him install the new one. I am expecting to hear from him some time tonight about that.

Meanwhile, this is how it looked.

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To be honest, I really expected it to be worse. :-D

I’ve since cleaned it out as much as I could, and washed the other parts and pieces.

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I figure, if he does find a new motor for it, this is probably going to be the only opportunity to clean all this out for… oh, who knows how many years!

It’ll be nice to have a fan again. One that doesn’t scream when we turn it on, even. ;-)

Soon, I hope!

The Re-Farmer

New toys!

August 2, 2018August 2, 2018 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

One of the … fun… things about this old house has been the screaming bathroom fan.

Every time we turned it on, it would slowly start, making a whining, grinding, screaming noise, until it got up to speed. Then the noise would stop and it would be the nice, rather quiet fan it was supposed to be. Quieter than the newer fans we had in all three bathrooms of our old place (oh, for a second bathroom! LOL), in fact.

Well, it finally just up and died.

It was installed in the 70’s, so it’s had a good, long life! :-D

So my darling husband ordered a new fan.

Not just any, ordinary fan, of course.

This baby also has a heat light built in. Which should be quite nice in the winter!

Now, we’ve never installed anything like this, so I’m hoping my older brother will be able to give us a hand. He’s worked with the wiring in this house for many years, and is familiar with this house more than any other living person. I would much rather take advantage of his knowledge while we’re still so new here.

Along with the fan, a couple of other toys came in. Including this, for me.

It’s for when I’m out clearing the bush.

I can’t think of what I’d use it for with the work I’m doing right now, but…

Gosh, that’s pretty.

There was also hunting knives.

Six of them.

I’m not sure why there are six of them. I’ll have to ask my husband when I get a chance.

(I just caught him on the way by; they’re not specifically hunting knives. They’re intended to be used as throwing knives. LOL Much larger ones than the ones I’m used to!!)

On the thought of finding things out, I sent photos of the new gate we built yesterday to my brother. I also told him about the fence line I ended up pulling out along the tree line.

He tells me that the old fence line was likely more than 40 years old!

I have no memory of a fence line there, though I remember other things from that area. I guess my thoughts that this fence was added after the trees were planted was backwards. The current fence would be the one added more recently, to protect the trees from cattle, and the original fence is the one that was allowed to collapse and get buried in the thatch.

He also guesses that the old gate we replaced was about 20 years old. So I’m probably right in that the posts and barbed wire pile I found off to the side were from the older gate.

There is going to be a lot of stuff like this we’ll be finding, fixing or replacing, over the next few years!

Though I would really, really prefer to be spending our pennies on getting a second bathroom installed. :-D

The Re-Farmer

Beware the Chair Fungus

June 25, 2018June 25, 2018 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

There is a chair.

It’s a sturdy metal chair, painted grey, with a padded grey seat, covered in vinyl.

This is an outside chair. I don’t know where it came from, or how long its been outside, but I remember it being there since at least 2009, when we took a road trip to visit family out here.

I remember my dad sitting on it, outside the sun room, with the outside cats all around him. Now, it is on the concrete pad, outside the main entry.

I’ve been thinking of repainting it and doing something about the cracks and holes in the seat. Chairs as sturdy as this one are rather hard to come by, these days.

I should probably get on that.

The Re-Farmer

Domesticity

May 5, 2018 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

It’s been a lovely day today! Enough that we’ve actually opened most of the windows in the house. We even got the inside front door open again. I’d tried to open it while my brother was here, to show him how the outside screen door was stuck, as if it were painted shut (it isn’t). I had managed to get the top unstuck, but not the bottom. I wasn’t able to show him this, though, as the inside door wouldn’t budge. He tried it as well, but we both stopped because we didn’t want to break the door knob. When I tried it again this morning, I discovered it wasn’t the door itself that was stuck; it was the knob! For some reason, it turned only part way; far enough that we didn’t notice, but not enough to get the tongue out of the groove.

Looks like we’re going to have to add “door knobs” to the list of things to replace.

Then, I set up our little step ladder in front of the screen door.

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Yeah, I’m a suck when it comes to the cats, but in this case, without it there, the cats keep trying to get onto the dining room window, which involves jumping up onto shelves that hold a bunch of plants, coffee pot, kettle, etc. All stuff that can be knocked over by our less then elegant (amazingly clumsy) cats, too easily! :-D So, the lady gets her own perch, to look out the window at the birds.

