tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80940131668084983302024-03-12T17:59:38.108-07:00A Great Farm Diary: Womerlippi Homestead AnnalsMickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09058893780999651690noreply@blogger.comBlogger776125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094013166808498330.post-14298788153798473172021-03-13T10:30:00.002-08:002021-03-13T10:30:16.190-08:00What used to be here<p>Extract from the 19th Annual Report of the Secretary of the Maine Board of Agriculture, 1874, concerning the Great Farm of Jackson, Maine. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nGgSJtXDpcU/YE0EIuikM2I/AAAAAAAAIMM/1dZ0M7oA504QBdOWv7PIILoDVRHHWuX9ACLcBGAsYHQ/s972/Screen%2BShot%2B2021-03-13%2Bat%2B1.26.34%2BPM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="972" data-original-width="620" height="778" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nGgSJtXDpcU/YE0EIuikM2I/AAAAAAAAIMM/1dZ0M7oA504QBdOWv7PIILoDVRHHWuX9ACLcBGAsYHQ/w496-h778/Screen%2BShot%2B2021-03-13%2Bat%2B1.26.34%2BPM.png" width="496" /></a></div><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UuEqlMknEXE/YE0EJL2TspI/AAAAAAAAIMQ/fShM6abamWwv8dHJoxL7-rzysa2YisxZQCLcBGAsYHQ/s690/Screen%2BShot%2B2021-03-13%2Bat%2B1.26.48%2BPM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="690" data-original-width="560" height="511" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UuEqlMknEXE/YE0EJL2TspI/AAAAAAAAIMQ/fShM6abamWwv8dHJoxL7-rzysa2YisxZQCLcBGAsYHQ/w415-h511/Screen%2BShot%2B2021-03-13%2Bat%2B1.26.48%2BPM.png" width="415" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p>Mickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09058893780999651690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094013166808498330.post-90856924408712833332020-08-05T05:27:00.001-07:002020-08-05T05:27:05.838-07:00Current eventsA useful quote from <u>Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance</u>, by R.Pirsig, 1977, chapter 13.<br />
<br />
(In
context, the Narrator (Pirsig) is explaining an episode of McCarthyism
at Montana State in the '50s in which his younger, mentally-ill self was
involved as a faculty member.<br />
<br />
Just FYI, and in case
you were worried, I used reason all day today, fixing up an old house
for a family investment, and getting generators ready for tonight's
storm. I'm grieving, as is Aimee, but "fetch wood, carry water".)<br />
<br />
"The
real University, he said, has no specific location. It owns no
property, pays no salaries and receives no material dues. The real
University is a state of mind. It is that great heritage of rational
thought that has been brought down to us through the centuries and which
does not exist at any specific location. It’s a state of mind which is
regenerated throughout the centuries by a body of people who
traditionally carry the title of professor, but even that title is not
part of the real University. The real University is nothing less than
the continuing body of reason itself.
<br />
<br />
"In addition to this state of mind, "reason," there’s a
legal entity which is unfortunately called by the same name but which
is quite another thing. This is a nonprofit corporation, a branch of the
state with a specific address. It owns property, is capable of paying
salaries, of receiving money and of responding to legislative pressures
in the process.<br />
<br />
"But this second university, the legal
corporation, cannot teach, does not generate new knowledge or evaluate
ideas. It is not the real University at all. It is just a church
building, the setting, the location at which conditions have been made
favorable for the real church
to exist.
"Confusion continually occurs in people who fail to see this difference,
he said, and think that control of the church buildings implies control
of the church. They see professors as employees of the second
university who should abandon reason when told to and take orders with
no backtalk, the same way employees do in other corporations."
Mickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09058893780999651690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094013166808498330.post-24618938907004867492017-11-04T02:32:00.001-07:002017-11-06T01:03:18.706-08:00The Great Outage of 2017<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BWJNo3Ec9LE/Wf9vAOVa_-I/AAAAAAAAH3s/Jw0u8X54MCsSamhXGUZPxnzuCrxexoufQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_8669.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="266" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BWJNo3Ec9LE/Wf9vAOVa_-I/AAAAAAAAH3s/Jw0u8X54MCsSamhXGUZPxnzuCrxexoufQCLcBGAs/s400/IMG_8669.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Linesmen truck. At one point Sunday, we had four on the Great Farm</div>
<br />
Monday the 30th of October started badly, with a huge wind and rain storm starting early, before light. This was a combination of a nor'easter and a tropical storm. It brought down trees on power lines all over New England, but particularly in the great State of Maine. In New England as a whole, there were a million electrical customers without power. In Maine, there were nearly 600,000. This is the record of what happened to the Womerlippis, for future reference.<br />
<br />
We tried to get to work. Class wasn't cancelled. There were down trees blocking the roads all around the county and the windstorm was still in full force. Trees were still coming down. We both made it to work, but daycare was cancelled at 9am, although I didn't get the cancellation message until half an hour later. By prior arrangement, I was the one to pick up Edana. I cancelled my 11am class and went to get her. There was no power at daycare, and none at home when I got there.<br />
<br />
I then began using our old propane Generac generator, and as usual
it was hard to start, requiring a spritz of starter fluid. Once started,
it ran well enough.<br />
<br />
The full impact of the storm came out on the news by Monday afternoon and evening, and it was soon clear that we would be without power for a long time. Late Monday, I helped one neighbor with a temporary 220V generator hookup using a standard 30A twistlock receptacle box. I "sistered" wires to the 100 amp main household connections from an entry panel in the garage. I left instructions to connect the receptacle box to a dedicated 30A, 220V dipole breaker as soon as one could be sourced. One other neighbor had their own generator, leaving only one household without power on the Great Farm. (There are now only four households in the neighborhood, down one after the death of our elderly neighbor Jean Richards, earlier in the year.)<br />
<br />
Late Monday I ordered one of the last available electric start generators in the Home Depot online catalog. Delivery was scheduled for Friday, which in normal circumstances would be after power was restored, but this was a large outage. I was also increasingly concerned that the Generac would poop out on us. The only thing available was a more or less unheard-of Chinese brand with no reviews, but the price was cheap enough, and the new unit would have dual propane/gas fuel capacity as well as electric start. The electric start feature would help with the starting chore in all seasons, but particularly winter, the dual fuel feature would help additionally in the dead of winter, when propane doesn't like to gasify, and sometimes will not start at all. I'd taken to leaving the propane generator on the porch to keep it warm.<br />
<br />
On Tuesday, I went to get our older 5500W HomeLite 220V generator from the Bale House, leaving the Ryobi 110V, 3500W one we use for the camper. The occupants of the Bale House had been complaining about the HomeLite not starting, but since they were behind on the money they pay us to cover ground rent, tax, and insurance expenses on the house, I had been disinclined to help until now. They had then made a surprise payment, which arrived by mail a day or two earlier than the storm (not nearly catching up with arrears).<br />
<br />
They had power, their home being off-grid, so this was no emergency for them. The genny is needed to charge the batteries when the sun doesn't shine, or for large power loads such as carpentry equipment. Before the storm, I had made tentative plans to switch out the generator with the help of their brother, a friend. The older one could then perhaps be repaired and used for back-up. The storm accelerated these plans. Edana accompanied me on the trip, and I got some help from the occupants to load and unload the heavy gennies.<br />
<br />
Once home, the HomeLite started and ran seemingly fine after simply disconnecting the on/off-switch, which had a ground leak. On Wednesday morning, our truck's exhaust cross-over pipe went out. I fixed it with some muffler tape, then ordered the part.<br />
<br />
Late Wednesday afternoon I contacted our last without-power neighbor on the Great Farm, saying we had a spare generator. She was content to do without. I then put out a bulletin on FaceBook and our work email, and had a taker for the genny within five or ten minutes from some colleagues at work, a family of two professors and two small kids. I delivered the HomeLite to their house Wednesday evening, with Edana "helping," and first set up a 110V "suicide" plug, there being no generator hook-up at this house, and no hardware available anywhere in the county to make one. This temporary measure allowed them TV, saved some food in freezers, and provided some lights, but did not run the water pump, which was 220V. The HomeLite was, however, not running well, delivering maybe 90V, and "hunting" or cycling rpms. <br />
<br />
By Thursday morning it was clear from the occupants' reports that a combination of large loads and a too-innovative plug design (using plastic cam connectors) was causing wire heating problems and eventually a melted receptacle. The brownout was probably also contributing, adding to voltage drop and thus wire heating. I made plans to collect 220V hardware from various stores for a better, safer connection. By Thursday afternoon, parts were again available in the county, after new deliveries arrived -- although by all accounts multiple hardware stores sold out again, fast.<br />
<br />
