We have had some very long days, recently.
On the plus side, we missed driving from the city in the middle of a storm! The roads were clear while driving from the city, but in the time it took me to set my husband back up in his hospital room and start driving home, it hit. The storm came in from the south, so it basically followed us as we were driving. On my way home, visibility was down to 100-200 yards.
That kiboshed my plans to come back in the afternoon.
Oh, while a wild and windy day today!
I don’t know if we got any of the predicted snow flurries last night, but there certainly was plenty of blowing snow on the highway this morning!
I did my rounds after driving my daughter to work, and found a few things.
The floor in the sun room was wet. Not just a spot or two, but a large area of damp.
I have a 5 gallon bucket I use to carry the deer/bird feed, and an ice cream bucket I use to scoop the feed into it. I store one inside the other, next to the bin I use to hold the feed. When I picked up the ice cream bucket, I found some water in it, and the bottom was all damp. Looking into the 5 gallon bucket, I found a couple of inches of water. These are all on a plastic couch. Looking up, I could not see where the water was coming from. The lid on the bin was dry and dusty, and the couch seat itself was dry, so that narrowed down where the drip had to be coming from, but I could see nothing.
My daughters informed me that the drip at the corner of one window upstairs is back. This drip was discovered last winter and, from the damage to the wall beneath it, has been dripping for some time. Those windows were installed the summer before we moved out here. They are well installed and sealed, which confirms that the source is from somewhere else – if it had been from the old windows, the drip would have stopped after the new were installed. We already figured that, but it’s good to have a confirmation.
By the time I got back from dropping my younger daughter off at work, my older daughter had already climbed out onto the roof of the living room – in this wind! – and cleared snow on the upper roof (which cannot be safely climbed not) as much as she could, as well as clearing the eaves-trough. There is an ice dam that forms on the roof edge. There is a visible discoloration in the snow in an area that might be where the melt is getting through the shingles, but it’s not possible to see exactly where it’s coming in right now. Once things are clear enough, the girls plan to look around to find the source of the leak and seal it.
During my rounds, I checked out a couple other areas we need to keep an eye on.
The second story roof on this side is much steeper than the other, but it’s also North and West facing, so it doesn’t melt away as quickly as the South and East facing sections. Here, you can see where the branches are brushing the roof. This is one of the trees that the arborist will take down for us in the spring.
This is where the log part of the house and the Old Kitchen roofs meet. Every year, this ice dam forms. So far, there is no sign of any leaking because of it.
I made sure to look at the roof over the sun room, and above it, and those are mostly clear of snow. No ice dams, but also no way to see if any shingles have lifted or anything like that. Last year, we had water dripping in through the bathroom ceiling, and never found where it was coming from.
It was while I was in the bathroom that I saw a drip through the window, in the sun room. I was able to see a water drop on the ceiling, this time. From where it is, it would be why the floor is wet. There was still nothing visible on the area above where the feed bucket sits.
This has been another confirmation for me. I had been wondering about sections of peeling paint on the ceiling of the sun room. It is, indeed, water damage. Once again, this shows that there have been leaks since long before we moved here. In fact, I half remember seeing the peeling paint in the sun room when we were last here and stayed with my late father, in 2015. Since the upstairs was closed off completely, in the winter, to conserve heat, no one would have seen the drip up there at all. My father would not have been able to see the dripping in the sun room, either, and there was no one else around who would have caught either. That would have been just as true while my mother was still living here, from what I have been able to tell.
Well, all we can do is patch it up for now. My mom has been talking about a new roof for the house, and selling off some of the scrap metal around the farm to help fund it. The place is definitely due for one!
We have one more colder day, then in 2 days it’s supposed to go – and stay – above freezing.
Which means, for the next week or so, we’ll be keeping a close eye out for drips and shingle damage.
The Re-Farmer
One of the nice things about February being such a short month is, pay comes in a bit early. Which meant we got to do our monthly shop before we started running out of too many things!
