Oct. 31-Nov. 6, 2021

Weather | 10/31, 39°, 56° | 11/1, 35°, 41° | 11/2, 25°, 47° | 11/3, 23°, 49° | 11/4, 27°, 51° | 11/5, 29°, 53° | 11/6, 33°, 61° |

• Sunday, 10/31: Hot Wood Heat!
  
  • I cleaned soot out of the chimney and the woodstove pipes. The chimney was really loaded with big chunks. Some chimney swift bird egg shells were in the mix (see photo, below). They're really tiny eggs. Baby birds hatched from these eggs must be the size of honey bees. After cleaning the insides of stove pipe sections with a long-handled barbecue grill brush, I put the pipe sections back together with sealant that's good to 2000°. We fired the stove up in the evening. It's good to have real heat, again, instead of rinky-dinky electric heat.
  • I carved a cat image into a pumpkin from a photo Mary took of Rosemary, our oldest cat (see photos, below).
  • Mary made a barbecue pork loin meal, complete with a salad from our winter greens, and baked a chocolate zucchini cake. It all was yummy.
  • She also did laundry, picked and wrapped up 52 Kieffer pears, and picked some strawberries. Yes, we're still getting strawberries...simply amazing! Mary also picked a New England long pie pumpkin that was buried in grass in the far garden. She picked what she considers to be the last of the tomatoes, with expected frost arriving any morning, now.
  • Our yard was full of white-crowned sparrows in the morning hours.
  • Sun was out and a NW wind blew with gusts to 32 mph all day...a good drying day.
  • We drank the last bottle of pumpkin wine (I must make more of that yummy wine) and watched the 1993 movie Hocus Pocus  (see photo, below).

Tiny chimney swift bird egg shell.

Rosemary, with her "Go Away" face.

My rendition of Rosemary carved in a pumpkin.

Our movie, with pumpkin glowing below the screen.

• Monday, 11/1: Need More Time to Dry
  
  • A call to the Sunbelt Rental office in Quincy revealed that they have six 4x8 sections of DuraDeck, but they have no knowledge of how it works. While doing more online research, I found a Corps of Engineers study on using them to make temporary hangers for F-15 jets, which weigh about 30 tons. After about 2-4 times over the areas where the panels meet, they had a deflection of 1.5 inches. A hundred passes and they were unusable. The lift is a third of that weight, but I still think I'll wait for more drying time on the lawn. The Sunbelt Rental location in Springfield, IL has 24 of these panels. I might call them to see if they know more, but I'm skeptical about the product. Probably drying time is best without using plastic crap.
    
  • Mary took out the Halloween tree and put shattered branches throughout the house.
  • She also cooked and froze the cat-faced Jack-o-lantern & 1 New England long pie pumpkin. There's not much meat in a New England long pie. One filled half a quart, whereas, the small Diablo pumpkin that I carved a cat face into filled 3.5 quarts, and that was just the parts that didn't contain my carving. The New England long pie pumpkins are history for our garden.
  • Mary made 2 pizzas. We ate one for a midday meal and one for supper.
  • I drove to LaBelle and bought another 5 gallons of diesel. I poured all but about 1.5 gallons into the lift.
  • Mary mended clothes.
  • I added moth balls to all of the plastic Gatorade bottles in vehicle engine compartments and under vehicles that help to ward off chewing critters. 
  • We had a day of clouds. Fortunately, it didn't rain. We had just a mist drop or two. The sky cleared as the sun went down and you can tell we're in for a hard freeze. I covered the winter greens with sheets and a plastic weighed down with elm logs and sticks around all edges. The U.S. Weather Service gave us a freeze warning around 8 p.m. for overnight.
    
  • While in the middle of evening chores, we saw a huge number of robins fly overhead, heading south. It's the most amount of robins we've seen all year.
    
    
• Tuesday, 11/2: We Rented Plastic Panels, After All
  
  • A call to Sunbelt Rental in Springfield, IL, revealed that the DuraDeck panels work. He told me I still will make a rut in the lawn, but they help me get over the soggy ground. He recommended I get them, so I drove to Quincy, IL, and rented 8 of them. They had 2 more that weren't in the computer at Sunbelt in Quincy. Three of the eight contain cracks, so they break up over time. The guy helping me load them into our pickup said the last guy to rent them was a billboard person, but they sat in their lot for 6 months. I got back home too late to try them out. That task begins tomorrow morning.
    
