Monday, April 10, 2023

Busy weekend picking things up and putting them down. Long post.

Friday I went out to Brian's birthday pizza.  Mike Kelley was there though, and I gave him the rest of the power center.  I have a little bit of space in the carport now.  


I got a slightly later start on Saturday than I would have liked, I stayed under the blanket since I forgot to turn my heater back on.  I turned it off Friday night when I got home since it was in the 70s inside, and never turned it back on before going to bed.  It was chilly inside when I woke up Saturday.


It warmed up pretty nicely though, and turned into a pretty nice cool day.  Turns out the watering the ice worked; the way up to shed is completely clear.  So I got my chainsaw fired up (something actually just worked for a change...) and started to cut up the tree that fell down, along with the one that fell down last year that I never finished cutting up.  I have never tied off a tree to cut it down before, but it seemed to work.


I am a bit out of practice, I pinched the saw more than a couple of times.  D'oh!


I got it all chopped up.


I tried to cut everything to 4' lengths, but I am not the most accurate.  Despite this picture, about half of them didn't fit in the bucket (which is 4').  


I got lucky.  I am pretty sure it was a rock that I hit last year since I didn't lift the log off the ground which wrecked the chain last year (and is why the trunk of that tree never got cut up).  I had a near miss with a giant nail this year.  I have no idea why there was a nail in this tree.


I also finally took the weights out of the back of the truck, since I was about to load it up with wood.  I don't think I will need them anymore this year.


Wood.


The ground up there wasn't quite ready for the tractor.  It is still really soft up there.  I tried to fix it with some gravel, but trying to pack it down made it worse.  Oh well.


While I had the saw out, I decided to take down the other trees down by the road as well.  One of them was practically spewing liquid as I cut it.  It was a maple tree, but I am not sure what kind of maple.  It was perfect weather for mapling if it was a sugar maple.  I don't know what maple sap tastes like before it is boiled down, but it didn't taste maply.  That might be because there was likely bar and chain oil in it though.



I found it odd as I was bringing the saw up to put more gas in it; I have dandelions that have already started growing.  I still have snow, but the dandelions have already started to bloom.  



Despite cutting down three trees down at the bottom of the hill, there was less wood from it; it was more branches.  


I still have a decent load of wood.  I will see if Barry wants it.  


After they were cut down, my arms were jello.  So I took the tractor and tried to dig up the tire that they used as a planter around one of the trees.  It won and was a no go.  


I probably shouldn't have been driving the tractor around down there.  It was muddy.  


Really muddy.  And now I have ruts.  Big ruts.


One of the things missing from my list was removing the driveway markers.  I took a bunch of them out to make sure I didn't drop a tree on them, so I went ahead and finished taking them all out.  


I also put a couple out by the road.  There is still a lot of ongoing construction on Hubbard road, and I don't want the trucks getting any ideas of using my yard to turn around, which they have done many times the last couple of years

.

My arms were still tired, so I decided to stay on the tractor.  After putting stuff away, I decided to go finish smoothing out the lump of gravel down in the parking spot.  The spot is now easily large enough for a camper to park in, and is reasonably smooth.  Not sure how level, I didn't check.  


I was pretty spent at that point, so I called it a night.  Sunday was packing day.  I started off with a couple of things that I figured I should do before I started more packing.  I topped off the battery on my riding mower.  It was in pretty good shape.  This was the precursor to me starting to move stuff out of the carport.


I also went and pulled all the empties and mostly empties out of the shed.  I had more totes in there than I thought.  


I only gave up on one due to mice.  I tried to dump it out, but it was solid and stuck.  I don't think I am going to spend the time or chemicals to try to recover it, not when the tote itself has stress marks all over it already.


I also had one in the carport that was mostly empty.  I bought this tote when I noticed that some of the sockets I had in there had started to rust.  


