January 21st 2008
Good Morning.
More strife on the home front: Our water is frozen.
I thought we had this figured out. I guess this is par for the course when the water line runs 500 feet across the top of a hill. It is buried deep, but how deep is the question? Somewhere it mustn't be deep enough. I imagine that second twenty two below zero did it. Fairly unusual, from what I can recall, but who knows. Unusual may be usual for nature. Either way, we don't have running water, and it is a major drag. And we just built that indoor bathroom. It's a good thing we relocated the outhouse with a fresh hole. Sigh.
It's hard not to take this personally, after all I built the whole system. Trouble shooting a 500 foot long underground pipe is an absurdity I can not begin to comprehend. Probably it is frozen where the pipe crosses the road, that was the most difficult to dig because the ground was compacted by vehicle traffic, although we did add some material in that area this Fall. I don't know how much, I think four or five front-end-loader bucket-fulls. Then the pipe goes under the garden at my parent's house. I think that is getting deeper and deeper as we keep adding soil and compost to the garden each year.
We added a huge mound of topsoil to the area where the water pipe travels over the top of the hill. Jose did that with his backhoe loader three or four years ago. The water hasn't frozen since then. On the other hand, maybe it hasn't been this cold since then, either. At twenty below zero, Mother Nature isn't fooling around. That's cold. We try to take that seriously. Anyway, even with no laundry being done and dish washing taking four times longer to do, we still had a pretty good weekend. In homage to normalcy, Nell and I remained on our perspective sofas, watching movies until we couldn't stand it any longer.
Sunday, I met Austin, Amelia and Kevin at the turn off by Nine Mile Hill. We were going to check out the VW diesel Rabbits. Just about a matched pair, one is white the other silver, both two door models. We filled the tire on the white one and used a chain I keep in my Trooper to tow it home. 2840 pounds, gross weight. That's what I'm talking about. No wonder these little cars can so easily pull down 40 to 50 miles on one gallon of fuel. If Kevin hadn't been riding the brake I wouldn't have felt a thing while I pulled him and the #1 Rabbit with my trusty four cylinder Trooper. #1 Rabbit, I guess I'll call it, looks to be the better of the two. Some one installed a new headliner, made from a nice fabric, almost the same as the fabric which the seats are made from. The front seat fabric is torn and needs replaced, which I may do, if these cars can be made reliable. In the meantime, I'll get seat covers.
Both engines have block heaters which is crucial for starting when the temperature drops like it has up here lately. Today I'll check the fluids and poke in a battery, plug in the block heater and try turning the engine over. The previous owner said it has been at least a year since this VW was started, so I'll take extra precautions to protect the engine from damage after sitting that long. Anyway, I enjoy bringing vintage cars back to life, so today should be pleasant, provided the warmish weather holds. These little Rabbits should be fun to play with.
We also need more firewood today, so I hope that Austin, Kevin and Amelia will come back and help us put a pile in the yard. I know Keven needs firewood too, maybe I'll borrow Dad's trailer and we can fill it for Kev. I don't know if they need wood that bad. We are going through firewood more than twice as fast as usual because Brittany and Desi are living in the bus trying to keep it warm, and that thing is steel and glass with no insulation. Poor kids. Anyway we have plenty of piñon trees to thin out, and this wood burns great green. Piñon wood has so much sap that it overcomes the moisture in the green wood and creates a beautiful bright flame with hardly any smoke. Plus there is always plenty of dead dry wood on the piñon trees to use for kindling.
Another project I'm working on is the heater motor and fan in the Blazer kicked the bucket big time. I have it on the dinning table ripped apart. Yesterday I decided there was no saving the motor; the bearings self destructed, which in turn destroyed the brushes. At 3:00PM Sunday the doctor called it: Flat-line. Trying like mad to come up with a plan which didn't entail going to the Chevy dealer and buying a new heater fan/motor assembly, if they are available for a 1984 vehicle. I decided to give it the old Brianizing routine. I sawed the end off the motor housing. Found another heater fan motor, fired up the oxygen-acetylene torch and began to make the new motor fit the bracket from the Blazer. That part came out all right, but I still have the fan to retrofit to the new motor. This may prove to be too much for even this gifted mechanical modifier.
So this morning I was faced with the decision of duct taping the opening where the fan used to be or starting the Peugeot for Nell to drive to work. Well, Nell mentioned that Brittany used the duct tape to fix a leak or two in the bus, so that plan died right there. I went out to the Peugeot which hasn't been started since the first snow. The Peugeot isn't easy to start in the cold which is one of the reasons Nell is using the gasoline powered Blazer, the other of course is the Chevy is four wheel drive. Most of the snow is gone so the Peugeot should make it back up the hill tonight, if I can just get it started.
Amazing, it started right up, no battery charge or nothing needed. I did notice that the pickle jar with half diesel ad half biodiesel which we keep by the front door wasn't white and solid like it has been most mornings. So I think we got lucky. Checking the thermometer showed a similar result 28 degrees at 6:00 AM.
Maybe the pipes will defrost them selves...
Okally Dokally
Here we go for another week.
Brian Rodgers
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