It was easy enough to make a 220V generator hookup for them that afternoon and evening, but it took a lot of fault diagnosis to figure out why it would not initially work. Eventually I realized I'd been trying to run the two poles to separate breakers on the same bus, instead of feeding both 110V buses separately. Duh. But this is what happens when you are tired. It didn't help that both my VOM meters seemingly refused to read correctly, one because of a bad battery. The other, an automatic, just never gave a stable readout. It should have simply read zero, but instead read wild. Later, at home, with test voltage, it would read wild then find the proper voltage, but the period of wild readouts while waiting for the automatic system to stabilize was too confusing. (Note: never take an automatic VOM to an emergency.) I eventually traced the mistake using a trouble light with stripped wires as a test light. The genny still ran badly, but provided perhaps 180V with a lot of rpm cycling. This gave them TV, dim lights, fridge, freezer and water, including hot water. With two little kids in the house, this was a welcome relief.<br />
<br />
By Thursday night our Generac at home began to give problems running the water pump and microwave. This could be managed by reducing loads elsewhere, but was inconvenient, and threatened worse. <br />
<br />
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New generator, Wen model DF475</div>
<br />
The new generator arrived Friday afternoon, was easy to set up and is running as I write. It seems to be a moderately well-engineered knock-off of the Generac, with a slightly larger engine and generator head. It manages the loads in the house better. It gives less than perfect sine power, and so makes the florescent and LED lights flicker, but everything else runs fine, and the microwave runs better than with the Generac. I published a review of the generator, a Wen <span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;">model number DF475</span></span>, on Home Depot's webpage. I figured I would have liked to have read a review before I bought one, so I could at least allow the next guy to do so. I gave it four stars, but after living with the florescent flickering for a bit longer, I'm down to three-and-a-half. Still, for only $470 after shipping, the price is good.<br />
<br />
One thing for sure: Electric start is pretty sweet, after years of pull-cord starting.<br />
<br />
Linesmen were seen in our neighborhood Friday, but left without doing any work. This is most likely because our line runs through the woods, and they would need regular ladders to fix it, not a boom arm. There are lots of other folks without power in Jackson, and I imagined they went off to help someone else closer to the road. This is reasonable, given the priorities. We have generators, and no longer have any elderly people living on our road -- although If I experience too many more weeks like this, I expect I shall age fast.<br />
<br />
Today is Saturday. By family agreement, Saturday morning is set aside for me to do home and vehicle maintenance. I expect to have to spend much of the morning puttering, fixing wires and making broken and damaged equipment work again. We are not out of the woods yet, and then may need it all again soon enough. Winter is coming, and with it, more power outages.<br />
<br />
Update: Sunday morning early and still no power. I talked to a linesman around 2pm Saturday and he made it sound like they would get here soon, but no joy so far. The HomeLite generator head is repaired where the receptacle melted. It needs a carburetor, which has been ordered. The Wen genny, apparently, likes to freeze its own propane connector, so the bottle, which is free standing, must be placed in the aircooling stream from the engine to keep it warm, or it shuts off long before all the gas is used up. Neither the Generac nor the Wen provide enough power to use the auto lift, a problem because the truck needs its pipe fitted. But you can't have everything.<br />
<br />
Update #2: First one, then two, the three, then four Florida Power and Light boom arm trucks showed up on the Great Farm. The linesmen are all very Floridian, soft-spoken, chatty, southern accents. It took them most of the day, but they expect to have it all done by dinnertime tonight. The Wen is running better now the gas bottle is in the aircooling flow.<br />
<br />
Update #3: Power was turned on at 4.00 pm Sunday. <br />
<br />Mickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09058893780999651690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094013166808498330.post-69243293693254239082017-07-19T12:04:00.000-07:002017-07-19T12:04:11.780-07:00Catching up with the blog<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
As you can probably tell from the two posts below, especially the one about my uncle's death, we have been busy this summer with foreseen and unforeseen events.<br />
<br />
The first, and planned, event, was our family trip to the United Kingdom. My sister Carol was getting married, to the inestimable Mr. Wayne, and required the presence of her niece to help officiate, and this happy event further required a considerable work of logistics and child psychology to get said niece, all of two and two thirds years old, across the Atlantic. We used Icelandair for this, and recommend the airline, but the airport at Keflavik is sadly overcrowded and below par.<br />
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Here's the little flower girl on duty, wearing the new dress that mommy made especially for the wedding:<br />
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And here she is again with Aunt Carol and Uncle Wayne.<br />
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Unfortunately, while we were preparing to leave, another British relative, my cousin Barrie Lockwood, AKA "Uncle Barrie," suddenly died. Barrie was getting on and not well, having been living in a care home for nearly two years, so while the death was sudden, it wasn't unexpected, but it meant my sister and I had a funeral to arrange almost immediately after the wedding.<br />
<br />
We stayed in the UK for about ten days and did a lot of tourist things when we were not busy with weddings and funerals. We stayed in vacation cottages in the Peak District National Park, one in <a href="http://www.springhousefarmcottages.co.uk/cottage2.html">Castleton</a>, the other in <a href="http://www.markeygatecottages.co.uk/">Tideswell</a>. Both were nice, and recommended.<br />
<br />
Tideswell, which we only booked because we had to stay in the area for the funeral, was having its annual festival of Wakes Week and Well Dressings, also <a href="http://www.tideswellwakes.info/">recommended</a>. Our kid particularly liked the bumper cars and the tea-cups, below.<br />
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Once home, we had a marathon of work to do, and of course had used up much of the cooler early summer weather in which to do it. The garden was thick with weeds, we had a large number of vehicle problems to fix, and the hay to secure. We managed most of this, at some cost in skin and sweat.</div>
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Now it's hot and humid, and we're into our midsummer routine of trying only to do physical work when it's cooler. There are still a lot of projects to complete, but we're picking our battles. Stay tuned for more details on the garden and the Land Rover project when we get a chance.</div>
Mickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09058893780999651690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094013166808498330.post-71441787575285617862017-07-18T12:41:00.002-07:002017-07-18T12:41:45.949-07:00Eulogy for Barrie<br />
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Delivered by his cousin Michael at Hutcliff Wood Chapel, Sheffield, June 23rd, 2017.<br />
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Good afternoon, and thank you for coming to this short
service of remembrance for my cousin Barrie Lockwood. It falls to me as one of
his few surviving relatives to say a few words for Barrie, and I hope to be
worthy of that honour and to do justice to him.</div>
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As I said at <a href="http://womerlippi.blogspot.com/2012/01/eulogy-for-jean.html">my mother’s a few years ago</a>, funerals are for
the living, not the dead. They are for us to celebrate the life of the people we
liked and loved. This one is for my sister, who was his primary family contact
in these last few years and who visited him and gave him news and tried to keep
him in the land of the living. It’s for the care home staff, who looked after
him very well, and it’s for Aunty Eileen and Hazel and all the rest of us that
knew him in happier times.</div>
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Barrie Lockwood was born to Harold, a Sheffield steelmaker,
and Millicent, a homemaker and the daughter of a master gardener to the Leigh
family whose head was at one time the master cutler. </div>
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He was a Sheffield lad
and proud of it to the day he died, and loved the industrial history and even
the rough, coal-blackened and Victorian splendor of this industrial town. He
loved trams and trains and British cars, he liked gritstone architecture, brown
ale and brown trousers, and traditional Sheffield food. He lived a life based
on Sheffield values of family and hard work and a little fun now and then.</div>
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Barry was a bright boy, won a scholarship to King Edwards
when it was a grammar school, passed the civil service exam, and began a long
career in government, which culminated in his job as Clerk of Sheffield Crown
Court, a position that put him mentally and physically at the center of the
city and the region and at the center of regional events, specially criminal
ones. It was a fine career. Barrie was committed to British government and
making it work, especially to old-fashioned British government based on values
of reason and decency and plain common sense. Sometimes I think we could use a
few more like him today, and a few less of what we have. He took civil service
posts here after his father died to look after his mother, and retired early to
