Rainy Day Jobs - November 20, 2019 @goldenoakfarm

Clean under the sink after the flood

Wednesday was to rain off and on all day, so we all planned a day in the barn tending to various chores. My intern was to be here also.

My husband’s first job was fixing the plug on his new (to him) large table saw. It had been waiting for this for several months, and been being used as a table in the stall we stored the windows in. We cleaned it off and he started on the plug.

While he was doing this we hooked up the water to the butchershop again. But as I had not done it before, I didn’t remember to close the valve draining the hot water heater, and it blew all over the floor.

So once we’d cleaned that up, we went to the window stall and moved the 3 windows I have to work on. There was a door I’d not gotten done in the cold room, and it had to be moved out and set behind the windows on the pallet. My husband did this and went back to his plug. My intern and I covered the door with trash bags to protect it and moved 2 of the windows back onto the pallet.

Then we took the little awning window into the cold room and took it apart. We set-up the cold room and turned on the heat. This is where I will be working for 2 – 3 hours at 5AM every morning for the next 8 days or so until the windows are done.

Then we moved the table saw out of the window stall. It has an extension for working with plywood and the stall was too small for it. One of the jobs we had for my intern was cutting gussets on this saw. But once he got it running and the extension on, he discovered the blade is dull. So no cutting on Wednesday.

He went to work on getting the truck inspected. He’d gotten the 2014 Subaru inspected earlier and the 2003 Subaru needs to be inspected also. But Wednesday was the truck’s turn. The truck needed a floorboard, lights repaired, and some other minor stuff. He needed parts so he headed out for those.

While he was still out buying parts for the saw and truck, my intern and I had tackled the wood pile by the old table saw in the barn. We bagged up all the small stuff for kindling and stacked the stuff needing cut up. We finished just as he needed to get the truck into the barn.

So we collected a bunch of grain sacks and went up to the house to sort the huge pile in his work area.

The pressure treat was bagged separately as we won’t burn that. A single bag held the small stuff and 5 bags held the stuff needing cut smaller and/or split. The plywood of any size was stacked against the addition, and the rest went into a pile for being cut up.

We got the 5 bags into the car and dragged them into the barn and dumped them into the cut up pile already there. He was still working on the truck and I was getting pretty exhausted. So we quit and took a rest until lunch. I’d thought we’d finish cleaning off a plant that had not gotten done on Tuesday, but we ended up discussing books and movies and things we’ve been listening to.

My husband didn’t get the truck finished as we had an appointment in the afternoon. Thursday looks to be a nice day, maybe 50F and sunny, so hopefully he will be able to get on the roof and get the underlayment on.

We think the one remaining pipe of the old septic system has cracked. We discussed getting it fixed now or in the spring and had opted for spring. But ruminations in the night now make me think that’s not a good idea.

It runs under the stone steps and that’s why it was not replaced. But if it is leaking under the steps, I think it might undermine them. Not a good thing…

If we do decide to replace it, it will be in a different place, meaning another wrecked flowerbed. If it’s to be warm on Thursday, digging the bulbs and plants could happen as my helper friend will be here.