I had hoped to get more work done on the wood pile in the garden, but today ended up being more of a day of domesticity. Things like cleaning the bathroom took priority.

It’s remarkable how different something as basic as cleaning a bathroom changes when you are on well water that is so rich in iron and minerals. Regular household cleaners don’t cut it – literally – while the specialty cleaners need greater care, like making sure windows are wide open! At least they’re septic friendly.

That’s another thing that’s reaching the top of our to-do list. The tank hasn’t been emptied in 2 years and, while the house was empty, it was still used now and then. No way of knowing how full that tank was, but with 4 people now living here, it’s bound to be overdue for emptying. The ground should be thawed enough for it too be done. After this, we’ll go back to the usual emptying of the tank in the late fall.

I did make a point of going out and starting my mom’s car again, to make sure all is well, after yesterday’s troubles when the battery was put back. All was well.

Except for the bird, trapped in the garage.

Though the main door stays open right now, until we can replace the handle, the bird stayed in the rafters and wouldn’t fly lower, though the wide open door. When I later found it bashing itself into the window in the lean to my mother’s car is parked in, I went around and opened the back door from the outside. That seemed to do that trick. I heard it flying out before I got much more than 10 feet away.

My brother was sure the new door handle we got would work, even if the cable doesn’t go through the squared post like the old one did, so I took another look at it. I think he’s right. One end of the cable was woven through a hole in the plate, the squared post, and then a second hole in the plate, before being tied to the cable from the other side. I managed to get the knot undone. The end of the wire cable that threaded through the holes is fraying, however, so it took some doing to get it undone.

I’m only bleeding a little bit.

I’m going to have to put tape or something on the end, to be able to thread it back through the second hole in the plate.

As for the handle itself, it was intended for a wooden door. The screws it came with are wood screws, and short. I’m going to have to look around for some nuts and bolts in the appropriate size. There are jars and tins of screws, nails and who knows what else, all over the place, so I should be able to find something, somewhere.

That squared post is still a bit of a problem, though. It’s a couple of inches longer than the old one. Which means the plate won’t be as close to the back of the door as it was, before. I’m hoping that won’t actually make a difference, since the whole thing freely turns to pull the cables. It should still be up against the door, though. Ah, well. We’ll see how it works once I find some fasteners for the handle.

The cables, themselves, could probably use replacing, too.

So does the entire door, really. It’s definitely the worse for wear!

More things to add to the list!

The Re-Farmer

Windblown

April 29, 2018April 29, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

Oh, my goodness, what a windy day it is today! As I sit at my computer, I can see the trees behind the other house in the yard, swaying back and forth. This is the sort of weather that brings trees down!

I’m rather concerned about that.

Oh, I just heard a door banging. Excuse me while I go check that…

Back. I’ve just had to tie down one of our screen doors!

Our sun room has two pairs of doors. It was tacked onto the Old Kitchen, which had its own inner door and screen door, plus there is another inner door and screen door to enter/exit the sun room from outside. The screen part of the screen door has no glass, so the wind has been pushing the inner door open. When I went to close them, I found the inner door of the Old Kitchen had also been blown open, held in place only by the security latch on the inside.

The doors and frames are in need of repair and/or replacement, and there was no way I could keep the inside door of the sun room from opening, so I blocked it with my dad’s walker for now.

In the process of moving it, I found a corded weed wacker! Yay! I hope it works.

The walker is at least keeping the door from swinging, but the outside screen door is also being blown open, so I just tied it to the arm bar in the door frame.

We’ve learned to appreciate all the arm bars installed around the house, just for the aid in mobility, but I never thought I’d appreciate them as something to secure a door closed!

We’ll have to find a better solution soon, though, since that exit is our only remaining fire escape, now that the front door at the dining room is stuck closed.

The wind had also blown the metal roof pieces off the dog house the cats have been using. Turns out, they’re not fastened in any way; the pieces just got placed over the shingled roof underneath.

*sigh*

I did a walk around to see what else might be blowing in the wind, and discovered this.

The back door to the garage can only be fastened shut from the outside. Which means, when my daughter went in to open the main garage door from the inside, after the handle broke off, she could only close the door, but not latch it. So no surprise that it was being blown around, too.

It takes a bit more to blow open the outhouse door, though.

I don’t recall ever looking inside the outhouse, since moving here. I did not expect it to be so colorful!

