Work

by

Arctic Front

The last few days have been… trying. We are experienced incredibly unusual colds do to an Arctic air mass. This cold is being experienced all the way down the Plains, from Omaha to Dallas and beyond.

The first bitter night was that of Wednesday to Thursday and I sailed through it. Thursday, I accepted that keeping the temperature in here above 60F wasn’t reasonable, so I added a shawl and kept working.

I had done some tests earlier in the week and found that I wouldn’t be able to get internet at Laura’s unless I put a pole on the roof, and even then there was no guarantee. Since this cold was supposed to last only a few days, it made more sense to stand my ground at home.

I slept soundly through the night of Thursday to Friday and awoke to find my loft curtains very stiff. It was bitterly cold in the rig, 40F. The furnace was blowing cold air. I went outside to switch tanks and noticed that my 30lber felt way too heavy to be empty. Hmm.

Once I managed to get the furnace going again with another tank, I considered abandoning ship. I knew that it would likely take all day to get the temperature back up again. My biggest fear about the deep freeze had just happened, the temperature inside had plummeted and I had to bring it back up. But 40F or not, I had internet work to do, so I added a couple of layers and got to to work, frustrated that I needed to go to town for propane when I hadn’t planned that in my schedule.

Around 10:00, I went over to M&B’s for coffee, a warm up, dog cuddles, and to borrow another 20lb tank.

I was all the way to town limits when I realised that I didn’t have my wallet! I had just put it in my coat pocket instead of taking my purse, something I’m normally smarter about. I had to drive all the way back home, retrace my steps to the garage, and then drive all the way back to town. So I lost another hour.

Unfortunately, M&B’s tank was expired and therefore got confiscated. I then discovered that I had a full 17lbs between my two seemingly empty tanks. I got a comment recently about propane freezing up in cold temps and I replied that I had never experienced temps cold enough to do that. Well, I apparently have!

Going to town for 27lbs of propane felt like a waste, but the propane guy said something that made the trip worthwhile: “Do you have an indoor place where you can store your not in use tanks?” Doh! I decided to keep my not in use tanks in the garage.

I got home mid-afternoon and the rig was at about 50F, having only gained 10 degrees. I was finally able to bolt down some food and then I had a nearly two hour long Skype meeting with a client about work for the weekend. And then, I had four hours of transcription to do by 9PM and I really wanted to get to Laura’s for cards before 8PM. So I typed for almost four hours straight, which was probably a record for me.

Just as I was heading out to Laura’s, I noticed that the air the furnace was blowing was getting colder. I switched off the furnace and exchanged the propane tank, which was still heavy, with one from the garage. For good measure, I put some blankets on the ground and then around the tank.

Card night was fun and Laura made sure I had carbs to burn to keep me warm through the night in the form of bread pudding and ice cream. I do believe this was the first time I ever had ice cream at 40 below. 🙂

I got in around 11:30 and the rig was at a toasty 60F. I went to bed with my iPad and watched a movie. At 1:30 I shut everything down, but as I was drifting off to sleep, I realised that something didn’t feel right. I got up and discovered that the furnace was blowing cold air. I bundled up, went outside, switched tanks, came back in, turned on the furnace, and made sure it was blowing warm air before going back to sleep.

At around 6:45, I woke up and again something didn’t feel right. I groggily got out of bed and sure enough, the furnace was blowing cold air. It was 52F in the rig, so it hadn’t been doing that long. I switched tanks and restarted the furnace a couple of times until I thought I was getting warm air.

I woke up again at 8:00 and it was evident that the temperature had dropped. I actually can’t remember if I switched tanks again or just cycled the furnace off and back on again. Whatever I did, I got hot air immediately and went back to bed till 10:45.

I got up to a rig at a pleasant 60F and decided to try to get to 63F. It’s been 45 minutes and I’m at 61F but… the furnace is blowing cold air again.

This is a furnace issue because I tried the stove at 6:45 this morning and I had no trouble getting all three burners going even though the furnace refused to blow hot air. So I don’t even know if it’s worth the trouble of switching tanks or if I should just turn the furnace off and on again.

Last night was supposed to be the last bad night, but it looks like we’ve got one more and then temps are going to climb steadily.

The situation has been challenging and I’m tired this morning, but last night was akin to stoking a wood stove all through a bitter night. If I had stayed at Laura’s, I would have come in this morning to a rig sitting at temperatures I wouldn’t be able to recover from easily in order to do today’s work.

What I find amazing is that I was fine to about -30, finding that temperature no more challenging than minus -20, which wasn’t that much worse than -10. I’ve always considered the magic number to be -10 and then after that it should be abandon ship time, but I’m revising that to -30 if I’m sheltered from the wind and plugged into shore power.

Well, I have hot air again, so it looks like cycling the furnace is all I need to do.

