wed nov 1
It’s going to be a loooong month.
Mary is bedridden with painful metal pins in her leg, and I’m helping her do some very undignified things about a dozen times a day. We’re learning as we go, and today, an occupational therapist, a physical therapist, and a nurse all made house visits, teaching us how to take a shower, how to use a walker, and how to … never mind. It will get easier.
Then the power went out. This is no big deal, since it usually lasts a few minutes or an hour. After awhile, Mary summoned me to say the power company expects it to take 2 days!! (Apparently, Sunday’s windstorm had some delayed effects.)
Three years ago, I made it a point to buy a generator, and I moved some critical circuits to a special ‘transfer panel’, so the well, boiler, freezer, and certain rooms would have power during an outage. Ever since then, all our power failures have been brief, though, and the only time I tried to use the generator was in the dead of winter, and there was frozen water in the fuel line, and I couldn’t get the damned thing started. (The lights went back on just as my swearing hit full swing) I haven’t touched the generator since then, and I know, in the back of my mind, that it should be high on my list.
So today, when the power went out, I was not happy. The generator was buried under all the clutter I’d moved in order to make room for the wheelchair ramp I’d built, and the gas in it was 2 years old and stale. I knew there was going to be trouble. I dug it out, rolled it outside (flat tire and all), turned on the gas, and pressed Start.
Nothing. Dead battery. Damn!
I pulled on the rope starter. Again and again.
Nothing. With my motorcycle-trained ear, it sounded like it wasn’t getting gas. Damn!
I decided to charge the battery by jumping it from the truck, but could not, for the life of me, find either of the sets of jumper cables which I KNOW we have. Damn!
I took a 10-foot chunk of Romex I’d pulled out of the green house and connected the batteries and pressed Start. RRRRRRrrrrrrRRRRRRrrrr, It ground away, but wouldn’t start. Damn!
I messed with the choke and a few other levers, and it finally roared to life. Hurrah!
(The carburetor must be pretty clogged, because it only runs with the choke on, but I’ll take it.)
I plugged the generator into the panel, and the refrigerator turned on. Hurrah!
But the boiler was dead. Damn!
Turns out the generator is only putting out 120V, so only half the breakers have power, and the 240V well pump won’t work. Is the cup half empty, or half full?
I moved some breakers around in the panel so we’d have heat and WiFi, ran an extension cord so Mary would have light in the bedroom, and then headed into town to buy gas, water, and candles, but for some reason, my credit card was declined. WTF??
I got home, gassed up the generator and settled in with a book, feeling just a little bit smug: How bad can it be when you’ve got heat, light, and Netflix in a power outage??
Then the power came back on, and all I could think was: Damn!
Romex to the rescue!
mon nov 6
When we built the house, we decided to save some money by sharing the well between the 2 houses. If we ever want to split up the property, we’ll need to either deal with easements and water rights or drill another well. I bit the bullet and drilled another well.
After a nerve-wracking 2 days of drilling, we’ve got a 340′ hole, 6 gpm, and a turf-repair project waiting for spring time.
That’s about as good an outcome as I could have hoped for.
tue nov 14
It’s been a loooong week.
Mary had her second surgery. This time around, the external fixating rods were removed, and the bone fragments were shifted into place and screwed to a plate. There was plenty of surgical finesse in evidence, but there was also plenty of brute force involved. She was ‘under’ for 4 hours, spent 3 nights in the hospital and, due to painkillers, was constipated for days. That was 1 week ago, and her pain, bowels, appetite, and disposition are slowly improving. If I were young again, LNA would be at the rock bottom of my list of career choices. That said, I’m told I’m good at it.
Before. Fracture lines extend into the knee joint. Not good.
After. No more sailing through airport metal detectors!
The episode with the generator pissed me off and, rather than ship the whole thing to the small-engine repair shop, I took it apart, soaked the carburetor, cleared the orifices, replaced the gaskets, put it back together, and … It still only runs when choked. WTF??
I swallowed my pride and took it to the small-engine repair shop. Turns out I did everything right except for what I didn’t do: ream out the jet with a welding tip cleaner.
Expert advice: $25. Knowing what you did wrong: priceless.
Oh, and the missing 240V? You gotta turn on both breakers on the generator.