Some of the ones that didn't have nests in them but clearly smelled of mice I started to clean.  I ran out of Pine-Sol though.  I typically only use it when something smelly takes hold in my garbage can and didn't have enough.  


Then I packed.  I did find a few things that had long been considered lost/gone forever.  Like my staple gun.  It was stuck in the middle of a pile of paperwork from when I bought the land.  No idea how it got there.  Now I have a spare I guess, unless someone really needs one.  My new one is better; it pivots from the head of the staple gun giving you more leverage, and is easier to use.


When I took a break from packing, I hauled stuff up from the carport to the shed.  A lot of it still has places to go since it all came from the shed originally.  


I also rearranged the shed a little bit.  I have a third wire rack that I can set up in there.  


Then I picked things and put them down.  A lot.  The shed is getting quite full.  The ones that didn't look structurally safe to stack I put on one side.  


The other totes I felt safe stacking are on the other side.  The stuff in the loft is stuff that I don't expect to need right away when I move in to the real house.  


You may notice they are only stacked two high, despite there being enough clearance for 3 or 4 in the middle.  This is because I have a lot of totes that did this.  The two totes on top of the broken one were not heavy.  


I put the stuff that I do expect to want soonish after moving in on the wire racks in the corner.  They are almost full now.  


At that point, I was beat, and it was starting to get dark.  The carport looks considerably more empty than it did before the weekend.  


The far end of the house looks a lot more empty too now.  The shelves and closet are mostly empty at this point.  


I have a bunch of totes on the slab ready for cleaning and then more packing, but I have more totes at this point than I do stuff to pack that isn't used.  I might do a first pass through the kitchen and bathroom, but have to be wary of what I pack at this point.  


On the house front, I still haven't gotten the insurance quotes I was supposed to get on Friday, so I will be poking again today.  On the snow front, my yard is mostly clear, just a few small piles from where the snowblower blew it, but even those are largely gone.  


The pile by the carport is getting smaller too now.  It is crazy to think that just a few weeks ago, this was so tall the snow could no longer slide off the roof.  


This area here is taking its sweet time melting.  This is where I turn the truck around.  I have been having to do three or 5 point turns to turn around since the big storm.  


I didn't get any cap work done, but I certainly got a lot done this weekend.  I should be able to finish up the preliminary packing during the week; there isn't too much left.  It is also warm enough at this point (we aren't supposed to get below freezing for the foreseeable forecast) to start taking down the skirting and stuff as well. 

Before the site work:
  • Get a 2 5/16 ball for my truck
  • Get rid of unneeded appliances (propane, stove, fridge, water heater)
    • Propane - Scheduled for May 3rd
    • Stove
    • Fridge
    • Water Heater
  • Finish packing up house
  • Move house to parking spot.  Plug septic.
  • Fix generator again.
Winter projects:
  • Fix the generator.  Again.
  • Get the plan/schedule in place. 
  • Build prototype cap.
  • Shed windows.
  • Fix generator box.
  • Clear/mark walking trails.
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Thursday, April 6, 2023

Watering my snow didn't work as hoped.

Not too much exciting stuff has been going on during the week.  The mortgage is ready to go to closing, but apparently they didn't like the homeowners quote I got.  It didn't have a builder's risk rider or something.  So I will be going and grabbing a new quote today.  

The last couple of days I haven't done too much.  I went through and cleaned my fans.  The little Lakewood ones had gotten pretty bad. 


It works much better now though.  They are beginning to rust quite a bit, probably from sitting in windows when it rains over the last 15 years (these are the fans I swiped from the house in NY).  They might be on the block for replacement in the near future, but for now they still work fine.  


I noticed out on my walk yesterday that the trees are starting to bud in Keene.  Won't be too much longer.  Spring is coming, whether mother nature likes it or not.