do more of that, and so lived with Millie, looking after each other at High
Storrs Close, until first she died and then he grew ill. Essentially, he lived
seventy years of an eighty-year life or more in the same house.</div>
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I loved Barrie as my mother’s cousin and as one of the
extended Watson clan, now dwindling, that once were much more common in the
Mayfield valley. I also liked him. He was fun to be around, both when I was a
small boy, and later when I would come home to visit him and Millie at High
Storrs. He was also a shoulder to rely on, especially at two particular times,
the first during the 1980s when he paid for my initial emigration to America
and so gave me the push that would eventually lead to university and an
academic career, to my wife Aimee and my daughter Edana whom some of you are
meeting for the first time today, assuming she will sit still. The second time
Barrie helped me greatly was when my parents had both begun to show signs of
dementia, and I was racked with pain and upset at losing them, or at least
losing them as I knew them, and Barrie helped me put it in perspective. I still
can’t quite put into words what a relief it was to sit and talk to an elderly relative
that still, almost to the end, had most of his marbles, when my Mum and Dad
were so clearly off their rocker and going beyond my reach. I know Carol feels
much the same way. Barrie was a kind and decent and helpful man.</div>
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Some particular memories of Barrie include he and my dad
Gordon teaching me to play three-card Brag at family parties. I would get a
little pocket money from dad, or earn money working for him in the chocolate
shop, and Barrie and dad would then relieve me of that money in fairly short
order, while I learned the intricacies of the game. It’s going to be hard to
explain to the younger generation just how much good clean family fun can be
had with just a pack of cards and a small stack of change and two close male
relatives intent on relieving you of your cash and teaching you not to be a
fool.</div>
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I’m not sure they succeeded, but we had fun trying.</div>
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Barrie and I were both in the RAF, as was Eileen’s husband
Ron. Ron was a Mosquito navigator in World War Two, Barrie was national
service in the fifties, and I was a regular in the late seventies and early
eighties, so we had that in common. I served at some of the same Vale of York airfields
that Barrie had seen twenty years earlier, and played three card brag in some
of the same crew rooms. </div>
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Barrie liked to talk of his RAF days. He always liked
British technology and those were the heydays of British jet flight. Barrie was
a clerk in the HQ of a Javelin squadron. Javelins were some of the first truly
modern jet fighters and well ahead of their time, and the squadron was led by
seasoned veterans of the war. The Soviets were the bad guys by then, and the
squadron was needed, and it must have been exciting to be a eighteen-year old
lad around all that. Later in life he developed a taste for fast cars, probably
related to this experience, and always had some souped-up British car parked
outside his house, which was exciting for me as a young lad.</div>
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He could talk. Boy, could that man talk, he said. Lapsing
into Americanisms. Conversations with Barrie were two, three, four hour
affairs. He never seemed to tire of it. But it was always entertaining, and
always witty, and always he’d kept up with the news and he knew what was going
on and had an interesting opinion and point of view on it all.</div>
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I could go on, but this is the new Britain and this chapel
and crematorium are run on what my American relatives call a tight schedule,
which Barrie never was, and so we had better move on, or we’ll keep the staff
from their Friday night relaxation. Barrie would most certainly NOT have wanted
to do that.</div>
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Barrie Lockwood is gone from us physically, but I will
always remember him as the bright and able and witty Sheffield lad he was, fun
to be around and good to talk to. I hope you will too.</div>
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<br />Mickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09058893780999651690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094013166808498330.post-52727379393921532412017-07-17T13:26:00.001-07:002017-07-17T13:29:22.092-07:00How to replace a series Land Rover rear cross memberAfter the fairly long-term success of my post on <a href="http://womerlippi.blogspot.com/2012/07/land-rover-outrigger-repair-step-by.html">repairing outriggers</a> (5,700 page views over four years and quite a few comments), here's another on the rear crossmember replacement job.<br />
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First, the preparatory work: This is a 1971 Series 2a 88 inch, LHD with the wheels removed. It's now on jackstands (placed forward of the rear springs). The floor, seats, seat box, and tub have all been removed. the rear spring shackles have been undone or cut off, and the differential gearbox and spring assembly rests on the floor jack (AKA "trolley jack" in the UK) or on blocks. The frame has been pressure-washed and brushed lightly with a wire wheel on a hand grinder to remove the worst of the dirt and any loose old finish.<br />
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Here we are measuring to record the distance between the front and rear outer tub brackets. We'll keep this measurement the same when we put on the new crossmember. Lots of people advise using the tub as a jig to set this measurement, but to my mind that runs the risk of shortening or lengthening the distance between the front spring mount and the rear upper shackle anchor, which helps set the rear wheel alignment. The tub is flexible, and could be squeezed into a different shape, throwing these measurements off.<br />
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As it stands, the passenger side is actually 1/4 inch longer than the other due to a slight driver-side fender-bender. We'll fix this when we fit the new crossmember. The final target measurement to square up the truck is is 48 and 3/8 inches.<br />
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We also measured the difference in height between the cross member and the flat top of the frame using a level as a straight edge. We'll keep this measurement the same too, at 1 and 3/8 of an inch.<br />
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Then it's time to cut your Rover up! Not for the faint of heart. I started with my 7 inch grinder. My new crossmember has 16 inch frame extensions with four inch welding tabs, so I cut the frame just shy of 12 inches from the old crossmember. <br />
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The heavy duty grinder proved too clumsy and in fact broke a cutting disc off, so we finished with the 4.5 inch hand grinder.<br />
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Once through about three quarters of the way, we position jack stands under the old crossmember to catch the weight. Leave these about a notch lower than the crossmember. After a while the old crossmember will bend down, or can be pushed down, to rest safely on the jack stands. This allows you to finish the cut with a hacksaw from the top, which is easier and safer than using a hand grinder from below.<br />
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Once the old junky cross member is removed, it's easier to burn out any old shackle bushings. Use a gas torch to burn out the old rubber, and the inner bushing can then be pushed or pried out. <br />
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You then cut through the outer bushing metal with a hacksaw, being
careful not to cut into the spring itself. The new crossmember comes
with shackle bushings installed, so unless you plan to remove and/or service the
spring or diff too, you only need to buy two new ones, but you may need
some new bolts and nuts too, and perhaps new shackle irons. (Remember,
only the inner shackle iron is threaded.)<br />
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You now have a once-in-a-Landy-lifetime opportunity to rust-proof the inside of the frame easily. Here I'm using Fluid Film, popular here in New England where we use a lot of winter salt on the roads, a proprietary Fluid Film air-powered product dispenser, and a long piece of hose which reaches forward all the way past the dumb irons, but you could use Waxoyl or similar.<br />
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First, test where you can see to make sure product is coming out in a suitable spray pattern. Start spraying with the hose fully inserted, then withdraw the hose an inch or two at a time. Repeat to be sure of getting enough product in there.<br />
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Now turn your attention to the new cross member. Bend the welding tabs out gently with a mallet and test fit it to the old frame. Using trial and error, get the best fit. Reproduce the old measurements above and clamp it in place, then tack weld it.<br />
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This is the bit where the old-timers say to fit the tub, and use the tub as the final jig to get the measurements right, but that ignores my objection above, and it requires that you put the tub on and take it off again to weld the top of the new frame extension. This is too much trouble for me, and indeed, my tub isn't square anyway.<br />
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Instead I relied on careful measurement. I then welded all around each side, and up and down the tab slots. You can easily tighten any gaps between the tabs and the old frame with a hammer once you start welding and get everything nice and hot.<br />
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Now, if you're brave, measure again! Mine was within a sixteenth of my
target 48 and 3/8 inches, so I was pretty happy with that.<br />