Also, it has a mirror.

Why is there a medicine cabinet in the outhouse?

There’s also a fluorescent light fixture stored on one side of the door, and some shelf boards on the other.

As far as I know, the last time anyone’s been in here was back in late November, when the guy who tried to find an internet signal somewhere in our yard had to use it, because we only have one bathroom, and my daughter had just got in the shower.

That poor man.

I’m fascinated by the effort taken to decorate the inside of the outhouse like that.

The stacks of books reminds me of back in the days before we had indoor plumbing, and we used old catalogs as toilet paper. I don’t think we ever bought toilet paper until we got an indoor bathroom.

While closing up the door, I could hear the sound of another door banging, so I checked the front of the garage.

It’s even more surprising to see this door open, because of these…

It takes a fair bit for this type of latch to come undone.

Since I was there anyhow, I took a look at the main garage door, thinking I might be able to install the new handle.

It looks like we won’t be able to use it.

The mechanism works by pulling on cables on the inside that unlatches the door at the sides. The cable runs through a hole in a squared post that the handle is attached to. Turn the handle, turn the post, which pulls the cables.

The new handle’s post doesn’t have a hole the cable can run through. It’s obviously designed for a different mechanism. Which would be fine if we could just remove the squared post on the new handle and use the old one, but it’s all one piece.

Looks like we might have to make a trip to the city to find the right kind of handle.

As I checked around the yard, I noticed something else that’s concerning. The smell of smoke. This time of year, it’s common for people to do controlled burns. The municipality, for example, might burn the dead foliage along the sides of ditches, or farmers might burn last year’s stubble. We’ve seen some areas along the sides of roads that had been done earlier in the month. Right now, however, it’s so dry that there are a lot of burn bans. Coupled with the wind, it’s unlikely that someone would be doing a burn. Which means, if there is a fire somewhere, it’s not a controlled burn.

There is no visible smoke, at least. In these high winds, if there was visible smoke, it would mean there’s a really large fire somewhere. According to the weather app, the winds are south winds at 57kmh (35.4mph), with gusts up to 74 (50mph).

I think I’ll go check the government fire maps right now, and see if anything’s been reported that we need to be concerned about!

The Re-Farmer

That Circle of Life thing… and I hate shopping

April 27, 2018April 27, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

For the past while, we’ve had a huge drop in deer visits. I didn’t see any yesterday, until quite late, when one showed up, then ran off when it saw me in the window. Pretty sure it was a new one, since our regulars are no longer bothered by seeing us.

We are certainly getting plenty of birds, though, including this new one that I’ve been trying to identify.

There were two or three of them among the dark eyed juncos and the male redpolls that were also in the feeding station. Looking through my bird book, its body looks similar to a Brown Thrasher, but the eye and beak are totally different. Another closer match is the Fox Sparrow, but according to the book, we’re not really in their territory. They might be passing through during migration, if that’s what they are.

If anyone reading this knows what they are, please let me know in the comments! Thanks. :-)

As I was taking pictures of the new birds, there was a sudden whoosh of movement and all the birds flew off.

Well, almost all.

What a beautiful hawk! I barely managed to tilt the tripod over to snap a few quick pictures before it flew off, with its meal, into the trees. Much to my surprise, the pictures all turned out, but only a couple caught the hawk’s face as it looked over before flying off.

This is one of the things we have to consider, if we do get chickens.

Later on, I went to tell my older daughter, who was upstairs, about the hawk. She hadn’t seen the hawk, but she did see the fallout, as panicked birds suddenly flew up, including one that smacked right into the window near her.

She went out onto the roof and moved it, so it could fly off when it regained consciousness.

Except, it didn’t. It hit the window hard enough to kill itself. It looked like one of the new birds, too. :-(

Wow.

This all happened in the mid morning or so. Shortly before noon, my younger daughter and I headed out to the city – our first trip to the city since all that work was done on the van – for a much needed Costco trip.

Just to jump ahead a bit, the van ran beautifully. Also, I didn’t get a call back from the garage about those parts they’d ordered for me. I’m not sure how I would have handled such a call, now that the work they wanted to do turns out to not be needed at all. Aside from not bringing the van in, of course.

I had hoped, even though it’s a Friday, going to Costco in the early afternoon would mean missing out on the crowds.

Maybe we did, but it was still insanely busy.