  • Before I left for Quincy, I tried and tried to remember the combination I put in the bike cable/lock holding the spare tire in the bed of the pickup, but failed to recall it. After an hour, I cut it with a hacksaw. Surprisingly, it took less than a minute to saw the cable...damn cheap Chinese crap! While in Quincy, I bought a 5-foot piece of chain and a keyed Master padlock. Keys are better for dumb farts who can't remember!
  • I also picked up 2 more gallons of roofing cement.
  • Gas was $3.19 at Fastlane. It was $2.99 a gallon just a little over a week ago.
  • Mary pulled up the wooden posts holding the chicken wire on the south end of the far garden. Due to loud suction noises while pulling posts, she's planning on no-till planting of the garlic crop this year.
  • We had a killing frost this morning. Pepper and tomato plants are black/green. But, our miraculous strawberries are still thriving. The plants looked like nothing touched them.
  • While I was not remembering my lock combination, Mary spotted a bald eagle beyond my bald head. She said, "That's a big bird." She thought it was kinder than telling me to look at the bald eagle.
  • Bill told us via texts that he is helping his friends, Erin and Mike Push, move into their new home. He's getting a bookshelf and has to make room, so he is giving us a plastic/metal coffee table thingy. 
  • Karen and Lynn are on their way home to Georgia, with their belongings in a rental truck. They left Gillette, WY this morning. Karen texted that they're in Mitchell, SD tonight.
    
    
• Wednesday, 11/3: Panels Work
  
  • After I wrote this blog last night, Katie called to tell me that DuraDeck panels are great. In the job she had in 2019 helping to build the village of Mertarvik, AK, to relocate residents of Newtok, UIC used DuraDeck panels to get around in swampy tundra conditions prior to bringing in gravel to build permanent roads. Katie said the panels are amazing and they had equipment heavier than the lift I'm renting using that stuff.
  • In other Katie news, she's still waiting for metal roofing for the school in Venetie, AK. For the past couple days, the aircraft to fly the material into Venetie is down for repairs. It looks like she will be working through Thanksgiving on that job. She plans to visit us for Christmas. There is an outpatient medical procedure related to her burns that Katie will do in January in Seattle where she needs somebody to help her get back to the hotel. I volunteered to help her with that situation. Details will come in the future.
  • Mary and I moved the lift across the lawn using the DuraDeck panels (see photos, below). They worked great! At one point, the lift started to go off one  panel and the wheel was sinking. Mary waved me back on the panel. The lift would be up to the axles, if not for those panels. We did a lot of jostling of the lift to get it into position (see photo, below). 
  • I started with tar paper hanging loose on the roof (see photo, below), and spent the afternoon hammering cap nails into the bottom sections of tar paper that stayed on the roof. I also replaced three 8-foot sections near the top of the south-facing roof slope.
  • Mary popped garlic bulbs into cloves, which will be planted, soon. She did a garlic variety every half hour, so with 6 varieties, it took her 3 hours.
  • We had a second hard frost, overnight. Mary said green strawberries were semi transparent and damaged, but the plants are green and thriving, with blossoms. They are amazing.
    
  • Mary spotted 2 bald eagles high in the sky. She also identified a bunch of white-throated sparrows on top of the mound of weeping willow branches we have in front of the chicken run. She also saw a yellow-rumped warbler at the top of the Kieffer pear tree.
    
    

Easing the lift across the lawn.

DuraDecks bend, but keep the lift out of the mud.

We took all morning to get the lift into position.

Our sorry-looking roof, before I began, today.

• Thursday, 11/4: Roof and Garlic Planting Prep
  
  • Up at 6 a.m., we walked the dogs, I lit a fire, and we enjoyed breakfast and a pot of coffee. I fueled the lift at 8 and started in on the roof. White frost was on the ground and the roof.
    
  • Mary made flour tortillas, the basis for bean burritos at noon, and chimichangas after dark.
    
  • I finished replacing torn-up tar paper and completed hammering cap nails into tar paper on the whole roof. Next, I put drip edge flashing on the rakes. I used to call everything eaves. That's not right. Eaves are only the horizontal edges of the roof. Rakes are the roof edges at an angle. Then, I installed new W-valley flashing. With an old, rusty trowel, I slathered on a foot-wide by an eighth-inch thick chunk of tar at each junction in the valley flashing. Roofing nails every 2 feet anchored the flashing onto the roof. A 3- to 4-foot piece of the valley flashing is left to install near the roof's peak, then I'll waterproof all sides of the flashing. A photo I took at 6 p.m. (below) show's end-of-day progress. I hope to be installing shingles sometime tomorrow.
  • Mary removed and rolled up chicken wire fencing from the south end of the far garden. She put old persimmon posts in the machine shed. After drying, they become firewood. Mary plans on planting the first two garlic varieties, tomorrow.
  • Katie texted Mary the following message, "Just got word that the GM of construction for my company was asking my PM (project manager) what my plans were after this project is over, and was interested in having me come into the office for the next few months to help plan and estimate projects with the estimator guy who bids on projects." It will give her work through the off-season. Katie added, "Usually, people doing that have college degrees. I must be doing something right."

  

  Progress on our roof at end of today.
  