Problems solved.
thu nov 16
Today, I closed on the sale of my last piece of land in Westford.
In 1988, I bought 70 acres for $30k and then started clearing a spot for a house with a 22″ lawn mower. One thing led to another, and I built a life there for 24 years.
In 4 separate transactions, I sold 4 lots to the same couple who bought my house, and the whole parcel is ‘whole’ again.
It makes me happy. It makes me sad.
mon nov 20
Today I got up at the crack of dawn because the water well crew, known to start work early, was supposed to show up to connect my new well. Naturally, they didn’t show up, and as the morning dragged on, I figured the best way to make it happen would be to go into the cellar and use power tools, so I wouldn’t be able to hear them knocking when they came.
Worked like a charm, and 5 minutes later, they were peering into the basement window.
They managed to find the existing water line without breaking it, and now two well heads serve separate houses.
The water is a little cloudy and the lawns are trashed, but the dust will settle, and the grass will grow, and it’s good to have it done.
My phone died today. Dead. Frozen. Rigor mortis.
What has the world come to that you absolutely positively gotta have a smart phone on your person whenever you go anywhere? (To Hell, IMHO.) So as soon as the well guys were done, I headed for the AT&T store in Hardwick to look at phones and … News Flash!
The last man on the planet still using a Windows Phone has switched to Samsung.
You know what the ‘8’ stands for in iPhone8 and Galaxy8? $800.
Fuck that. I bought the cheapest phone money can buy, and it runs circles around me.
tue nov 21
Wait wait wait. I take it back.
Remember when digital cameras were new, and you’d press the button to take a photo and … wait … for the photo to ‘take’? That’s what my new phone does. Turns out the cheapest phone money can buy is also the slowest phone money can buy, and I’m thinking about trading it in for a phone that’s at least as good as my old one.
wed nov 22
We have a full-sized refrigerator, but we barely have room for a typical grocery run, because Mary is a bit of a pack rat who likes to taste new things, but hates to finish them. (Yes, I blame it all on Her.) And since Charon and Maggie are bringing over a full-fledged Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow, we needed to make room for leftovers.
I got rid of:
A bad slab of bacon (and 3 jars of bacon fat).
A 52 oz jar of olives with 13 olives in it.
Three open containers of anchovies.
Four huge jars of home-made pickles, dating back to 2015.
Six Reggiano cheese rinds being saved ‘for a future soup base.’
A dozen stinky cheeses.
Cranberry sauce from a prior Thanksgiving.
An air-tight bag of scallions (?) that had turned to mush and sprouted roots.
Yogurt, ricotta, sour cream, and gourmet Irish butter. All in St Patrick’s green.
I kept my gag reflex under control, disposed of everything, cleaned up, and threw away the sponge.
Toxic waste. Everything was sealed tightly, and the refrigerator didn’t even smell.
thu nov 23
Thanksgiving dinner.
You can’t cook from a wheelchair, so Mary ‘supervised.’
I cooked the turkey, but Charon and Maggie did most of the work.
Making good use of dead space between the sink and the refrigerator.
tue nov 28
Almost exactly a year ago, I had the green house sheetrocked. Winter was kicking in, and I had to have the heating system working while they worked, so I’d left the hot-water baseboards ‘bare’, and I gave the drywall guys a stern lecture about trying not to damage them. Let’s face it: that’s a lot to expect, and “mistakes were made.” Lots of them.
Now it’s time to install the housings, I’ve spent a lot of time on my hands and knees, straightening the fins with needle-nose pliers.
To be fair, I did my own share of damage while installing the floors.
End notes.
What have I missed…
You haven’t heard much about c3pr lately. I became disillusioned with the Linux CAD package I was learning to use and decided, after much internal debate, to try one of the Windows packages. I am now learning Fusion. So far, it’s waaay better than Varicad, but it’s still a lot less natural than a pencil. I have to say I’m a little surprised to find that 3D CAD has turned out to be such a high hurdle for me.
I boxed up the Honda and stashed it in a remote corner of the basement. “You never know.”
I’ve got the Kawasaki’s head and the brakes completely torn apart.
3 weeks after surgery, Mary’s knee is ‘on track.’ Her flexion is about 80 degrees. She’s almost weaned from pain pills. She’s able to do her business in the bathroom now.
It was a loooong month.
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