Weekend work party

Hi all, Mandi here.

This past weekend, my parents came up for a work party. We got quite a bit done! Jordan was on night shift all weekend, but he woke up early on Sunday and did some work with Dad. Here's what we did:

Saturday:
Mom raked up all the grass that Jordan and I had started raking two weeks ago. We dumped it in the peacock bay of the pole shed, and I'll use it as mulch for the garden next year.

Dad and I sneaking pictures of Mom while she rakes. Zim was our faithful companion all weekend.

Dad and I moved the fridge and the stove out of the trailer and in to the longhouse. We then used the router to cut hand-holds into the bottom of the kitchen drawers. The drawers were hard to pull out, but I didn't want to add handles as I like the simple look of the drawers. They're now a bit easier to pull out (though the bottom of the drawer fronts are very close to the top of the cabinet doors underneath - I can grab the hand-holds but Jordan still has trouble, owing to his larger hands).

Look at that fancy hand-hold!

Dad and I then went in to town to grab stuff for supper. When we got back, we ate. Jordan left for work, and we installed the outer vent for the dryer exhaust. I was able to crawl under the house and attach the duct hose to the existing dryer hose, but we were about three feet short of connecting it to the outer vent.

New vent hose!  Little did I know that I'd be removing it the next day...

Dad brought the quad up to the house... I'm not sure why.

We then installed the hot water tank. This involved draining and removing the old tank, moving the new one from the kitchen to the bathroom, re-jigging some of the pipes, soldering everything together, discovering there was no dip tube included with the tank, connecting the flexible hoses to the marked inlet/outlet threads, filling it, fixing the leak in the solder (twice - darn propane torch, it wasn't hot enough for the job), and discovering another leak in the hose connection to the cold water inlet at the top of the tank.

Molly curled up in the tank pan - of course, Mander (our other cat) had a fit as I was trying to take a picture, so Molly had to turn to see what was happening... and then she had to go investigate.  Oh well, she was comfy for a few minutes, anyway...

Dad soldering.

At this point, it was 10:30 at night, so we decided that we could live without hot water until the next day (darn it, now we can't do dishes, shucks). The neighbours treated us to some impromptu fireworks (thanks guys!) and we headed to bed.

Sunday:
Mom, Dad and I headed in to town for breakfast and to stop at the hardware store for more supplies. At the store, we were able to discover that hot water tanks are now intended to be installed with the cold water running into the bottom, near the drain valve, not into the top as the manufacturer had insinuated. The irony of this situation is that the old tank was installed with the cold water inlet at the bottom, and we had cut the pipe to install it at the top of the tank instead. Oh well, we picked up another six feet of copper pipe at the store, along with some more corners and attachments and a better torch, and called it good.

When we got home, Dad cut some 2x4s to create a base for a post to hold up the sagging roof while Mom and I fired up the quad for Mom to start cutting grass. This involved changing a flat tire on the brusher (which we are pulling behind the quad to cut the grass; we don't have a riding mower yet) before we could get started. The combination of the quad and the brusher woke up Jordan (oops!) so he worked with Dad to re-jig the hot water tank while I connected an insulated dryer hose under the house.

Mom chugging along on the quad, pulling the brusher - when she was done for the day, she hopped off and said "I want one!"  Her lines are very straight - she'd make a good farmer! :)

My crawlspace get-up.  There's lots of mould under there, hence the respirator.  I ended up quickly ditching the headlamp in favour of the troublelight, as I was working laying on my stomach and the headlamp was blocking part of my field of vision.  I usually have a bandana around my head as well.

The new, insulated dryer hose.  We can now safely use the dryer this winter.  Before, it was simply venting under the house, which was pushing the mould up into the house through the floor when it was running.  AND, they installed chicken wire to hold up the insulation, but they neglected to cut a hold for the end of the vent through the floor, so that was a fire waiting to happen.

Dad then jacked up the back corner of the roof and got an approximate measurement for us to work with to shore it up for the winter.

"Yup, I think that is straight..."

We stopped for supper (roast, with garden mashed potatoes and garden steamed carrots) and dessert (apple crisp baked by one of Mom's coworkers, Doreen; incidentally, she was also the woman who made our wedding cake, which was just as delicious as the apple crisp) and then Jordan left for work again. While Mom continued with the grass, Dad and I got to work installing two vents on the roof to improve air circulation; we are hoping that these two vents, another two vents, and some soffits will decrease the ice on the roof that they have apparently experienced in the past. (I installed one of the additional vents yesterday afternoon; that will be a future post.)

Back to work, Mom!  She can now work the mower better than I can, and even showed me a trick to two to keep it from clogging.  She's clever, that Mom :)

One of our new vents.  The ridge in the middle is the peak of the roof.

Dad also figured out how to level the top of the 'furnace' (we have a propane fireplace for heat). Every time the cats jumped from the furnace to the nearby windowsill or vice versa, it would rock and make a loud "BANG!" which is not the most pleasant sound at 3 am when I'm trying to sleep. Dad is one of those people who rarely hesitate to say "Well, let's take it apart and see how it works!" So while we were attempting to shore it up with pennies, one fell into the body of the furnace and when we took the top off to fish the penny out, Dad noticed two screws, one on each side of the fireplace. We fiddled with those for a few minutes, and viola! no more banging noise.

We packed everything up at around 9 pm and tucked ourselves in to bed by 10:30.

Monday morning, it was back to work for me and back home for Mom and Dad. I really enjoyed the visit with them, even if it was very short, and we got a lot of work done around the farm. They are, of course, welcome back any time (and I promise I won't work them as hard next time!).