The weather wasn't supposed to be great while I was driving down, so at lunch the day before I left, I got the tarp pulled out for the excavator. It had pooled with water.
I got the excavator covered the night before I left.
I then loaded up the truck. It was very full, there was stuff in the back too. In this instance it is good that I haven't tossed the cap yet.
The drive down wasn't nearly as bad weather-wise as it was predicted to be. There was some snow, but it only collected on the road for a short bit in PA and the mountains of MD. The roads were mobbed though, which was made a lot worse by the fact that people were freaking out, sadly common for the first winter storm of the season.
It was still kind of pretty though.
I did take a picture of a sunrise while I was down there. I was curious, so I did a head to head against my sister's phone, which is a Samsung Galaxy S9 and her pictures came out much much better. Mine the white balance basically muted all the color in the picture.
Hers looks perhaps a little oversaturated, but for a sunrise that is a good thing.
The trip itself was quite nice. Had lots of turkey. Played with the dogs some. Wore them out once or twice (though normally they wore me out).
The drive back wasn't terribly eventful, at least until I got home. There was still a bunch of snow when I got home.
The ditch was full of ice, which will make working on the drainage a problem.
More importantly, it looks like one of my heat pumps died while I was out. Fortunately I turned on the furnace before I left because in previous posts it had been throwing phantom errors occasionally and I really didn't want my pipes to freeze. Good thing I did. This error is fatal though, C464 is compressor failure. I just turned on the other unit in the other bedrooms, and pointed the air flow out into the living room for now. I will have to dig out the paperwork to see if the unit is still under warranty or not.
I also noticed that another one of my light covers had come off. I am tempted to take a tube of silicone or something and use it to glue all these things in. This is either the second or third time one has come off.
I did get the tiny home done before winter, but winter is very clearly here to stay; there is a decent chance that this snow lasts until the January thaw. It is cold enough, and more is coming this week. It is dark when I go and come home from work, but I might have to pull at least the walk behind snowblower down and get it ready. I don't really want to try to set up the snowblower on the tractor in the dark though, I have only ever done it once. But all my pre-winter stuff is badly overdue now. I also need to figure out how to deal with the ditch. I consider myself lucky that my water lines didn't freeze while I was gone (the ones outside had two feet of dirt removed from on top insulating them). At any rate though, I know the cold we have had isn't enough to freeze them, which is a bonus for now. I will probably try to break up one of the sheets of foam board insulation I have and put it down in the ditch to restore some of the insulation. But it survived single digits, so I am not immediately worried.
Before Winter:
- Back yard drainage.
Close up tiny home. Seal up plumbing.- Clean off driveway at top.
Smooth driveway enough to not catch the snowblower.- Winterize equipment
Unlikely to happen at this point until next year:
- Build shelving for second room
- Insulate the water lines
- Take scrap metal to Buffum. Clean up trash.
- Storm doors
- Gravel the driveway
- Side yard drainage
- Eliminate cap.
Winter Projects:
- Design deck
- Install whole house filter.
- Access panel upgrades in master closet
- Cut trails, or at least mark paths.
