Sunday
Linda/Sonny
When I went to take care of the chickens this morning I was surprised at how warm it felt outside. Although it wasn’t bathing suit weather, 35 degrees felt practically balmy after the many snowy and below freezing days we have had. The sun even peeked out for a while to help ease some of the winter doldrums supply sone sunlight to the solar panels to charge the batteries.
Sonny also got the kitchen sink plumbing repaired. He replaced the whole piping system, trap and all. Last week was a doozy. The temperatures dropped down to the single digits at night and I thought I had the sinks dripping enough to keep the pipes from freezing. Apparently not. I had to call my cousin John to come over and he had a small heater to place under the house and the problem was temporally fixed. Sonny still needs to get the water pipes insulated.
Well, I made sure that night that I had the drips on the sink set well. We have had a problem with the kitchen drain pipe leaking a very small amount all summer and I would just put a bucket under there to catch the water. But, the next morning I stepped on a kitchen rug and heard a very distinct squish. There was water all under the vinyl floor. Our cabinets are raised sightly so they weren’t wet inside but all underneath. I had to pull out the stove and get the piece of vinyl flooring up. It was a scrap piece from when we did the floor in the mudroom, but was big enough that it was a pain to lift out. A mop, a bucket and my back, got the flooded mess cleaned up.
The other issue from this week was our wood stove. It seemed that every time that I opened the door to put wood in smoke would billow out. Well that would indicate that there is a draft problem. Sonny had to go borrow a tall ladder, ( on the list of must haves yet to be bought) from cousin John. Sonny had to sweep away the four inches of snow and an inch of ice from the roof before he was able to climb on it. He then removed the cap from the chimney pipe and there was the problem. The screen around the cap was clogged with ash and creosote. John ripped out the screen and if any birds happen to get in there then I guess we will have squab for dinner. Now the problem is fixed and we have a good draft. The house is warm again.
Last week the log tongs that Sonny ordered came in the mail, so he and John just had to try to them out.
When they select cut the timber on this property before we bought it they created a pile of log butts. It is well seasoned wood, but a log tong was a tool we didn’t have until now. Sonny clipped the tongs onto a large log and then connected a chain to John’s flatbed 4×4 truck Festus. Festus tried to do the job but the wheels did more spinning than pulling even with four wheel drive on the snow. The logs were frozen together in the pile. They managed to pull out two logs but we’ll have to use the tractor when the snow melts. Even so, they made short work of the big log butts by using the chain saw and log splitter. The logs are now neatly split and stacked in the woodshed.
These types of things can be frustrating when they happen, but when you own an off grid house way, way back in the holler you learn how to deal with it and come to expect it.
I know that I have slipped in keeping up with the blog but I have been spending my time editing and fine tuning a novel that I wrote a few years ago. A best seller? I won’t hold my breath but hopefully it will be entertaining to those who read it. Keep in mind that this is my first book and hopefully my writing skills will improve as I go along. I have a few other novels started and will attempt to finish them.
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Posted by lkjobe 
Off-Grid in West Virginia 