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Having reconnected the shackles, my plan now is to spray everything I see except the transmission with POR 15 rust proof paint, and Fluid Film on top of that.<br />
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That should last a while. Enjoy.<br />
<br />Mickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09058893780999651690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094013166808498330.post-86270725401983444202017-05-20T03:06:00.000-07:002017-05-20T03:06:13.651-07:00DoneIt was an exhausting semester, but we did finally got done, and a few days of relatively little to do, I find myself ready to write a farm blog post for the first time since lambs were born.<br />
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In the end I taught just shy of twenty-four credits, ran a committee to make a new degree, and served as Faculty Moderator. That all took more of my life, especially as the end-of-year deadlines loomed, than would leave time for very much farming, let alone blogging about farming. However, we also kept this place free of snow, of which there was quite a lot, a record year. We lambed seven fine lambs, butchered six roosters, and raised our own starts from seed.<br />
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Now I'm suffering from a surfeit of put-off chores and farm projects. When you're that busy, the tendency is to say, "OK, then, we'll do that bit after the end of the semester." But when the end of the semester comes, there can be a lot to do. I need a list just to keep track of my to-do lists.<br />
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But we <i>are</i> slowly forcing a system of reason upon all this unreasonableness.<br />
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There remains the small problem of getting the garden planted. The weather hasn't helped there, first too wet, the too hot. This weekend, forecast cool but dry, seems like it will be our best shot. The sheep got sheared. The piglets are to be collected today, and the first lambs delivered to their buyers.<br />
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But for every step forward, there's a slip back. The tractor is leaking coolant again. A farm truck is in advanced stages of dismemberment while we rebuild its front end after an accident earlier in the year. A dog fox seems to have taken the last hen from the clutch we hatched last year and may have taken others. We saw the culprit skulking around earlier, so we have some certainty who it was. The remainder are at risk. And a bad smell from the crawl space since the weather finally warmed may indicate what happened to Shenzhi cat, who went MIA during the height of the battle this spring. Or it may be some of the missing chickies. I'll have to find out, because the smell is coming up into the kitchen.<br />
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So, life is still a little crazy.<br />
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That may be all I can write for now. Photographs are a bit beyond my capabilities too. We'll recover, no doubt, after a week or too of working down those lists, and provide more details later in the summer.<br />
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In the meantime, it is late spring in Maine, the apple blossoms are out, and our kid can play on green grass. We can be happy, and that is what matters.Mickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09058893780999651690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094013166808498330.post-21605912244421514672017-03-21T12:20:00.001-07:002017-03-21T12:20:28.036-07:00Lamb count<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Lambing season started March 7th, a Tuesday. Tia gave birth to two healthy lambs around dinner time in the lambing pen. Next up was Ursa, a couple days later, followed quickly by Silvia on Saturday. Still to go is Vera, a newby. Since she will likely have only one, possibly two, we expect seven or eight lambs total, more than doubling our sheep population.<br />
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All mommies and lambs are doing well so far.<br />
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Edana was present in the barn for Tia's second lamb, which came out very quickly. She just kind of pooped her out, which set Edana to screaming. She thought the sheep had suffered an "owee."<br />
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One sheep indeed had suffered an owee, however. While all the fuss was happening over lambs, Garfunkel the ram, who's never been a good eater, decided to go off his feed. On inspection he was found to be anemic, and wormed. He didn't respond well and eventually went into a coma. I put him down yesterday. I was pretty upset to have to do this, since he was a very pleasant fellow, for a ram. More than likely his replacement will be less so. Rams are typically pretty knuckle-headed.<br />
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All's well that ends well, though. Here is Edana the day after she was scared of Tia's new lamb, happy again to see the babies.Mickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09058893780999651690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094013166808498330.post-72050502987751077902017-02-26T12:32:00.001-08:002017-02-26T12:32:15.907-08:00Paints and stories<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-oqlBcaFDB4g/WLM6_ZHLZwI/AAAAAAAAHxw/OaC4Snv3m10ypy5Z1ggjck_hhL2WkMexQCLcB/s1600/IMG_8533.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-oqlBcaFDB4g/WLM6_ZHLZwI/AAAAAAAAHxw/OaC4Snv3m10ypy5Z1ggjck_hhL2WkMexQCLcB/s320/IMG_8533.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Mommy bought home watercolor paints!<br />
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What fun!<br />
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And we also have some Thomas the Tank Engine books. "Wanna read Thomas Train!"Mickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09058893780999651690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094013166808498330.post-79837925452367165252017-02-19T14:20:00.002-08:002017-02-19T14:26:31.425-08:00And now for something completely different: Mud season<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
After all that snow, it warmed up pretty much as forecast, a general thaw, and we may be seeing the first beginnings of mud season. Even so, there's still a lot of snow.</div>
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Here's our deck, completely full of avalanche debris from the roof that fell today while we were out playing in the yard with Edana. This is very heavy windslab and can't be shoveled very easily, so we'll just let it melt and hope for the best.<br />
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Here's a fresh delivery of firewood. I took advantage of the nice clear dooryard and the warm weather. I had the dump truck that delivered it drop it off right in front of the barn doors, and later threw it all into the barn. This was because the regular firewood cribs are five feet deep in snow.<br />
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The view through the barn doors, Flame on guard.<br />
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Tucking into Amish hay. A very pregnant ewe, one of four we kept last year. We now have twenty-two chickens, thanks to the clutch that hatched later last year.<br />
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The beginnings of mud: A general thaw in the dooryard. Edana has been jumping in muddy puddles.<br />
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Using the little tractor to bring down the loads of firewood from the barn.<br />
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Two inches of meltwater in the back of the workshop. This will eventually flow away, but in the meantime, it's a bit of a pain.Mickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09058893780999651690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094013166808498330.post-68338395534878918802017-02-18T08:36:00.003-08:002017-02-18T08:37:23.461-08:00Mopping up, après le déluge<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Edana "fixes" the generator with a screwdriver. </div>
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It was a very big snowfall in the end, around 25 inches while still light and fluffy, but the strong winds soon knocked it down to a heavy wind slab that was much harder to move.<br />
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It was hard to keep equipment going. I got my own Land Rover-powered plow stuck around six or seven times, but was able to winch it out each time after twenty or so minutes work. Luckily we have plenty of handy trees and fence posts around here, for winch anchors.<br />
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I got my neighbor's much larger plow truck stuck only once, but once was enough. It took a total of about five hours to free it. We were forced to abandon it in a snowbank Monday night. The Land Rover winch, plus a lot of digging and some great help from my other neighbor, eventually did the job Tuesday morning. I was pretty pleased to see it with four wheels on the road.<br />
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If you read the previous posts for this storm (named "Orson"), you'll see that I pretty well knew this would happen, but borrowed the vehicle anyway. The Rover was capable enough to do the job, although some more winching might have been needed, but I wanted to do it faster.<br />
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I won't make that mistake again. <br />
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By the time everything had all blown over Tuesday, with another storm forecast for Wednesday, I was pretty pleased to be able to hire the services of this machine and driver for some serious snow removal. This is an articulated five-ton loader, a piece of construction equipment. In about thirty minutes work, it moved all our snowbanks back around twenty feet and scraped the driveway down to the roadbed. We will need the space if we get another nor'easter. You need to have somewhere to put all the snow.<br />
