The Middle of April Already?
April 1st already ??
There are a few things I need to clear up at this point. First, this was going to be a "when I get to it thing", so I'm sorry if there are gaps and missing pieces, in the continuity, and I know I can't spell or tell when it's time for a comma, or a period, or a new paragraph, just not something I'm good at. But I do take constructive criticism well, mostly, so drop me a line if you think something needs corrected or changed. Actually I do it all the time, so every now and then you can slide through the previous pages and they might appear more cohesive, or you know, a little more better thought out... see?
Anyways, I was talking to a neighbor and he explained one thing I never considered while living in the city. You know we heat with Propane out here, and it's different from Natural Gas, and burning wood, and electric heat, I'm not sure why, exactly but there's something about it that requires a spring cleaning maneuver I never heard of before. Now he assured me it was necessary. So I removed all the insulation from the little house and aired it out... in the yard, for four days. It was a lot of work, pulling it out of the attic through the little crawl space hole in the hall way, and it was hot and dusty.
He was also telling me about the way the insulation is so fluffy when it's new, and how it gets matted down after time, if you don't fluff it now and again. And how this causes it to lose some of it's "R" value over time. And sure enough, it was sunk down deep into the eaves, and probably losing "R's" even as we were watching. So out into the yard it went.
I tried vacuuming it, which seemed to help with fluffing it up at first, but the the vacuum's filter keep clogging up with pink stuff, like cotton candy, and it wouldn't suck very well after that. So then I tried whipping it around, like shaking a rug, but it just flew apart. I didn't mind chasing the pink floaters so much, but it was tearing the paper off of it. And I was thinking how much harder it would be to roll it up and get it back up through the crawl space hatch and get it spread out again, without the paper on it, so after the first dozen I quit that plan and just let the sun and wind work on them. The birds also helped fluff it up, by picking off the bugs crawling on them and even carried a little off to use in their nests, which relived a little of the insulation picking they have been engaged in on the Frankenbuilding, but more on their multicolored nests later.
I did have a few small problems, as a couple of the rolls ended up over ant hills and most of them had spiders crawling all over them as I was picking them up just before the rain started on the fourth day. The rain had good and bad points, we got most of the insulation back inside before it got too wet. Man that stuff gets heavy when it's wet. And it did cool it off in the attic, which helped for spreading it back out. Unfortunately it was pretty loud, with the rain pounding on that tin roof, so I didn't hear why Clem had to leave early and couldn't stay to put the insulation back. That made the job a little longer, as I had to climb down the ladder and roll up the insulation, and climb up and roll it back out in the attic.
Actually Clem was pretty busy during this whole operation, he would stop by, but just as we started the next step in the process, he would have to leave. I think he must do this professionally though, as he was always driving by waving and showing someone else what a tremendous job I was doing. You know, it's great to be appreciated when you're new in the area.
Another thing, I've been trying to promote locally, is that I'm a machinist. The guy next door has a lot of machinery, and it is usually in need of some sort of repair. One thing we noticed, was that the tri-monthly pooh splash wasn't happening. Now we don't really miss it, it does have a couple negative attributes, the smell, and the sudden blossoming of a tremendous number of flies, and the smell, and it seems to happen on the day before someone is coming, so that everyone can enjoy the smell, which is a small problem. While we were talking about repairing the shaft for his pooh splasher, he offered that if I was planning a family get together and let him know, he would be glad to adjust the timing so we wouldn't have to enjoy the smell for our special weekend. That was real nice, and I got a job fixing the shaft so he could get his pooh splasher working again.
Third job since I got here, not rocket science, or even anything too close tolerance-wise. but I have been able to fix things, and get them working again. I have even taken a look at getting a couple of the old farming machines working again. The other day I started dismantling a Roto-tiller I drug out of Garbage Gulch, though it isn't settled yet, it may also end up being Rusty Ravine. You know, where anything that wasn't going to melt or burn down to a small pile, ended up getting tossed out of sight, back in the woods. There is enough scrap to make a few bucks on, and at the bottom, some "olde harnesses" and the like, that will be interesting to try to reassemble, at least partially. Anyway back to the tiller, I got the engine to turn over and the clutch mechanism apart and found out why it was in the Ravine, a broken drive spline. Now I know it's cast iron and not easy to weld especially in the depression where it needs repaired, but I have the equipment to take a run at it and I will next winter, mean time I have another little engine that needs attention and a couple parts to get it running. So I won't run out of projects. LIke that was ever a problem anyhow...
well gotta go for now, but I'll add more as time allows.
By the way, April fools!!!!
Man, are we happy out here!
The Chores, Fresh Air, Green Acres is for ME.
ray...
The happy Nada Farmer, enjoying the sun and sky, you should see the stars at night, and sometimes the moon during the day. So much easier to enjoy when away from the city... And I really didn't remove it from the little house OK? I am recycling it from a flooded Church basement for my garage, they wanted rid of it and, it's Fiberglass so once it's dry it's nearly as good as new, and fitting for the Franken-building, recover, recycle, reuse.. Oh yeah, and it's free. The perfect price for a farm building...
Keep coming back , page Twenty follows......soon .
