{"id":16134,"date":"2021-03-15T08:47:52","date_gmt":"2021-03-15T15:47:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rodbinder.com\/journal\/?p=16134"},"modified":"2021-03-16T08:56:55","modified_gmt":"2021-03-16T15:56:55","slug":"mar-15-gravel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rodbinder.com\/journal\/2021\/03\/15\/mar-15-gravel\/","title":{"rendered":"Mar 15 Gravel"},"content":{"rendered":"

The four building blocks of the universe are fire, water, gravel and vinyl.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dave Barry<\/strong><\/p>\n

I woke to loud trucks revving up outside my driveway exactly 2 minutes before my alarm. After deciding it was just stupidity I went back to sleep for a while. Then I heard more loud trucks and this time a Jake brake. There was something going on. It was time to check the fire and feed the kitties.<\/p>\n

I went down and first noticed fresh snow on the solar panels, then I saw it, something I don’t remember happening here in a lot of years. A truck was leaving a trail of gravel on my road. Could it be true, was I in a dream. This thaw which looks like next week, I won’t be driving in deep mud. I was thankful for the loud trucks and the grader that was smoothing out the gravel.<\/p>\n

Next thing was to get the solar panels swept, in just a t-shirt sweatpants and snow boots I swept the fresh h snow off and went back inside. I needed some fire starting material. so I unpacked the second solar panel that had just arrived a few days ago, just for the corrugated cardboard surrounding it.<\/p>\n

I shredded that best I could, placed some in the firebox and lit it. Oh, no smoke was coming from the stovepipe. Chimney was clogged again. I thought if I could do a controlled chimney fire I might not have to go up on the roof again. So I opened the stove draft, filled the box with another round of cardboard.<\/p>\n

This time I could hear the chimney igniting and crackling when I looked inside there were 12 pounds of creosote that had dropped from the chimney. Some were glowing red still on fire. In a few minutes, I could hear the wood crackling. For now, it was going to work out.<\/p>\n

I put the kettle on, fed the kitties and came up to write this.
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