Warming up

It warmed up quite a bit last week.  So warm, I went out and checked on stuff in a t-shirt.  And snowshoes; we still have a lot of snow.

 

We did get about 5 inches on Tuesday.  I went and raked the roof again before heading into work.  

 

The carport has created a tunnel. 

 

I had a plan to try to mark the containers with what is in it; just use whiteboard markers.  So I tested one.  The markers I had at home kinda sucked, but it should have been enough to test.

 

Unfortunately the marker didn't come off in the dishwasher, but I was still able to wipe it off afterwards without issue.  So this might still work. 

I went up and tried to renew my registrations during the week as well, and found out that the state never processed the title application for the CR-V.  Quality DMV Bureaucracy, but I just received the updated title over the weekend, so it is finally done.  Thankfully the town clerk got them to process it immediately that day.

Other than that, the big story is the massive amount of meltoff from the weekend.  It rained most of Saturday, and Sunday was 50s and the sun even made an appearance.  It ended up not being a problem, but the roof rake froze into the ice.

 

Sunday was pretty nice, and I went outside for a bit.  The places water runs are clearing.

 

Somehow the tunnel has survived several warm sunny days.  It is starting to look a bit sad though.

 

My creek isn't frozen anymore. 

 

I bought some new sweatpants.  I had noticed they have been leaving little fuzzies everywhere.  Apparently they blew out the exhaust of dryer after they completely filled the lint filter.  

 

The sunset was quite pretty last night too. 

 

Leaks

Happy birthday Jess!

 

Last week was mostly uneventful.  Something that did come up was that I need a way to better identify the frozen meals.  This meal was not what I thought it was, and as a result I put the wrong kind of cheese on it.  One thought I have had is to use a different pasta for the different meals, so I know if it has rotini in it it is a specific meal, whereas if it has farfalle it is this other thing.

 

When I got back from shopping, the moon had a halo around it.  There is supposed to be a blood moon caused by an eclipse this week.  I wonder if I will get to see it, right now the weather is not looking promising.  

 

The snow we have been getting is slowly sliding off the carport.  I always find the way it comes off amusing. 

 

As work is getting ready to move all their manufacturing overseas, they had a bunch of hardware up for grabs.  I went and grabbed a big bag of 1/4" bolts, and a bunch of T slot stuff for extruded aluminum, which I intend to use a lot of in the box truck build. 

 

Then came Friday.  I heard a pop right before lunch on Friday, and discovered that my roof has been leaking, on both sides of the wall between the second bath and bedroom. 

 

I don't have a ladder tall enough to get on the roof, but as I started to roof rake it, I noticed that there was a huge ice buildup on the back side.

 

It is still really deep back there too.  Even with snow shoes on, I was sinking almost a foot.

 

I ended up using the step ladder leaned up against the house.  It kinda worked, but it wasn't very stable in the snow and fell over on me at one point.  Fortunately I was only up a couple of rungs.

 

I now have a fully packed snowshoe trail behind the house.  

 

Since I can't see up on the roof, I took a video roughly where I think it was leaking.  It seemed pretty clear to me what happened; the ice dam built up all the way to the exhaust vent of the bathroom.

 

After that I went and got a hammer and  tried to create a channel for runoff.  I missed a bit to the right, but oh well.

 

While I was hammering apparently I knocked the picture off the wall.  It was thankfully not damaged.  I did notice however that it knocked the face plate off some of the switches.  Apparently the switches in my house don't use traditional electric boxes, the box is built into the switch itself.  I have seen this with lights (the puck lights where you toss the box inside for example), but never wall switches.  Rather interesting.  Not necessarily bad, but it is odd.

 

Saturday was mostly spent monitoring and checking on the roof.  A couple of other things in between checks were I got the rust stains in the tub cleaned up.  

 

I also pulled out the stuff for the cart for Jess and Heather's dishwasher.  It was nice enough Saturday that I had debated cutting the final pieces, but quickly realized that I never labeled which was which, and had forgotten which piece I was missing.  I did get it sorted out, but it was late in the afternoon at that point, so I cleaned up some of the edges and called it a day.  

 

Sunday wasn't as nice as Saturday, but I felt comfortable at that point that the roof raking had fixed the issue, so I went out for a bit.  I walked the canal trail.  Unfortunately the random people who plowed Otter Brook this winter (Keene Park and Rec is responsible, but they haven't plowed it at all this year) didn't do it after the last big snowfall.   The canal trail was pretty clear though.  There were a few really icy spots, but most of it wasn't too bad.

 

The creek that had almost dried up last year is full with the meltoff.  