Last night I decided to try to melt more snow.  One of my crazier ideas over the winter in case the snowblower failed was to just water it.  Since I was curious how badly the hose was damaged from being bent, I decided to try it.  It won't be below freezing again until Friday, so it wouldn't create ice problems.  Turns out the hose still works, though I can't close the valve anymore, it is stuck open.  But otherwise everything worked.  Since I have a shutoff inside the house (that I use to drain it for the winter) the valve being busted really isn't an issue.


Watering the snow didn't work as well as I hoped.  I could clearly tell when the water pump kicked on and the temperature of the water I was spraying went from 65 degrees to 35 degrees.  


In the end, it melted the snow on top of the ice okay, but the ice itself was relatively unfazed.  


My nozzle apparently doesn't completely close anymore either.  Oh well, hose heads are cheap.


The hose definitely still has a lot of throughput.  I didn't turn off my water filter, and it looks like I sprayed about 100 gallons on it and I was out there for about 20 minutes.  5gpm is about the maximum throughput of my water filter these days.  This starts at 200 after every backflush, and I use maybe 5-10 gallons a day, sometimes more if I do laundry.


After that disappointment, I finished packing the next tote, the one with all my houseware appliances.  I stuffed the extra linens (in bags) on top just to finish filling it.  Everything except the really big window fans, and the space heater I still need is in there.


I am out of totes that I brought back from KY, so I will need to go through the ones in the shed.  It is supposed to be in the upper 50s/low 60s today, so hopefully the path up to the shed finishes melting off.  At least enough to where I won't sink or slide going up to the shed.  The part I had shoveled cleared off pretty much the next day.  I am hoping melting the snow off the top of the ice will allow the ice to melt off and I can get the chainsaw up there and chop up that tree so I can set the portable garage thing up and make some good progress this weekend. The storm coming through today missed and it is supposed to be decent this weekend.  

Before the site work:
  • Get a 2 5/16 ball for my truck
  • Get rid of unneeded appliances (propane, stove, fridge, water heater)
    • Propane - Scheduled for May 3rd
    • Stove
    • Fridge
    • Water Heater
  • Finish packing up house
  • Move house to parking spot.  Plug septic.
  • Fix generator again.
Winter projects:
  • Fix the generator.  Again.
  • Get the plan/schedule in place. 
  • Build prototype cap.
  • Shed windows.
  • Fix generator box.
  • Clear/mark walking trails.
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Tuesday, April 4, 2023

Shoveling and Packing.

I widened the blog, so feel free to leave a comment if it is now too wide for your screen.  The hope was that it would make the pictures post larger, though it didn't appear to do that.  

When I got home yesterday, it was still really nice out, so I decided to spend the rest of my daylight "helping" the snow melt off.  My main concern was the snow going up to the shed.  I only got about 5 or 6 feet shoveled before I ran out of daylight, but it is a start.  I had to use my regular shovel instead of a snow shovel because the snow shovel couldn't get through the ice.  

I got to watch the sunset through the trees too, which was kind of nice.  


After dark, I convinced myself to pack another tote.  It had linens in it, so I put it in a bag to help mitigate moisture.  Turns out that I can't find the little packets of Damp Rid, and they aren't intended to be used that way (they are actually a refill for a bigger unit) so I am not sure they did what Mom thought they did.

As you can see in that prior picture, I also finally got around to packing the suitcase.  It held the entire left hanging thing in the closet.  That is my formalwear, most of which I haven't worn since the last wedding I went to.  

My snow is melting off pretty quick.   The banks and where the piles from the snowblower are the bulk of what is left in the sunny areas.  There is still coverage in the heavily shaded areas too, which is why I started shoveling the path up to the shed.  