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A little light plowing later in the week, and then one last clean-up today, including excavating the Camry from its snowy grave, and we are done with snow moving for the time being. The jet stream has lifted north, and we're in some easier weather, and very thankful for it.<br />
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Here's the two heroes of the hour. These two machines, plus my neighbor's snowblower, kept moving snow despite the severity of the storm, while other much stronger equipment was defeated. Both are over forty years old.<br />
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Here's the Rover tugging the Camry free.<br />
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And here's the damage to the Rover's plow, made worse by this storm. The hitch tongue is well bent. It will require a serious repair this summer. My best bet is going to be to dismantle the tongue and cross bar from the rest of the assembly, using the eight nuts and bolts at both ends, and order a new one from the Canadian company that makes the plow. I should probably get a new winch strap while I'm at it.Mickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09058893780999651690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094013166808498330.post-4711096600002490952017-02-13T09:30:00.003-08:002017-02-13T09:30:47.255-08:00Easily 24 and not doneWe have a couple feet already and about three more hours of snowfall to go until the main part of the storm passes. The power started flickering, so I pulled the genny onto the porch to warm up. It runs on propane and is hard to start when cold.<br />
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Silly bugger me, should have done that twenty hours ago, I realize now.<br />
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It can stay there until spring!<br />
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Here's what look like "varves" of snowfall on the porch window:<br />
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While our daughter is happy enough to stay home and play. Mommy found her a new toy at Goodwill, a play castle for just four dollars!<br />
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Mickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09058893780999651690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094013166808498330.post-36166736725364880012017-02-13T06:53:00.000-08:002017-02-13T08:17:55.417-08:0012 so far<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Mickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09058893780999651690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094013166808498330.post-53559433807264536812017-02-12T08:08:00.003-08:002017-02-12T08:08:42.828-08:00Eighteen to twenty-four<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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That would be the expected inches of snowfall in the next thirty hours in this particular neck of the Maine woods. On top of the eight we got yesterday, the eight we got Thursday, and the ice we had already, things are starting to get a little silly.<br />
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The Land Rover plow truck is holding up as well as could be expected, considering that various injuries and illnesses make it the last available plow-truck and driver combo in the Great Farm hamlet. It now plows nearly a mile of road each snowfall, never mind that each stretch has to be done at least twice and often four or six times to make it safe. This truck and the plow it carries were never meant to plow snow for as many miles as it has been doing. It has shed a heavy lateral spring, and the spring pin that sets the plow angle looks ready to pop out, the base that holds it having sheared off. I expect the lateral spring will show up in a snowbank eventually. The spring pin can be replaced with a heavy bolt. I never change the angle anyway.<br />
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I've been told I can borrow my neighbor's much heavier truck while he's in the hospital. This is a one-ton, and much better suited for this kind of mileage, but it's also an automatic flatbed and as a result somewhat loose in four wheel mode and light in the rear to boot. The combination of the two characteristics mean that it is easier to get stuck that the Rover is, and if I get my neighbor's truck stuck while he's in the sick bay, there's no-one to help me get it unstuck. The Land Rover at least carries a winch for such things, as well as that awesome Land Rover low range and fully locked wheel hubs all round.<br />
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I have had to refuel the Rover, something that has never been necessary before. In past winters, one tank has always been enough. This year I may go through three or four.<br />
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In other news, work has of course been back underway for four weeks now, but the number of snow days has made it seem like less. It feels more like the second than fourth week, given how little we've been able to cover in some classes. No doubt we'll catch up eventually.<br />
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Our kid has been with us at work a lot because the day care center has had more and longer snow days than the college. Aimee and I trade her off between classes, and she runs around our various offices and other work spaces. She loves to come to work, and is always happy when we tell her she's not going to daycare.<br />
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Sooner or later the jet stream will lift north, taking with it the storm track, which currently is right on top of us. Spring won't take long to come after that, although we can expect a heck of a lot of mud when it does come, given all the snow.Mickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09058893780999651690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094013166808498330.post-4066267278412930352017-01-21T13:41:00.001-08:002017-01-21T13:41:10.056-08:00Engineering and other girl hobbies<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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A woman's place is playing with the Erector Set...</div>
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...or learning photography.</div>
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It's the middle of winter and a slow news day on the farm, thankfully. Elsewhere in the country, millions of women are out to protest the advent of a presidential administration seemingly hostile to them, as well as immigrants and people of color, all told more than two thirds of the people, so we know how this is going to end. You can't alienate that many in a democracy.<br />
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We applaud the marcher's actions, and are very happy to see them out there, far more of them in fact than attended the miserably divisive inauguration of said administration.<br />
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But we decided to concern ourselves with domestic events instead today.<br />
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Not that we had a choice. We have a toddler, and life with a toddler is not conducive to travel and protest, unless it's the kind of protest you get from a toddler.<br />
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So we swept the house and did the dishes, did the shopping and went to gymnastics class, bought in the firewood and changed the sheeps' water. While the speakers were speaking, we listened to the feed, but when the marchers were marching, we took a nap.<br />
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It's the end of the first week of the semester, and we were so tired from teaching other people's grown offspring on Friday night that it was hard to handle our own child. This may be the disadvantage of the college life, especially at a small friendly college like ours. We put our hearts and souls into our work, and sometimes, if we're not careful, there's not enough left. But we all got a good night's sleep, and today's nap helped.<br />
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Monday we'll be back at it.<br />
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Freedom depends on teachers. People have to think for themselves if they're to be truly free, and you don't learn to do that without books and ideas and teachers to help you understand them.Mickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09058893780999651690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094013166808498330.post-1049328797969159152016-12-31T04:35:00.002-08:002016-12-31T06:56:56.783-08:00Heavy wet snow<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Arriving back from Christmas with family in Virginia late on Thursday morning, having left a day early because of the forecast, we had a couple hours to spare before the snow storm hit. It snowed for a few hours then rained, then snowed again. Then at 3am Friday morning, the power went out.<br />
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This combination of rain and snow was hard to shift, whether by Rover, tractor, or hand. But despite the block heater having stopped with the power supply, the Rover did start, as did the tractor. It took about four hours to make our dooryard and turning circle safe for civilization.<br />
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Then we ran the genny and waited for the power to come back on, making frequent excursions up the hill in the direction of the golf course, where the three phase distribution line for the entire town was down on the side of the road.<br />
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We wanted to know when the trucks came to fix it. It isn't much fun to leave a loud genny running outside your house all night, so we preferred not to do that, but when you have a toddler, you need to make different arrangements for sleeping when the power is off and you have no noise maker, baby monitor, or nursery heater. We were hoping the power would come back on before all this had to happen.<br />