 

I also went and visited the far end of Otter Brook, down by the dam.  It is unusual to see Otter Brook completely vacant of people.  There wasn't a trace anywhere of people being on the lake, and there weren't even snowshoe trails on the hiking paths.  I guess the lack of plowing has pushed everyone elsewhere. 

 

The only other thing over the weekend was I finally tried the last of my exotic meats.  This time was ostrich.  It was quite good actually, very juicy and tender, and while it had a bit more flavor than store bought meat (similar to the stronger flavors Aunt Lisa's free range beef has), it wasn't gamy or anything.  It is also really lean, so I cooked it with a little butter in the pan.  I don't think it will displace my top meats, but it is absolutely something I would eat again.

 

I double checked last night, and the floor is dry, and the ceiling is drying out.  A little touch up paint and a carpet wash and it will be good.  

 

The leaks definitely threw a wrench into my plans, but thankfully everything is drying out now.  I had hoped to finish up the cart this weekend, but that didn't happen.  This week looks like more snow most likely, though it has been switching back and forth between freezing rain and snow in the forecast.  As much as freezing rain sucks I think I would rather have that at this point to help get rid of the snow.  The cart just needs one piece cut and then it can be roughly assembled, minus the drawers and top.  And I still haven't done any of the car camper improvements yet.  I should be making reservations for my spring vacation already, but I think I might end up using that week off to catch up, so I don't have a project backlog when I am supposed to start building the deck and roof over.  My next trip to KY will be in the truck anyways; I have stuff going down that won't fit in the car (assuming Jess still wants the futon anyways).  My new checks came in, so I can make the final payment on the mortgage from last year to stay on track for paying it off in 5 years.

Not only snow.

It's been a couple of weeks since the last update, and most of what has been going is just snow.  The snow two weekends ago was nice and fluffy, and I was actually to just sweep it.

 

As usual, the weekend two weekends ago was doing snow work.  I was finally able to get this area cleaned out.  Without getting the tractor stuck this time.

 

I also discovered that if I park the tractor obscenely close to the shed, I can turn the CR-V around and don't need to back out of the driveway, so I rearranged how I had been parking.  It makes parking the tractor a bit annoying, but its nice to go forwards out the driveway.  I cleaned up this area more than usual too.  

 

During the week (not last week, the week before), I also went out and picked up some rims.  They should fit my Dad's Camry.  

 

My truck went in for the coolant leak.  Bob's couldn't find it, and they couldn't repair the stupid felt skid plate thing either so I just had them rip it off.  

 

The past week was actually really nice most of the week.  One of the days that it got up into the 40s, I decided to try to start the excavator.  It was a no go; it just clicked, so it looks like I will have to charge up that battery come spring.

 

Unfortunately the latter half of the week was a double whammy.  We got about 6" on Wednesday, and it was obnoxiously wet and heavy, which made clearing it painful; it was wet enough that even the tractor bucket was constantly trying to ride up over it instead of clearing it.  

 

Then last weekend we got another 8-9 inches.  Thankfully this was more dry.  It was drifting really bad though, which made for some interesting edge.

 

Monday I finished clearing it.  If we get too much more, I will have a big problem.  My snowbanks are already taller than my tractor can lift, and too deep for me to push.  They have already encroached and consumed a few feet of the end of the driveway.  

 

I actually dumped more than a few bucketfuls across the street.

 

Annoyingly one of my turn signals on the tractor got whacked.  I don't see any damage though, so hopefully they were just knocked off.

 

While I haven't done too much else (I have been really lazy lately), I did start to think about how the "utility room" is going to work in the box truck.  

I did eventually do the math.  It won't all fit, but all the important stuff will.  Barely.  And I do mean barely.  Enough that board thicknesses will have to be monitored when building it.

 

I also started to document everything I will need in the barn I am planning to build in KY.

This is what I will need to have in my workshop:

• Storage Room

• Totes

• Couch

• TV

• Speakers

• Desks

• Hot Tub?

• Freezer

• Bed

• Dresser

• Shop

• Freestanding Tools

• Table Saw

• Miter Saw

• Benchtop tools

• Drill Press

• Bandsaw

• Router Table

• Planer

• Jointer

• Benchtop grinder

• Sanding station

• Shop vac

• Tool boxes

• 2 tables

• Storage for lumber and a few finished goods

You may recall I was going to try to do my own meal prep.  I started to do so, and it wasn't actually all that bad, but I quickly ran out of containers, so I bought a bulk set.  They are cheap and flimsy, but supposedly dishwasher and microwave safe.  I got some two compartment, and some single compartment.  Washing them all was fun; they had oil and smears of stuff on them from the factory.  They are cheap enough too that even if they don't last more than a half dozen uses, it isn't a big deal.