We didn’t go to the closer one, which is smaller, has a ridiculously horrible parking situation, and where the pharmacy staff were such a problem. Instead, we went to one that was not only larger, but also near a whole lot of other shopping.

Along with our usual bulk grocery shopping, I had one goal in mind. To get more undies for my husband. We’re in the city. That shouldn’t be a problem, right?

Well, it turns out that Costco didn’t carry any in his size. They do in clothing, just not in underwear. Which makes no sense.

So after we finished at Costco, with all its joyous moments (seriously; what is it about people who saunter to a stop, blocking the entire isle, and just stand there, staring into space? This happened several times, all different people!), we figured we’d just go to that mall up the block. They had a Marshals there. Marshals has clothes, right?

We’ve never actually been to a Marshals before.

It turned out to be kinda like a crappy Winners. We found the teeny, tiny men’s underwear section, half of which was shirts, and it was such a disaster, I could barely find anything at all, never mind the size and style I wanted. There was only one brand, too – an expensive one, of course.

But we’re in a mall, right? There’s lots of other stores we can try, right?

I found a map and… it wasn’t very encouraging. Still, there were several possibilities among the athletic stores.

We went to about 4 or 5 different shops. Any that did have men’s underwear had hardly anything at all, none in the style I was looking for, and certainly not the size.

What the heck?

As we were leaving the mall, my daughter pointed out that there was a Winners across the road. So that’s where we tried next.

It was better than the Marshals, at least. The shelves were better organized, but again, there was only one tiny display for the men’s section, and nothing in the size we were after.

I checked on my phone and found the nearest Walmart. I figured that would be our last stop. Even if we didn’t find the style I was after, if I could only find the size, that would be great.

Walmart, at least, has a nice, big section for men’s underclothes – but still a tiny clothing section.

Men, you guys are really short changed in the clothing department! Sheesh!

We found several brands in the style we wanted. Yay, right?

Nope.

There was a lot out of stock, so my daughter and I kept hunting for the right size, somewhere. After a while, I stopped looking at what was there and started looking at the labels in front of the hooks.

It turned out they weren’t just out of stock. They didn’t even CARRY the size we needed. In any brand, or any style!

What the heck??? He wears a common size. Why don’t they have it?

This was supposed to be our last stop, but we had noticed further down the parking lot, a Marks.

One more try…

Sure enough, we actually found both the style and size we were after!!! Finally! So I bought as many packages as I could afford without messing up our budget.

When we got to the counter, me looking a little wild eyed by now, the cashier asked us if we’d found everything we were looking for.

I told her that yes, we did, and that they were the ONLY ones to have what we were looking for. She looked completely surprised. Not even Walmart, she asked? Nope. Nothing in this size. That is so strange, she tells me.

It’s their most popular size.

Which doesn’t surprise me in the least. So why don’t other places even HAVE the size at all?

Who know buying underwear would be so difficult?

By the time that was done, we were both exhausted and more than ready to go home.

I really, really dislike shopping.

After we got home and unloaded, it occurred to me that none of us had the energy to cook supper. My older daughter is sick, my younger daughter is also getting sick, and just unloading the van was more than enough to remind me that I’m certainly not yet recovered from this stupid cold.

Since my daughter can now legally drive, I asked if she was up to a trip into town, so we could get some take-out. Thankfully, she was. So off we went to the van and…

When she tried to open the garage door, the handle came off.

Talking to my oldest brother not long ago, I mentioned this. He told me that thing has needed replacing for probably 15 years. It just never got done. It was on our list of things to fix sooner rather than later. Well, it just got bumped up higher on the list. :-D

My daughter had to go into the garage from the back door (which is used so rarely, it has self-seeded trees growing in front of it) and open it from the inside. The bar that runs through the hole to the handle is still there, and I couldn’t find any pieces that fell off onto the ground, so I’m actually not sure why the handle hadn’t fallen off sooner! :-D

I was just informed that we had deer outside our living room window again. A group of four. It’s almost completely dark at the moment, but still enough light for us to see them. And for them to see us. And hear us. Even the creaking of the floor had their ears going in all directions, and they could hear my daughter cough! As I was at the window, one was watching me until I shifted slightly, and off it ran, startling the others away.

So we will stay away from the window for a while, in hopes they come back.