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In the end, the power stayed out even after the downed line was fixed, there being some other fault closer to us, so we put her to bed with extra blankets, left her door open to get the heat of the wood stove, brought the dogs into the living room and locked them behind the baby gate so they wouldn't go into her room, and made sure to stoke the fire in the middle of the night. She slept fine all night without a noise maker.<br />
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It was during the excursion to stoke the fire that I realized it was getting too cold out there for propane. Our genny runs on twenty-pound bottles of propane, and doesn't like the cold at all. Even in moderately cool temperatures around freezing, it wants starter fluid. Propane boils at -43 F, but it doesn't boil easily as well as it does at higher temperatures, when it essentially flashes from liquid to gas as soon as the pressure is relieved. It was 15 F outside already.<br />
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So, after some thumping and struggling at 2am, things going bump in the night, the genny spent the rest of the night in the kitchen. It did occur to me to turn off its propane for safety's sake. It started easy this morning.<br />
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Now we hope to see some linesmen soon. Much of Maine has been without power, about a quarter of the state, and we are obviously in better shape than most, but it would be a relief to shut off that noisy genny, and, at only 3,500 watts, there are some things it just can't run or doesn't much like to run, including the electrical heating and the sheep's water heater.Mickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09058893780999651690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094013166808498330.post-65288814811434658772016-12-16T12:59:00.002-08:002016-12-16T13:03:25.339-08:00End timesDon't worry. I just mean the semester.<br />
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Although we have relatives who are waiting it out for the real thing.<br />
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Me, I'm glad of an easy day today, just one exam and pick up some grading and home for the weekend with my kid. Classes ended Tuesday.<br />
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Today, we're hunkered down. The weather outside is frightful, very cold and a nasty north wind, one of those Yorkshire "lazy" winds, the kind that's too lazy to go around you. We have six baby chicks under a heat lamp in the barn with their mommy hen, and they are doing OK, but it would be good for all concerned if the wind dropped a bit. It seems to be doing so, but you never know. As night falls, and a storm coming in tomorrow, it could easily start up again.<br />
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Edana is snoozing nicely in the nursery. She kept waking up last night. The wind caused multiple short power cuts that continually reset her digital noisemaker, switching it from "rain" to "heartbeat", which wakes her up. If it doesn't, the heater resets too, and that always wakes her up. She doesn't much like the cold and without her heater that room is drafty.<br />
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Anyway, we had hot milk and a story at midnight or thereabouts, and then she slept for a bit, then the power went out again and she woke again. All in all she woke four times. The last time she didn't really get into it, and the heater was still on, so we left her and she went down again of her own accord. So now she's catching up. I caught up some too. It was good to nap.<br />
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Here in our winterwonderland, we've broken out the Roverplow once and look to do it again tomorrow. The pipes in the bathroom have frozen briefly twice, the result of too much cold but, paradoxically, not enough snow to seal the perimeter of the house from the wind. There's plastic "banking" in place, but the snow weighs it down and adds insulation.<br />
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I set a heat lamp on the pipes and left the bathtub tap to run. It's supposed to be 40F Sunday, classic La Nina Maine weather. We can leave the tap run until then.<br />
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Other than the lack of snow on our banking, we're ready for winter. All the cars are sorted with snow tires and all repairs done, the oil tank is filled, and the new wood stove is running very well. We have a nice Christmas tree, which Edana loves, and our Christmas cards are arriving, much to her delight. She loves to tear them open and hang them up on the string in the living room. "My card," she croons in delight, in total ignorance of whoever sent it.<br />
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Late last month I finally cracked the fault diagnosis on the VW, which had eluded me all fall. I pulled the engine again and stripped it down to the case again, looking for a fault. If I had a hundred dollars for every time I've stripped that old engine down like this, I'd be a rich man.<br />
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I found I'd left out the head gaskets. In the VW engine, these are just tiny aluminum circles that sit between each cylinder and the cylinder heads. Older motors don't have them. I originally rebuilt that engine last winter, and was rushed and not working in the best of conditions, and must have left them out accidentally. At least, that's my excuse. I have no memory of doing so, but the proof of the pudding was right there in front of my eyes. With the gaskets in, and a tune up, the engine starts and runs easy now.<br />
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Before that, late October or early November, I'd been working on the seized brakes, and eventually traced the difficulty to a brand new Brazilian VW master cylinder. Apparently a bad batch of these had made it onto the American parts chain, all with over-zealous check valves. I bought a new German unit, fitted it, and the difficulty went away. Then I still had trouble bleeding it, until Henry Thompson noticed the bleed valve was at the bottom of the caliper on the left side. They're supposed to be universal, but to be so, they need two bleed valves, not one. I switched out that caliper for one with two bleed valves that I'd had lying around since early attempts to diagnose the stuck brakes, and all as well.<br />
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It's a good thing that all this work delayed the serviceability of the VW, because if it had been usable earlier, it would have been sold, and I really don't want to sell it. In September we had to pay $4,500 for our new trailer and that set me back a bit, using up my savings. I had planned to sell the VW to pay some bills and rebuild our savings, but we're so close to tax refund time, I won't need to do that now. Besides, it has no heat so no-one will buy it in the winter.<br />
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So I can keep my lovely old bus after all. I have too many happy memories of this bus, and would really like to take my kid fishing or camping in it one day.<br />
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After all, we do live in Maine, and it is nice here at least six months of the year.<br />
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Just not these ones.Mickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09058893780999651690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094013166808498330.post-91601916762586460042016-10-31T02:21:00.001-07:002016-10-31T02:21:45.143-07:00The Rover's Return<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Fall is coming slowly to an end. It really is our longest season here in Maine, starting in August when the leaves of swamp maples first begin to show color, and ending in late November or even December with the first nor'easter that falls and stays. That's nearly five months, some years. Spring is long too, from mud season in late March or early April to the first hot, humid weather in late June, but that's only about two to three months. High summer, with all the heat and heavy humidity, is usually less than two months, and sometimes less than one. I personally measure summer by the presence or absence of fireflies after dark. Winter can be very long here, though, depending on when that first lasting snowfall occurs.<br />
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For which we're grateful. It keeps the riffraff away. But, considering that winter in Maine means snow, and lots of it, you have to have everything ready, or you'll be caught short.<br />
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I didn't mention either road repair or blackfly season, both of which overlap these other, more formal seasons, and both of which can hinder your movements more than the weather does, except, perhaps, for snow.<br />
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And then there's hunting season, the cusp of which is Maine's month-long rifle season for whitetail deer, now upon us.<br />
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The leaves are almost completely gone from all the trees except a few beeches, birches, alders, and tamarack. The tomato plants are black from frost, although there are still edible berries on some, trying desperately to ripen. I picked the last of the eggplant, tiny little things that Aimee says will be bitter, and a couple of blue Hubbard squash. I thought I'd make ratatouille with the eggplant.<br />
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We take nice walks with the dogs, but now we have to worry about deer hunters. Since our road is a dead end, and because the dogs bark whenever a truck comes, it's usually easy to know when there's a hunter in our woods. It is possible, although not likely, for a particularly motivated hunter to come in from the other side of the woods, nearly two miles away on the Bog or Village roads, but no-one ever does. Hunters are not usually that athletic. But even so, we all wear orange, including the dogs, and don't stray from the gravel roads as we might have done earlier. <br />
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Edana doesn't know much about hunter safety, so she's unaware of the reason she has to wear a bright orange vest. But she likes pumpkins and apples and the apple juice we get from the orchard, and enjoyed her first Hallow'een last night at the village library, so fall is a hit.<br />
