Christmas trip.

Merry Christmas everyone!  

 

I didn't get to make the final post before I left on vacation, the last day at work was rough, and then just never got around to it after I took off.  I did notice when I made another trip to Home Depot to get some stabilizer and mechanic in a bottle for the snowblower since the one I bought ran a little rough from sitting, that there finally exists an electric weed wacker that can use a metal blade.  Milwaukee is an expensive system to get into though, though Northern frequently runs what at least appear to be decent sales on them.  

I also got my wrapping all finished up.  

I tried to dig a channel to drain out some of the water in the trench since ice is a really poor insulator, but the ground was frozen solid.  

On the 18th I worked a half-ish day.  We got a bunch of precipitation we weren't supposed to though.  It actually looked kind of pretty though. 

Some random tracks, my failed construction hasn't scared everything away.

I got home with a couple hours of daylight left, so I tried one of my siphon bulbs.  It didn't work either.

Since I was running short on time at this point, I kind of just said to hell with it and tossed the sand bags in anyways. 

Literally.  Oops, I soaked myself too.  I had to do laundry before taking off the following morning anyways though.  

The drive down wasn't bad, though I did hit a deer.  Fortunately it didn't do much damage to the truck.  It looks like it just popped off some clips on the fenderwell.  The Subaru behind me took the brunt of it. 

As is frequently the case, I worked on a bunch of projects while I was down there.  I helped dad and Benny (neighbor) attach the drains to the house, added a handrail to the steps, I replaced the paneling in the living and re-laid the carpet down (admittedly poorly), swapped out an exterior light and fixed the wiring for it, and helped Bill work on the hot water that had the top element in it cooked.  Hopefully those pictures make it up onto other blogs (notably my dad's and sister's) but here is a couple of pictures just in case.  

A nice sunrise while I was down there, even despite Google's best efforts to make the picture look terrible.  

I came back to my Aunt's and Uncle's on the 27th and stayed there.  Christmas Part 2. Along with the supervisor who later shredded all the tissue paper.

The Christmas trip was 2029 miles, and I averaged just under 20mpg (the computer is a bit optimistic).  

Thinking about this, my Aunt is going to be selling her car when they trade in my Uncle's car.  Her car is in good shape, only a few minor dings which I don't care about, but it has less than 100k on it.  I checked while I was out there, and it is large enough I could set up my sleeping bag in the back and sleep in it for a night if needed.  This would be an excellent mileage sponge for my truck, which as you can see above is already well north of 62k, and is only a little over two years old, so I will be buying that when it becomes available.  It would also be really nice to be able to drive fast again without my gas mileage falling off a cliff; when I take the truck to KY I normally don't go faster than 65-67mph, since just below 70 is where the mileage starts declining quickly.  The CR-V won't have that problem, or at the very least it is a lot faster than 67mph before it drops (I have driven that car to KY before). 

I got back home Sunday evening and it appears that the sand bags worked; I had no apparent split pipes or mud in my water, and everything was in working order, despite the frigid temperatures while I was gone.  I really didn't do much yesterday, mostly napped.  Ate some, caught up on videos from while I was gone, and napped some more.  It rained all day and I didn't feel any particular motivation to do anything.   

Today though I got a bit more restless.  I finished my unpacking, and went out for a walk.  It is the last time for a while that we will be up in the 40s, another colder air mass is moving in.  I also decided to go out and see if I could do something for the drainage ditch in the back.  It was full again.

 

The ground wasn't frozen, so I dug a little channel.  It is still draining as I write this.

I still have another day off before I have to go back to work, so I might try to start some of the winter projects; I can at least do the easy ones like changing the faucets.

Winter Projects:

• Build shelving for second room
  
• Design deck
• Eliminate cap
• Install whole house filter.
• Install new faucet in kitchen
• Install new faucet in master bath
  
• Access panel upgrades in master closet
• Cut trails, or at least mark paths.

2025 Projects

• Insulate the water lines
• Take scrap metal to Buffum.  Clean up trash.
• Storm doors
• Gravel the driveway
• Side yard drainage
• Build Deck
• Add the roof over to rocks
• Move carport up hill
• Smooth grade to shed.