If I had traveled south this winter, I would still be in an area right now with unseasonably frosty temperatures, but without the ability to skirt myself in and where I’d have to pay big bucks to plug in, plus I wouldn’t have community support. I think I’m in the right place.

Beautiful frost pattern on the picture window.

Beautiful frost pattern on the picture window.

by

Typing Like Mad

Today marks a full month since I moved to Laura’s yard. It feels like a lot longer than that!

I took the summer too easy work-wise and now it’s time to make up for that. I’ve been applying like mad for contracts and, bizarrely enough, I’m suddenly getting tons of positive responses! I still need to dot a few Is, but it looks like I finally have as much as I can handle without going completely cross-eyed. The income isn’t great, but at least it’s steady. Most of the work is transcription, though, and that leaves me very little mental energy or desire to do any other sort of typing work. I’m now trying to get into a semblance of a routine that will give me a moment in the day when I can say, okay, enough for today!

I’m nowhere near that point yet, though. It’s 9PM and I have a couple of hours left to do today in order to make tomorrow manageable, although it will be more of the same.

Yesterday, C&C asked me to come help them finish insulating the inside of the addition, so I took half a day off to do that, although I’m paying for it now, hence the very long work day! But that was a good example of my making an effort to fit living back into my schedule.

I’d say all aspects of my life are going well, including the weather! Oh, we’ve had a few cold days and nights, but nothing that was unbearable, and the forecast for the rest of the week has us on a warming trend. In fact, tomorrow is supposed to hit plus 9 and if it does, I have to squeeze the emptying of my holding tanks into my schedule.

The new thermostat is definitely helping in that it’s getting me out of bed earlier in the morning, no small miracle! It was great yesterday to be able to set the thermostat for 55 while I was out all day but have it come up to 65 in the evening before I got home!

I’ve also modified my diet slightly to include more (good) carbs, which are making a big difference in how many fewer layers of clothing I need to wear! I’m still watching what I eat and am always surprised (and pleased) when I look in a mirror. It’s been a year of wonderfully positive changes!

The only thing that isn’t going so well is that the rig feels so empty. 🙁 I try to play with Laura and C&Cs cats, plus C&C’s wonderful dog, but it’s not enough. Yet, I know better than to recommit to a pet at this point. If I was near a larger city, I would try to get into fostering, but that’s not an option out here.

And of course it’s hard to be reading Croft who is in Salem, OR, right now, en route to Texas and to chat with my friend L about his impending departure for the Lone Star state, too, but c’est la vie and I’m not going to mope about it. Every decision I’ve made has led to this being the option for this winter and I’m not going to have a pity party about it!

Well, I’d better get back to work. Sleep would be nice at some point. 🙂

by

Little (Pink) Riding Hood

I thought it was time for an update. I was waiting to finish winterizing before I did that, but that’s been slow progress so you can look forward to a few posts in the next couple of weeks. I’m especially eager to share a mod that I have thought about doing for years. The part is en route and once it’s successfully installed it’ll definitely be something to blog about.

I haven’t settled into a routine yet here in Laura’s yard. I’ve picked up a new client that is keeping me very busy, albeit while paying me peanuts, while my best paying client will likely be quiet until the spring, and my favourite client is in the middle of a worrisome quiet patch. Once I get into a groove with the new client, it’ll be time to start officially working on the update for Full-Time RVing in Canada.

The weather has cycled between comfortable and BRR and is currently in a BRR period. I’m trying not to heat or wear too much so as to acclimatize. I bought a second oil-filled radiator and am running both on low. It’s not quite enough when we’re below zero during the day, so I run the furnace periodically. One of my weekend projects will be to run an extension cord from another circuit into the living room so that I can run each heater on max on its own breaker.

Now that I don’t have cats 🙁 I can have carpet on the floor, so I bought some mats for the places where I’m most likely to rest my feet for any length of time, including the kitchen sink, dressing room, and under my transcription pedal in the office. They are making a big difference!

The biggest adjustment is being back to hauling water and I’m coming up with more efficient ways of managing without running water. I have a water container with a tap set up on Neelix’s old perch by the front door, leaving my kitchen counter free. That’s almost as good as having running cold water. Next step is to find a pump-style coffee carafe into which I could pour hot water in the morning to have hot water on the ready all day for dishes. I’m still hauling waste to the lagoon and am not sure how well that will work once we get to freezing cold weather. I’m hoping that skirting and a light bulb will keep the tanks liquid.

Until today, I was getting water from the city tap that supplied me all summer. I don’t know if the tap was frozen or shut off, but there was no water today. So I headed over to Laura’s with my container after dinner. I don’t have access to the house yet, so I’ve been going over two or three times a week for a shower, usually unannounced, and I’ve never had the feeling I was bothering her. Last Wednesday, I even came in on her and a friend playing cards and I was dealt in before I even had time to decide if I had time to play or not on a Wednesday. They are still beating me, but I’m getting better!