The trip to the city wasn’t quite uneventful. Not far from our driveway, there are open fields on both sides of the road. We’ve had some very high winds for the past couple of days, but not a lot of snow, so I wasn’t expecting to hit several small drifts across the road in a row.
Then we reached the big drifts.
Continue readingAh, what a day!
When I headed into town to pick up prescriptions and allergy medications, it was snowing, but fairly lightly. It picked up a bit while I was out and about, but not too dramatically.
Then I got a text from my husband.
The power went out at home.
Driving back through our own little hamlet, I could see no lights, anywhere, so I could at least be assured it wasn’t just our place!
Also, it was snowing quite a bit more heavily by then, too!
The power was out for about 2 – 2 1/2 hours in total. The girls and I were about to head out to town, where we could get a data or WiFi signal, so we could check online to see what was going on. The power came back on, just as we were putting on our shoes.
So we stayed home, and instead walked around and knocked snow off of the trees.
I had already knocked the snow off of these lilacs, before I went into town, and it had to be done again, later on.
It was just above freezing, which means it was a wet, sticky and heavy snow. Since it started off as rain, there was also a layer of ice under the snow. All the trees that still had their leaves were drooping like crazy. The girls and I went around shaking trees, or knocking the snow off with a rake or broom, as high as we could reach.
It’s a good thing we did, or there would have been a lot more weight on those branches!
It continued to snow heavily for some time. I was sitting in my crochet corner when a noise out the window caught my attention.
Then I watched as a piece of tree came tumbling to the ground!
Soon after, I went outside to check on the trees and, right outside our door, this is what greeted me.
This is from the Chinese elm, outside our kitchen window. This is also where we park the van, when we drive it into the yard.
Thankfully, it was safely in the garage at the time!
This is the piece of tree I watched from inside, as it fell. It took me a while, but I think I found where it fell from.
This is the dead spruce whose top we watched fall down in a storm, last winter.
I really look forward to when we can have this tree taken down!
The lilacs by the house were again heavily covered in snow.
The cherry trees are drooping so much, you can’t even see that they’re there!
The girls had already knocked the snow off of this just a few hours before. One of the branches was right on the bird feeder platform. As I tried knocking the snow off, I found that it had broken right off.
I continued around the yard, shaking trees or knocking snow off with a rake, but some things, we just can’t reach.
You can see the lower branches, where I knocked the snow off, but the upper branches are still a risk. It doesn’t normally touch the roof there. Hopefully, no more branches will break, and if they do, they’ll be ones that fall into the yard, not on the roof.
Another reminder that this tree needs to come down. :-(
Also…
Snow and ice covered willow branches are hanging heavily over the power lines.
And there’s nothing we can do about it right now. :-(
The Re-Farmer
I took a ridiculous number of photos today.
It was gorgeous out there.
Here are just a couple from my phone, this morning, as I went out to do the cats’ food and water.
First things first, though…
I would have to dig out their feeding area!
It was still quite warm – hovering around freezing temperatures – which makes for a lot of wet, sticky snow.
Perfect for building snowmen, I thought, as I shoveled my way across.
I then found a mystery.
One of the food bowls is missing.
I dug around more, in case it got knocked aside before being buried by the snow (how, I have no idea).
Nothing. No sign of it anywhere.
I imagine we’ll find it when the snow melts away, but I’m awfully curious as to what happened to it.
No sign of the cats, either, until I was done, and even then, I only saw three of them, hopping their way through the snow, out by the old pump shack. It was some time before they made their way through the snow to the food!
Though it was quite mild and gentle out here, things were a lot wilder to the south of us. Enough that our internet provider set up an automatic response at their number to tell people that the weather had disrupted service.
By the time the service was back, though, we had to get snow off the satellite dishes to be able to get a decent signal. It was so wet and sticky, it did NOT want to come off!
Later on – likely not until tomorrow – the girls will shovel the roof. This is the first snowfall we’ve had this winter big enough to warrant it.
The Re-Farmer
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.
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.
There is a similar water stain on the bottom of the frame.
So today, the girls crawled through the window to try and clear the roof as much as they could. This is what they found.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
The Re-Farmer 