It is slowly getting there.  I only have two totes left (the two biggest) that I brought back from KY.  I was intending to keep the biggest one and use that for my TV stuff, since that will have a lot of large things, like a receiver and a subwoofer and several speakers.  I might use the other rather large one for my various household appliances, like my humidifier, dehumidifier, air filter, and so on.  Bulky, but not overly heavy.  I still have all the totes I used to move from the apartment to the tiny home, but they have likely been heavily infiltrated by mice.  The kitchen ones might still be ok, since they were closed (I didn't unpack all my kitchen stuff into the tiny home, there just wasn't enough room nor a need for service for 12).  I will pull them down hopefully this week and decide whether to try to clean them or just say the mice won and pitch them.  I know there weren't many, I did a lot of the last move by filling baskets and bringing them up and dumping them and then reusing them.

Before the site work:
  • Get a 2 5/16 ball for my truck
  • Get rid of unneeded appliances (propane, stove, fridge, water heater)
    • Propane - Scheduled for May 3rd
    • Stove
    • Fridge
    • Water Heater
  • Finish packing up house
  • Move house to parking spot.  Plug septic.
  • Fix generator again.
Winter projects:
  • Fix the generator.  Again.
  • Get the plan/schedule in place. 
  • Build prototype cap.
  • Shed windows.
  • Fix generator box.
  • Clear/mark walking trails.
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Monday, April 3, 2023

Not terribly productive. I managed to cram a lot of stuff into the tiny home.

The weekend wasn't terribly friendly for working outside, so I stayed in for the most part.  I did get my first lightning show of the year Saturday night.  It came with either large sleet or hail too.  Nothing large enough to damage though, just make a lot of noise. 

Sunday was sunny, but the wind was howling.  I pulled out the piece of acrylic for the front of the cap, and by the time I walked over to the carport to grab my circular saw, it had blown out of the truck.  Fortunately it didn't shatter, but I decided not to take my chances and aborted working on the cap.  

All I ended up doing over the weekend was filling a bunch of totes.  It is kind of remarkable how much stuff I managed to fit into such a small area.  I filled four totes, as well as packing up my tennis bag with my tennis rackets and outdoor stuff.  I didn't think it through very well, since one of the ones I packed up was my indoor shed-like items (things like paint, urethane, etc).  Those can't freeze (which is why they were in the house in the first place), so I can't put them outside yet...  It was down in the teens last night.  For now, that tote is just sitting underneath the trash can.  It is blocking a shelf of my pantry, but oh well.


Still, for removing four totes and my tennis bag, It doesn't look like I have done much.  The shelves at least clearly look mostly empty. 


The rest of the house, not so much.  The massive piles in the other shelves (left side of the picture) are gone, but they aren't empty.  And I haven't even touched the other end of the house (not pictured).  I was going to start emptying the closet into the suitcase, but got lazy.  The bag on top of the suitcase is my tennis bag.


This puts the first item on the house prep list in progress.  I still have better than 50% snow coverage despite the rain and storms on Saturday, including complete coverage still going up to the shed, so I am still waiting to set up the portable garage.  

Before the site work:
  • Build prototype cap/camper
  • Preliminary packing.  Get the excess largely unused stuff out of the house.
  • Set up the portable garage.
  • Pack up carport.  Easily movable lawn equipment should be all that remains after this.
  • Empty slab.  Get the grill, storage bin, clothesline, bug zapper, and other junk off the slab.  
  • Remove skirting.
  • Replace tires on tiny home trailer
  • Cut down trees at bottom of hill
  • Flatten parking spot.  Spread the pile of rocks.  
  • Determine where to and move carport.
  • Acquire the missing truck camper pieces
  • Get a 2 5/16 ball for my truck
  • Get rid of unneeded appliances (propane, stove, fridge, water heater)
    • Propane - Scheduled for May 3rd
    • Stove
    • Fridge
    • Water Heater
  • Finish packing up house
  • Move house to parking spot.  Plug septic.
  • Fix generator again.
Winter projects:
  • Fix the generator.  Again.
  • Get the plan/schedule in place. 
  • Build prototype cap.
  • Shed windows.
  • Fix generator box.
  • Clear/mark walking trails.
Posted by at 1 comment:
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