Looks like we’ll be going into town again tomorrow, even if it’s just to pick up a new handle for the garage door! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Quiet – and critters

March 24, 2018 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Oh, how I’ve learned to appreciate quiet, boring days.

Not that today turned out to be either quiet, or boring – but it was close enough!

The temperatures dipped a bit today, but the windchill made it feel so much colder. I was glad not to be going out, that’s for sure! It was still pretty mild in our area. In other areas South-West of us, I heard they were closing down the highways in some areas.

Though I was looking forward to sleeping in today – and even stayed up much later last night as well – it seems my brain had other ideas. I ended up waking up at about the same time as I have been for the past week! Ah, well. It could be worse; my husband is up even earlier, every day, because it’s just too painful to be lying down. That’s the crazy thing about back injuries. There is no position you can stay in for any length of time before the pain forces you to shift. So there’s that cycle of getting up, sitting down, getting up, lying down, over and over again.

My older brother was going to drive my mother to the hospital today, had she needed to go. Since she didn’t, he just had a visit with her, instead. It’s quite a drive for him to come out here, so that was really nice of him. He even texted me a photo of her eye, though it didn’t come in for almost 3 hours! Ah, the joy of cell phone dead zones.

My mother’s eye is noticeably better today; amazing how quickly it’s recovering now that she’s off that one medication. The new medication is considered a blood thinner, too, but it doesn’t lead to bleeding the way the other one did. She even let my brother put the brace on her leg, too! That is such a wonderful step for her. Now I just hope she’ll be able to get home care to help her get it on. Theoretically, she can do it herself, but it would be very difficult to get all those straps tightened on her own without the brace shifting out of position, and it’s really important to have that knob properly aligned.

After seeing my mother, my brother came over to our place and we had a nice visit. Plus, we checked out the door on my van. The door that he worked so hard to replace has started to drop again when I open it. *sigh* It isn’t much, but after what happened previously, I’m a little paranoid about it. We tightened the hinges again and it’s better, but it looks like it’ll be something that will need to be continually monitored.

One of the things he and I have been talking about was setting up security cameras. I had been thinking around the house (more to capture the visiting wildlife… :-D ), but he was looking to put one above the garage door, too. It’s the perfect spot to cover anyone coming in and out of our driveway. So while we were still in the garage, he closed the door from the inside to look at where the cables would be coming in from a camera mounted outside. Over there, he points out to me. You see where that wasps’ nest is?

!!!!!

Turns out we have a fairly large wasp nest inside the peak of the roof, against the garage wall, plus there’s a row of 3 more new nests, just a couple of inches long, and what looks like the remains of other beginning nests. It was fairly dark (since we don’t have the electricity to turn on the lights, thanks to our movers), so I couldn’t quite make out all of them.

We’d never seen them before because any time we go in the garage, it’s through the main door, which hides them when it’s open.

My husband is allergic to stings.

Those are going to have to disappear. Preferably before it warms up enough for them to come out of hibernation.

So I’m doubly glad my brother came over!

He didn’t stay too much longer, though, as he was concerned about road conditions, but he still took the time to check out the barn, which also needs to have power restored to it again. When we get our power pole by the garage replaced and electricity restored there, he’s arranging for the barn to get hooked up again, too. At some point, we’ll look at restoring the water, too. When we got running water in the house, with a new well dug in the yard, a trench had been dug towards the barn. The pipes for the septic field, as well as for water to the barn, were installed all at the same time. Along with a water pump in the barn, two heated water fountains had been installed for the cows, so they would always have water, even in the coldest of weather. When, how or where all this got shut down, we don’t know, so there’s going to be some sleuthing to do before any of that is restored.

Add that to the list of things that needs to be worked on, now that we’re living here.

It’s a long list.

In the afternoon, my lovely daughters did some more bread baking, giving me a chance to catch up on my crochet. With the blustery weather, we weren’t seeing a lot of activity at the feeding station, and what activity we did get was very quick! I managed to get a cute bluejay photo…

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I love how they tilt their heads like that.

Hungry Girl and Barbecue came over as well. They dashed in quickly, and seemed very antsy – probably eager to eat and then find some shelter from the wind! – so I didn’t try to take very many photos. Seeing me in the window seemed to make them more nervous, and I didn’t want to startle them away from the food.

I did manage to get a very pretty profile picture of Hungry Girl.