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I've been reminding her that it will snow one day soon to prepare her mentally. She probably will be happy, not sad, to see the fluffy white snow, even if it will restrict her movements further. She likes to watch kids sledding on TV, and her favorite book is "The Snowy Day".<br />
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With the advent of the white stuff in mind, though, I have as always been working down a long to-do list of pre-winter chores, now nearing completion. This process has been slower than usual because the only time I have to do this work now I have a kid is four or five hours on Saturday morning, when Aimee takes Roo first to swim class and then to do the week's shopping.<br />
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Time and money, money and time. The hardest job to get done was the Land Rover's muffler, not so much because it was hard mechanically, but because our finances were strained by the purchase of the trailer and the annual property tax bill. I had to wait nearly two months before I could afford the replacement. But it's done, and, after the usual two hours messing with annoyingly intermittent defunct lights and horn, the Rover is over at the local repair shop, ready for inspection, with two Camry wheels and snow tires for fitting in the back to boot. Afterwards, I'll take her to the local short stop and top off the gas for the winter. When it's back we'll fit the snow plow.<br />
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There's still a little fence to take down, as well as the greenhouse frame to fix, and the trailer to winterize (a new chore, that I have to teach myself to do), but these amount to less than two hour's work for next Saturday, and once the Rover Returns (slight "Coronation Street" pun there for you British readers!) and the plow is fitted, it can snow if it wants to.<br />
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We're ready.Mickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09058893780999651690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094013166808498330.post-72944108338036127332016-10-10T03:11:00.001-07:002016-10-10T03:11:10.614-07:00Leaf peepers<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Aimee planned a leaf-viewing picnic -- on a train. This is the Belfast and Moosehead Lake Railroad, a volunteer-run local railway heritage preservation organization that offers rail tours a few times a year.<br />
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Edana, who has read about trains in books and seen them on TV and possibly from afar, was very excited to go on the train. She got so worked up that she became upset when we stopped to quickly pick up some groceries, and I had to placate her with a story or two while mommy did the shopping. But eventually the great moment arrived and our kid got to go on a train.<br />
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The day was gloomy and not the best of days for leaf-peepin', as Mainers say, but the train was full. There was one particularly loud extended Indian family with several kids, all speaking Hindi ten-to-the-dozen. This reminded me of Sheffield, of course, and even made me a little homesick, but I'm not sure the very middle class American retirees sat next to them enjoyed the spectacle quite as much.<br />
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The train rocked and rolled a few miles down the tracks. Being used to British trains, I was surprised at how much our coach car, a former Amtrak stalwart, rocked from side to side. I was glad that we didn't pick up speed. I expect it would have derailed.<br />
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We've considered using the train to get to Aimee's folks in VA, and indeed, we could go all the way from Portland to Staunton, VA, twenty miles from H-burg, on the train, but my experiences with Amtrak have not been that positive. I expect we'd get delayed, and then we'd be on a train with a kid and a bunch of luggage for two or three days. At least in a car you can go to a motel and rest.<br />
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Anyway, our picnic was very successful and our kid was very happy with her train ride. <br />
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In other news, the kitchen range has now been replaced with a fancy new one. I've dismantled the old one and determined the fault, a failed oven igniter unit, but the repair part may be more expensive than the value of the range, which has rusty feet from Mary-dog's unfortunate habit, when she grew geriatric, of piddling on the floor next to the stove.<br />
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Mickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09058893780999651690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094013166808498330.post-87522880540471973342016-10-04T02:54:00.002-07:002016-10-04T02:54:30.301-07:00Pork load<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Here's the fruit of at least some of our labors. Three pigs, properly butchered, await delivery to various freezers belonging to Unity College faculty. Total hanging weight was 539 pounds. Average per pig 179 pounds. Spot on the 180 pound target.<br />
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And what a lot of very good food!<br />
Mickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09058893780999651690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094013166808498330.post-44143080003755822212016-09-24T03:16:00.002-07:002016-09-24T03:16:32.536-07:00Skunking around and other annoyancesThere are several domestic annoyances happening right now, but the gravest is the skunk that has taken up residence in our barn. This is a mature female and incredibly tame, to the point were a person can come within a couple feet of her and she won't spray. She's nocturnal, of course, and if it wasn't for the fact that we put the chickens "to bed" in their coop late each evening, and that I feed them and the rest of the animals at four or five am, we probably wouldn't have noticed her. All the same, she's an annoyance, because sooner or later one or the other of our dogs will take too friendly an interest in her and get sprayed.<br />
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I borrowed a .22 rifle from our neighbors, all of our firearms being way too big to use on a skunk inside a building, and have had a couple of chances, but not the clear shot that I need to take care of her without her spraying. I also borrowed a live trap, but twice now she's taken the bait without springing the trap.<br />
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Next on the list in terms of importance is the well. There's been a great drought in Maine this summer, and all the rivers and ponds are lower than anyone can remember, while the leaves on the trees, especially the ash trees, are all crisp and brown long before they're due to fall.<br />
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Accordingly, our well is sucking air. Not all the time, but whenever we accidentally use too much water. The limit seems to be somewhere between 100 and 200 gallons. We can guess this from the time it takes running the water hose before the well sucks air and loses pressure. Thursday last, the well sucked air in the morning before work because I was watering the sheep while Aimee was doing laundry. Edana got into a fuss because of a big mess she made in her diaper. I was distracted and left the hose on about twice as long as was needed to fill the water tub, which probably takes around 50 gallons to fill (hence we know that we have only 100-200 gallons in the well). The well started sucking air, and didn't recover full pressure until the afternoon, when, quite worried, I finally turned the pump off, waited half an hour and turned it on again, at which point the pressure shot back up properly. At the time I was pleased, because I was getting ready to pull the well pipe and inspect and replace the foot valve. I suspect that low water caused the well to suck air, and debris in the foot valve stopped it from properly recovering. The debris must have washed out when the pump was turned off and the well pipe began to drain back.<br />
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If we just assume the recharge rate is so slow as to be negligible in the calculation, and use the formula for the volume of a cylinder to derive the height of water pumped before air is sucked, at 100 gallons in a six-inch well, we get 21 feet of water above the foot valve, so we're nowhere near dry, and will almost certainly manage until fall rains replenish the water table. But we will have to be very careful with that hose.<br />
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Then our nice Jotul wood stove had to be taken out of service because of cracked interior heat baffles. I priced replacement baffles at around $400, which is far less than the price of a new Jotul. But this was too rich for my blood for the time being at least. I had a few other bills that I wanted to pay before parting with this amount of money directly, including the trailer. Instead I found a Scandia look-alike secondhand for $250, thinking that, even were I to eventually fix the Jotul, it would be fine to have a spare wood stove around in any case, considering that both this building and the Bale House use essentially the same size of stove. But on first use last night, the Scandia isn't properly airtight, runs away, and will need work on the door.<br />
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Finally, the oven in the kitchen range died last weekend while I was baking a cake. This range was installed brand new in 2007, and cost a fair amount at the time, so this is upsetting too. I can probably fix it, but the light and access is bad in that corner, and the stove is dirty, so I have to remove it and clean it. We decided to get a new stove instead. I'll probably try to fix this one, but then sell it on. I had to finish baking the cake in the tiny oven in the trailer.<br />