• Friday, 11/5: More Roofing/Garlic Work
  
  • We were up again at 6 a.m., but slow to get going. I didn't start working on the roof until 9. 
  • I cut, then added the last piece of W-valley flashing near the chimney, after adding a foot-long slathering of roofing cement to the top part of the next lowest piece of flashing. Then, I carefully marked with a white grease pencil where the shingles' edge will be on both sides of the valley flashing, from the top to the bottom. It's 2 inches away from the center ridge at the top to 5.75 inches from the center ridge at the bottom, or a widening of 1/8 inch for every foot down the valley flashing. Using a 4-foot level as a straight edge, I measured a half-inch wider every 4 feet and drew 2 lines down the valley. Normal people with reasonably sloped roofs use a chalk line, taking only a minute to make. Mary didn't like the idea of perching her butt at the chimney, like a vulture, while I rode the lift down to the base of the roof to pull a chalk line tight. So, it took me over an hour to draw proper lines on our stupid steeple roof. WE HAVE TO EVENTUALLY GET OUT OF THIS SHACK!!!
    
  • Mary washed 2 loads of bedding and cut small pieces of firewood with a handsaw.
    
  • There were texts and an email that I have a teeth cleaning appointment a week from today. I called during lunch hour and canceled it, because I don't know if I'll be done with this roof by then. Plus, it's on the day before deer season.
    
  • Mary planted 2 garlic types in the far garden. They were Siberian and Georgian Crystal. She also cleaning muskmelon vines out of the next row.
  • I waterproofed and sealed the sides of the valley flashing by sticking down 10- to 13-inch wide by 4.5-foot long pieces of ice and water barrier over the two sides of the 26' 4" length of the metal flashing. I first cut 14 pieces and labeled them. Next, I removed staples every 4 feet, so I could ease 2 pieces of ice barrier under the existing tar paper, but over the metal valley flashing to the mark I made this morning. Then, I'd pull the plastic backing off the ice barrier, and stick the barrier to the metal and roof. Finally, I tacked tar paper back over top of the ice barrier with cap nails. I overlapped every ice barrier length by 6 inches. I finished at the top after the sun set. Shingling starts tomorrow.
    
  • Wind blew with 20 mph gusts all day. At one point, a gust blew the bottom of a piece of ice barrier up the valley and into my face, and sent my hat over the roof top to the north side of the roof. I picked it off the other side of the roof while cleaning up for the night.
  • I fixed waffles for our evening dinner, since we didn't get any this morning. Dessert was muskmelon frozen earlier this summer. Yum, yum!
  • I saw a monarch butterfly this afternoon. We heard a great horned owl after sunset. I saw a buck running ahead of me on the gravel road, when I drove to Prairieland Farm Services to buy 5 gallons of tractor diesel for the lift. The deer had a large rack, but he wasn't a large buck.
  • Some commercial forester is cutting down timber somewhere south of us. We hear chainsaws all day. The timing is great for chasing deer our way. Deer firearms season starts on Saturday,  Nov. 13th. Archery season is already underway.
    
    
• Saturday, 11/6: Shingles Are Going Up
  
  • Roof work started at 8:30...better than yesterday. I cut tabs off 3-tab shingles and used them as starter shingles. Then I began nailing shingles on the roof, starting at the bottom. It went slow at first. I had to knock out kinks in my procedure. As the day progressed, I developed a rhythm and more got done. After the sun set, I started on the 12th course of shingles (see photo, below). I'm at the narrow part of the roof, so there's a lot more cutting and using tar to hold small pieces of shingles in place over parts of the metal valley flashing. As I go further up the roof, it gets wider, which means more hammering and less cutting and fitting shingles next to the valley.
  • Mary moved a blooming Christmas cactus from the upstairs bedroom to the living room. It's loaded with flower buds.
    
  • Mary planted the Samarkand and Shvelisi garlic after cleaning up the 2nd row of the far garden. She started working on the cleaning up the 3rd row, after she finished planting for the day.
    
  • Bugs were out is full force. Asian lady bugs were crawling over everything on the roof. Several hundred are squished under shingles. Mary experienced flies biting her in the far garden. Bug dope took care of biting flies.
  • Right before lunch, I heard a red-tailed hawk, looked up and saw 2 that were high in the sky, but dropping fast. I banged on the sunroom windows. Mary came outside and I told her what I saw. She never saw the hawks, but the chickens were hiding under the weeds along the fence line and seemed happy to see her. 
  • White-throated sparrows really like our mound of dead weeping willow branches. They have an extremely pleasing song. Mary saw a big flock of red-winged blackbirds flying south at dusk.
  • Karen texted this morning that she and Lynn made it home to Georgia, with their belongings from Wyoming, yesterday afternoon. She added that most of the U-Haul is unloaded.

  

  Mary took this photo at dusk of me on the lift
  and the shingles in the background. I'm almost
  to the point where the roof turns steeper.