In going through my folders of photos, I’ve got quite a lot of photos like this; the deer frequently look behind the house while feeding, so many images are of them in this pose. I never tire of seeing, them, though. They’re so lovely!

Ah, but of course, I got some fun pictures, too! This time, it was Barbecue to was sticking his tongue out (though from the lack of antler buds starting to show, I’m thinking he might actually be a she!).

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This one had me laughing out loud, but I think the next one is some kind of record…

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I think that’s the most tongue ever, in any of the shots I’ve managed to get over these months! :-D

They didn’t stay for much longer after this.

Tomorrow we’re technically supposed to warm up a bit, but the wind is supposed to increase, with more snow. How much of that will reach us, we shall see, but it’s still going to be another chilly one.

Oh, how I’ve already been spoiled by the calm, warm days we’ve had for the past week.

I think I’ll go through those seed catalogs I got in the mail and dream of warmth and green, growing things.

The Re-Farmer

Snowfall Fallout

March 6, 2018March 6, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

Ah, the joys of dealing with a fresh dump of snow.

I am very grateful that we didn’t get the major storms others got – and that are still being predicted! We don’t have to deal with floods or power outages, and massive amounts of snow. We just have minor stuff to deal with, on what turned out to be a very lovely day.

On taking feed out to the deer, I paused to visit Eunice, who has started to loose part of her eyes. :-D

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This photo, however, was taken from our living room window, and there are 5 deer in it.

You can almost see one of them in the bushes, between the cross and the dead tree, and part of one through some trees, out in the garden area.

Eunice made them all very nervous, and for some time we saw them creep closer around the spruce tree on the left, where they usually come in, or go into the spruces, back out along the edge of the spruces or among the apple trees, chasing each other around, leaving, coming back…

Not a one made it to the feed.

I had wondered if the presence of Eunice would have that affect.

I hope they come back tonight, but either way, tomorrow I think I will make a small trail of feed, starting under that spruce bough, and around Eunice. We’ll see how that helps.

Early this afternoon, one of my daughters and I went into town to pick up some prescription refills for my husband. While there, I had them try adding the insurance to my file again, explaining that the problem was at the insurance end, not theirs. If they fixed it, it would work. If not, I’d just pick up my husband’s prescriptions and my own would wait a bit longer.

I picked up my husband’s prescriptions.

After we got home, the girls went out their window to shovel off some of the snow. It’s already melting, but it they can make it so that the melt will go into the eavestrough instead of into their wall, that would be awesome.

As they were finishing that, I took the stuff for the burn barrel out. They won’t do a burn until dark, so they can see any sparks that need to be put out. I got a giggle out of this…

20180306catpath

It’s a cat path, from wherever it is they’ve been saying the night lately. :-D

(The sticks in the foreground are the remains of Sydney, an earlier snowman my younger daughter had made. :-D )

Since it was so nice out, I decided to take advantage of it and do some shoveling for a path of my own.

20180306nopath

See that electricity meter on the post? We need to be able to reach that to read it.

The snow piled in front is the edge of where my brother used his tractor and snowblower, near the burn barrel.

Also, there is no way we’re getting anything from the house to the shed any time soon. That red building is the old pump shack, and the shed is behind that. The driveway itself goes as far as the pump shack, then peters off. The rest of the way to the shed is tall grass.

Ah, well. We can maneuver around the stuff a bit longer.

20180306path

Yay! I can reach the meter now!

There was about a foot of fresh snow on top of the old snow, with a thin layer of ice melt in between. Digging this out required breaking through the the layers with the shovel, first, about half a foot at a time.

Thanks to the time stamps on my phone’s file names, I could even tell how long it took me to do it. Only about 15 minutes! Not bad at all.

Before heading back inside, I walked around to the back of the house to look at the trees that are growing at angles. I really, really am not comfortable with the two that are growing over our roof – especially the one that’s actually touching the roof, but there is another tree that overhangs the opening to the garden. It’s very beautiful, framing the space and all draped in winter’s glory. Unfortunately, it’s also tilted right from its roots, with three major branches all leaning the same way.

It’s only a matter of time before a large snowfall will cause it to fall. This is not a young tree. If we want to save it from breaking at the main trunk, we’ll at least have to cut back the biggest section leaning over the yard, and likely one other section. That should take enough weight stress off the main trunk that the weight of the third section won’t be a problem, even if it’s still growing off at an angle.

Oh, how I’d love to have an arborist come in and go over the trees in the yard.