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Then there are all the other jobs we haven't had time to get to: the tomato canning, the new trailer's brakes and bearings that need to be serviced and checked, the Land Rover's muffler that needs to be replaced, and the VW's brake job that still is not finished.<br />
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All in all, this adds up to a stressful fall, domestically speaking, but there's nothing to be done but suck it up and do the work and spend the money on parts and equipment. We started by ordering a new kitchen stove last night. Today I will empty every last thing out of the barn, clear away all the bedding, and blast off the cobwebs wit the pressure washer, effectively evicting the skunk at the same time. I hope to get the wood stove fixed and the tomatoes at least picked too, this weekend. It would be nice to finish the VW too, because then I could sell it and have extra money for some of these bills. Mickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09058893780999651690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094013166808498330.post-54102225871605408312016-09-14T02:42:00.001-07:002016-09-14T02:42:47.432-07:00New trailer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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We went shopping for a camper trailer a few weeks ago, after our return from the most recent trip to see Aimee's folks in VA. The plan is, assuming we can figure out some remaining sticky details, to haul this thing down there for us to stay in while we're visiting. But we also hope to go camping with our kid here in Maine, to see the state a bit more, and to have some fun family adventures.<br />
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The first time I took Roo to see a trailer, she obviously loved it, running around inside and climbing all over everything. Now we have this one, a 1997 Prowler 24 footer, she loves to climb inside and run around and jump on the bed and open all the cupboards and drawers.<br />
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Finding the trailer was a bit of an adventure. This job fell primarily to me, and, to begin, I had no clue what I was looking for. It's been forty years since I last went trailer camping, with my own family, back home in Britain. I had to do a lot of research online.<br />
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We decided we wanted a relatively small camper, at least by American standards, so we could haul it with our existing truck. Actually, that's the remaining difficulty in getting down to VA with this beast. The truck, at 160,000 miles, probably won't make too many trips down to VA without its little V6 engine conking out. But we can safely haul the trailer around Maine, so for now that's what we plan to do, until we can get a haul vehicle with a bigger engine.<br />
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We found the Prowler in Veasie, Maine, where there's a guy who likes to camp with his family, but also likes to fix up trailers.<br />
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At least, that's what he said. I'm an expert handyman, and can see zero signs of this trailer having been worked on in at least five years, unless our trailer-fixing handyman is the one that did the somewhat amateurish paneling in the bedroom, which you can just see in the picture above, where obvious water damage has taken place and been covered by "T & G" boards.<br />
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That seems possible, since the paneling looks new. But when I asked him about the paneling, he said it had been done before he got it. The huge gobs of extra sealant that mar the outside of the trailer, undoubtedly done to stem the water leaks that caused the internal damage, were applied years ago. Otherwise, no-one has worked on this trailer. He just bought it low and sold high, is all. I didn't mind that so much because I thought the price was fair.<br />
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The other thing that might have inclined me to regret buying this trailer was that the battery was switched out between the day we put a deposit on the trailer, and the day we went by with the rest of the money to pay for it. Our supposed trailer-handyman told us the battery had failed and he had given us a new one. I took him at his word, and the battery certainly looked new, but on closer investigation, I found traces of typical lead corrosion around the bottom of the terminal posts, and the battery is not of the correct marine/RV deep-cycle kind. My guess is that the original battery, which was probably a better one and the correct one for the job, was switched back to his <i>other</i> trailer, which he'd only just bought to fix up, and that <i>this</i> battery was the dud that came with the new fixer-upper. <br />
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That could have left a bad taste in my mouth, but at this point I'm well aware of the "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard">moral hazard</a>" problem endemic to Craigslist selling, and I remain pretty happy with the trailer itself. The only other problem is a binding trailer brake, but I expected to have to strip down the wheel assemblies and service the bearings and brakes.<br />
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I just chalked the rest up to experience. If we decide we like trailer camping with our kid, this won't be our last trailer purchase.Mickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09058893780999651690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094013166808498330.post-7527192429215048812016-09-13T02:19:00.004-07:002016-09-13T02:19:58.007-07:00Taking pictures with daddy's camera<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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If I press this button, what happens?<br />
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Taking selfies is fun!<br />
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I can also take pictures of daddy! Oops. Where are his eyes?<br />
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And mommy!<br />
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<br />Mickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09058893780999651690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094013166808498330.post-57959786339983712522016-08-17T11:42:00.004-07:002016-08-17T11:42:55.501-07:00Bitter enders<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Summer bounty: canned peaches </div>
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Summer is coming crashing grinding to a halt whether we wish it too or not, and in my case the answer is a most emphatic "not!"<br />
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But all good things come to an end, and as I've said many times on this blog, I do enjoy my job most of the time. In particular, it will be a bit of a relief to be able to justify time to concentrate on adult things again, thanks mostly to the miracle of daycare.<br />
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Much as I love my kid, I don't get much done when I'm watching her. And she needs to be with her little friends some of the time, or she won't be properly socialized in time for school.<br />
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In other news, our bus is up for sale. This is primarily because most recent trip to VA to see Aimee's folks was hard on me, mostly because of all the bag-carrying, but also because we managed to break the bed in our Airbnb! I repaired it, of course, and indeed it was in better shape when we left than when we arrived. The lady whose home it was seems none the wiser. I think the bed, a miserable piece of flat-pack MDF dressed up in heavy black lacquer as it it were a real piece of furniture, was already broken before we arrived, but hadn't yet collapsed, and when we arrived to make use of it, already substantially weakened. Anyway, long story short, it took two days to fix.<br />
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Additionally, Aimee said she wouldn't go camping in the bus. That wasn't unreasonable, since the bus is very small and doesn't have a bed for Edana. But I <i>want</i> to go camping with my kid! And so, it turns out, does Aimee.<br />
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So we're selling the bus and buying a camper trailer. We already have one, in fact, We placed a deposit on it Sunday and will pick it up in a couple of week's time, once the owners have had one more trip. I'm going to miss my venerable bus, but there's not much point having a camper that you can't go camping in.<br />
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We'll use the new camper to visit Aimee's folks and to camp here in Maine. I'm already exploring with the map to see where we could go that a little kid might like. I'm also replacing the truck's trailer hitch and wiring up the appropriate seven-point plug.<br />
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In other news, the garden is producing tomatoes now, my favorite cooking ingredient. I have a nice chicken-garlic-tomato risotto cooking as I type. The Land Rover needs a muffler, and indeed I already cut the old one off in hopes of getting a new stainless one from the UK for cheap, thanks to the "Brexit" premium on dollar-pound exchange rate. This hope proved fruitless, because once we added the shipping, a stainless series Rover muffler was as prohibitively expensive from the UK as they are in the US. We'll get another mild steel one and hope to make it last longer. <br />
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<br />Mickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09058893780999651690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094013166808498330.post-846382019563705352016-08-01T02:44:00.001-07:002016-08-01T02:44:56.224-07:00There and back again, again<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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To Virginia and back with a toddler. In a 1997 Camry.<br />
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Need I say more?Mickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09058893780999651690noreply@blogger.com0