We climb up the chimney. We ain’t ducking no smoke.
Ja Morant
The snow and cold are arriving with a vengeance. In two days, 10 cm and minus 14 and that is staying. I have no heat ready. The woodstove chimney needs repair. That means going on the roof. Oh yeah, 44 km gusts happening right now. I need to do that today.The Chinese diesel heater still needs parts not arrived. The propane heater is still in a box under my desk, not opened. I DON’T LIKE P ROPANE. I don’t trust it. There is wood out in the driveway that needs to be loaded in the trailer, so I can find it when the snow arrives. The trailer has to be hooked up and moved.
There are two unmounted solar panels and wire that needs to be taken care of before snow. There are two old 16 foot two by tens on the trailer roof I may need for firewood. All needs to be done before Saturday, plus I need to go pickup freight and go food shopping before the snow gets here. Did I mention that I am old disabled and crotchety? Ya, I did in the last post.
I wrote that at 4AM. Watched a Bond movie, then started another. At 7AM, I went back to sleep. Had a dream I was in the same house as my psychopathic monster’s in law. In the dream I left, walked, out the door never to return. If only I did that in real life way back when.
It is after 10AM now. Cats are fed, a new 40 pound bottle of water was retrieved, then used to fill gigantic Amazon stainless steel bowls. I retrieved a blanket that had a puddle on it and hung that out in the wind to dry. I would need it for another night. My friend was much worse but still alive. She can’t sit up. I need to let her expire before I do the big laundry trip. That might have to wait til after the big snow on Saturday night. Then wait for that to melt off the roads. That might have to wait till Tuesday. Groceries were getting low. Plenty of cat foo, and more waiting at the post office in the village.
So if you are wondering why I didn’t take her to the vet to be put to sleep. Could you do that to a family member? Only if she is in pain, She is still eating and drinking. I am in the woodwork shop now, typing this. I dared hope for a moment that the sun would stay out. It didn’t. I would need to run the gen. I looked at the oil. It needed changing. Especially since cold was coming. Right now the gen is tilted downwards over the oil recovery pan, draining the black stuff. From what I hear I could probably run that through the Diesel heater but won’t.
I saw the inside of one of those that was all carboned up and what a big job to take it apart in a cold shop. I almost want to buy a spare, cheaper one just to have as a back-up. Besides that, I could use that to heat up the woodwork shop in winter. Which is on SATURDAY!!! The oil is now changed in the gen, what gas I had up here I put in the tank. Only 3/4 full but enough.
I have been up to the roof and undid the bolts that holds the chimney from being blown over in high winds. Which is happening now. The boards on the roof that needed chucking got chucked. I still needed to fit the stove-pipe adapter and lift a heavy chimney straight up to fit it all in place. Later, first I needed some breakfast. I checked my solar panels through the app, they were making power at the moment. So the gen can wait.
The view from the roof. The funny part was watching an old man getting up there. Here are a ton of pics from my roof.
Well, that ranks number one thing on my list of things that are not fun.
Grinding rusty pee from the top of the wood stove. The adapter is in, but the lower chimney pipe is too far gone. I need to replace it before I can have a fire. My only hope is that my local hardware store, and it isn’t super expensive. So not everything on my list is done. I shut off the gen coz I was making serious power. More than I have ever seen the panels make.
So I unhooked everything, dragged the gen inside, locked all the doors, went back inside. As soon as I looked at the monitor, I could see the sun was gone again. Now I am only making 2 Amps instead of the 17 I saw a few minutes ago. My back was hurting so bad, I was chanting swear words. Going back down to move the gen and start it again just was not going to happen for awhile. I had overdone my work today. My solar batteries were at only 42% I was at even less.
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