Which reminds me; I did a bit of research for lifts. Turns out we can rent a scissor lift for a week for $480. They are drivable. Potentially, we could rent one, somehow get it out here, then spend a week using it to get all the pruning done at once.

It’s going to be a while before we can afford that, and there are many things higher on the priority list. But it’s a potential option for the future.

After checking on the trees and walking back to the main entry, I noticed something.

I now know why there is a rock in the old bird feeder.

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The weight of snow on its roof had caused it to tip. There is only one nail? Screw? holding it to its base.

I straightened it out and all the snow fell off the roof.

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Rather than fixing the base, someone put a rock on it to act as a counterbalance. The recent snowfall put enough weight on the roof that the rock was no longer enough, and over it went. With the snow knocked off, it is now heavy enough to keep the whole thing from tipping over again.

I wonder who came up with the idea of using the rock like that? It’s rather creative, but not a good substitute for actually… you know… Fixing the thing. My guess is, once the rock was put on, the fact that it is broken got forgotten about. I have no idea how long it’s been since anyone has tried to put birdseed in it – oddly, it still has old popcorn kernels in it. Nothing else. Just popcorn kernels.

So I guess we’ll have to see if it’s still in good enough shape to warrant fixing it, or if we should just replace it. I’m thinking fix, but we’ll figure out for sure later on.

Another curious find for this place! I’m sure we will find many more.

The Re-Farmer

So. This Happened

March 3, 2018March 3, 2018 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Last night, the girls alerted me to a leak that started in one of the rooms upstairs.

Right near an outlet, too. So they shut down their computers and unplugged the power bar as soon as they could.

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The water was coming in between the window box and the moulding. It was leaking out the bottom, too, for a while.

These windows were installed just this past summer. Wherever the water is coming from, it’s going into the wall, first. The girls crawled out to clear things a bit, and they found the wall itself was quite dry on the outside.

I emailed my brother about it and he thinks this has been an annual leak; we just happen to be here to see it. Even when my dad was still living here, the upstairs was hardly used and, in the winter, blocked off completely at the stop of the steps, to conserve heat.

It stopped leaking during the night, but now there is water damage to the nice, new window frames.

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There is a similar water stain on the bottom of the frame.

20180303_120750.25% So today, the girls crawled through the window to try and clear the roof as much as they could. This is what they found.

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This moss is over the north window (it’s the south window that’s leaking). After speaking with my brother, he tells me that moss has been there for many, many years. They had replaced the rotten wood all along the outside wall this past summer, too. He also cleared the eaves (I believe they are called gutters in other parts of the world) several times over the summer.

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This is the ice dam they found under the snow; my daughter included her thumb for perspective on how thick the ice is. Unfortunately, the ice was going under the shingles in some places, so they couldn’t get it off without damaging the shingles.

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Check out the beautifully clear – and empty – eavestrough!

This section of the roof was raised to make more room in the second floor, so the slope is not as steep as it should be. Now that the upstairs is being used and heated, even though there has been very little snow this year, it would be melting from underneath and not draining as well as it should.

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They also got a picture of this for me. I asked my brother about it, and apparently it has always been like this (I was very young when I was clambering on the roof as a child, so I did not remember it). So the water is draining directly onto the shingles, rather than down the side of the building.

Not that there is much water to drain right now, since it’s not melting into the eavestrough.

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This is not the only area with potential problems. These are new icicles outside our living room window. Formed between the eavestrough and the eave.

Apparently, my dad did not believe in soffits.

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This ice jam has formed at the corner between the master bedroom and the old kitchen. I’m told it’s an annual thing.

You can see the pruning saw leaning against the wall in the corner. It’s on a very long pole. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like we’ll be able to do the actual pruning, before the sap flows, as we wanted to.

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This section of tree is the one that’s causing the most problems for the shingles. Despite my brother cutting it back over the years, branches are touching the roof again.

I wasn’t able to unhook the broken branch that’s stuck on the TV antennae support wire.

The only way to make it not be a problem anymore is to cut that whole “branch” (it looks like a trunk!) back to the main trunk. To do that, though, it has to be cut back in sections, so as not to cause damage to the house as the pieces fall.

Theoretically, it can be done with a ladder, but the safest way to do it is with a lift bucket. Because a chainsaw would be the best tool for the job, and using a chain saw while on a ladder is just not ideal!