We gabbed this evening, I took my shower, and then it was time to haul the very huge and heavy jug of water home.

Going to Laura’s always makes me think of Little Red Riding Hood going through the woods to her grand-mother’s house. Even with my porch light on, her yard is very long, very dark, and very wooded. So as I was heading out the door, Laura handed me a lantern and instructions for where I can find her little wagon.

Off I traipsed through the yard, found the wagon, brought it back to the rear porch, trundled the water as close to the rig as possible, struggled to bring it inside (remember, the front door doesn’t fully open), and then figured out how to reverse a wagon into its parking spot. This is what passes for excitement these days.

Let’s see, is there any other big news? Those of you on Facebook know that I have officially declared the Novatel Mifi a piece of garbage as a second one crapped out on me, so I’ve gone through two in four months. Ridiculous! Bell has been really good about replacing them quickly, but I’m going to talk to them about trading in for a Turbo stick instead. I borrowed Caroline’s stick over the weekend while I was waiting on the new Mifi (ordered on Friday, arrived Monday, thank you Bell!) and it was way faster than the Mifi! Heck, I can even get a bar on my cell phone over here with the booster!

Oh, how could I forget the discovery the last day it rained that I scratched my roof coming in here, ripped off some caulking, and now have a roof leak? I discovered this when I found my bed was soaking wet. Thankfully, it was just a just a drip, not a torrent, so I was able to use towels to soak up the moisture overnight. I know where the water is coming in from, so I did the sensible thing and ordered some more 6″ Eternabond as, of course, I was out. I’ll go up there on a sunny day with a hair dryer to simulate warm conditions and just seal the entire seam so I never have to think about it again.

So that’s the scoop with me. It’s a quiet life, but I’m not complaining. 🙂

by

Feels Like a Proper Saturday

Last night, Laura came by around 7:15 to let me know we weren’t going to be doing canasta. I offered her a beer (L left me enough Dos Equis to get me through the coming apocalypse and then some) and we sat on the porch for perhaps an hour gabbing. She mentioned wanting to go to Willow Bunch today to check out the thrift store and I asked if I could invite myself along. Certainly! The road out has been rough, so I suggested we take my truck.

I spent the morning catching up on my filing, had lunch, then picked Laura up around 12:45 to get to the thrift store right after it reopened from the lunch break. To my surprise, it was dead quiet.

While Laura pretty much struck out, I found many treasures, including 200′ feet of clothesline (a good start to the project!), a silicon loaf pan, a pashmina, several skirts, and a gorgeous jean coat. I spent the grand sum of $17. Their prices are really reasonable.

Laura wasn’t done browsing by the time I was beginning to suffocate on the second floor, so I went down to pay. Thankfully Caroline was in line behind me because I only had a fifty and the cashier couldn’t break it. Note to self, I owe Caroline $20. 🙂

I then went across the street to get a few groceries. I’ve had almost no appetite all week because of my damn lingering cold, but I have been seriously craving pizza. So I splurged on one, hoping it will get the appetite cycle kick started.

When Laura was done at the shop, we walked down the block to the variety store for a chocolate ice cream cone. The weather was perfect for it! And then it was time for the very long, hot, and super dusty trip home.

I’m just going to chill (well, boil) for the rest of the day. I’m not even tempted to get that new clothes laundered. As for work, I’m on call during the week, so it make sense to put in long hours then and then take weekends off. I’m rather enjoying this routine!

by

Another Day On the Construction Site

I slept in this morning, so I didn’t get to C&C’s until almost 10:00. Charles had already done some work, but Laura hadn’t arrived yet, so the workday was not yet in full swing. Even with a coffee break and then one for lunch, we got a lot of work done, finishing a whole 16′ wide section of floor. C&C and will likely start building walls this week.

The weather was the opposite of yesterday, very hot with a grueling sun. I came in and started not only the genny but the AC!!!

I had a project of my own to do this afternoon. The pipe strap holding up the exhaust on the genny had rusted through and snapped from the vibration of the genny running.

While putting some stuff away in C&C’s shop, I noticed a roll of the stuff on a workbench and asked Caroline for a 1′ section of it. When I got home, I used WD-40 to soak the bolt that held the original strap and had no trouble removing it a mere 10 minutes later. It was then a matter of five minutes to resecure the exhaust pipe.

It’s now almost 6:00 and I’m just about ready to crash for the evening. I’m glad I got a weekend outside as I am expected to be at my desk 8:00 to 4:00 each day for the rest of the month as I am covering for someone. We are expected to get good weather all week (FINALLY) so I will be sneaking away to get more work done on my pile of laundry. I won’t let it win! 🙂