No one has lift buckets around here. We’d have to hire someone.

We do have chain saws here. There are three of them in the garage. I’m pretty sure one of them used to be ours; we’d given our chainsaw to my late brother before we moved out of province. No need for a chainsaw when living in a city apartment! It’s unlikely any of them work. We’ll have to get some maintenance done on them.

It is not the only tree that needs to be cut back severely back there; there is another huge maple with a large trunk leaning towards the house.

Then there is the tree in front of the kitchen window.

Let’s look at this photo again.

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Ideally, we’d get rid of it completely. It’s the reason the eavestroughs needed to be cleared so often. I was thinking we might be able to, say, turn the stump into the support for a table top, so we’d have a sort of picnic table out there, but this is a Chinese Elm. It has been cut back severely in the past, but it just grows back. Apparently, these trees are very hard to get rid of. It was a mistake to plant such a large tree so close to the house, but I think my mother had wanted the shade, and this is a variety that grows very quickly.

Little by little, we will figure out what needs to be done, and do it. The challenge will be to prioritize things!

The Re-Farmer

Around outside

February 24, 2018February 23, 2018 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

A last post about my walkabout in our yard.

The spruce grove next to the house might be what’s preventing us from being able to get more stable internet (with better data plans!), but it sure is beautiful.

This view is from the end of our garden near the road to our driveway. As you can see, there are quite a lot of downed trees in there. Quite a few dead trees that we will eventually need to cut down, too.

Well, we’ll have plenty of wood for our fire pit, when the time comes!

In a corner of the yard, near the fire pit, is one of several old log cabins on the property. The wall facing into the yard has vertical boards for siding.

There used to be a gooseberry bush at the opposite corner. I used to love picking the juicy, tart green berries and eat them when I was a child.

Years later, I discovered that they were supposed to be eaten after they turned red and soft. I’d always thought that was when they’d gone bad, because they tasted so bland. :-D

I don’t know what happened to that gooseberry bush. It’s not there anymore, and other trees are growing near where it was.

This wall here faces what used to be an open area where my late brother had his “bike shop.” There were all sorts of bike parts and pieces that he would use to cobble bikes together.

Quite a lot of those parts and pieces seem to still be there, rusting away.

I’ve read that this type of corner joining for log buildings is a style mostly unique to our region.

This old shed was used for storage for as long as I can remember. I don’t know what its original purpose was.

This is part of the inside. The roof is collapsing on both sides. The rafters are full of all sorts of things. I have no idea what that machine is, but it looks like it runs the length of the building.

The stuff jammed into there is amazing. An old wringer washer. An electric stove. What looks like a very, very old washer and drier set. Pieces of antenna. Head and foot boards. Old window frames. A bike that I think used to be ours. Tires.

I don’t think anything in there is salvageable. It all just got shoved in there and forgotten about.

This old log building looks to be in better shape.

That’s a relative statement.

This is actually outside the fenced part of our yard, but is still part of the larger yard that includes the barn and various outbuildings (and cars, trucks, tractors, hay rakes, fuel tanks… ). Before my father bought the property, this was the “summer kitchen.” There was a wood stove and the cooking and canning would be done in here in the summer, rather than in the main house, so the house wouldn’t get overheated. I imagine it reduced the risk of burning the house down, too. :-/

We used it as a chicken coop. There was a walled in area around two sides of the building for a chicken run, though we would let them out during the day in the summer.

I briefly considered going over to look inside.

I changed my mind.

I just didn’t feel like working my way through the barrier of burs!

We’re back in the yard, next to the house again.

My late brother built this bird house for my mother, and it can be seen from our dining room window. My mother is a strongly religious person, so he built it in the shape of a church.

It still gets used by birds every year. I am hoping that we will have a chance to take it down and fix it up this year. Maybe prune back some of the branches around the post, too. Once we have a better idea of what’s actually growing there. It’s in what was one of my mother’s many little flower gardens around the yard, but it seems to be all bushes now.

What I would love to do is have a deck built along this side of the house, with a ramp leading to the end of the house where the current main entry way is, and the direction we need to go to get to the van, so that my husband doesn’t have to fight with the door while trying to get his walker up and down the steps. Then we’d also be able to start using what is supposed to be the front door. If that happens, this garden bed will likely need to be taken at least partly out. Which would not be a bad thing, I am thinking.

The Re-Farmer

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