Dec 1st - Colder

Temps dropped a lot in the past few days. Overnight low was 22 last night, 20 is forecast for tonight. I think Saturday nights low was in the 50's.

Our gas furnace did run for a short time early this morning but the heat pump provided enough heat to keep the house at 71 degrees almost all night. From everything I've read the heat pump is MUCH more efficient (less expensive to operate) that even the most efficient gas furnace. It will be interesting to see how much are electric bills are this winter.

I got my leaky water valve sealed up today. I think I might still have a drippy connection under the downstairs sink, where I put in the new faucet a month ago. I tried tightening a fitting. Hopefully there won't be any water in catch pan when I check in the morning.

I finished the "ductwork" under Kelsey's bench this afternoon. Not really ductwork, just built a box to direct the air from the old register out to the new grill. The bench turned out nice. Kelsey is going to paint it. The "seat" is 3 pieces of 3/4" plywood that lift off for access to the storage space below.

Tomorrow is packing day and then it is off to TN Wednesday morning.

God is good, may he bless you and yours.

Nov 30th - Good Thanksgiving

Doug & Anthony came from Indy for Thanksgiving and Oliver came down from the Quad cities. David & Elaine Ott came for Thanksgiving dinner. We had a very enjoyable Thanksgiving holiday.

Kathy recently painted the back "bedroom" downstairs. She had bought a trundle bed and we had to dismantle part of it to get it into the room. We had good help taking it apart and putting it back together.

Doug brought a red flashing nose with him and Lydia had to try it out.

We just about have the dollhouse bookcase finished. Kathy finish painted it today. I still have to put the back on it and we have to pull the masking tape off.

Yesterday and today I spent time "winterizing" the Hardy boiler. I drained it yesterday and today drained the lines. I had to install a valve in the water lines so that I could isolate the Hardy from our water system. I now have a connection that is dripping so tomorrow I'm going to have to shut the water off so that I can take an old valve loose, tape the threads and reinstall it.

This afternoon I went over to Kelsey & Andy's and we worked on building a bench in/under their bay window. I had built the frame previously. There is a register under the window and tomorrow I need to duct it out through the front of the bench. Kelsey still need to sand things and paint them. If I remember I'll take a photo tomorrow. Lydia provided lots of assistance, of course. She thanked us for her "table". She got a small chair from another room, pulled it up to the bench and sat down at it.

May God bless you and yours.

Nov 23rd - Warmer and Some Rain

Temperatures have been nice here for the past several days, highs in the high 50's & low 60's. We had some rain last night and today it has drizzled rain most of the day.

Last week I ran 3 tanks of gas through my leaf blower and made several large piles of leaves. I managed to get the piles burned without setting the woods on fire <grin>. I'm also doing some woods clearing, by cutting up dead cedar trees, some still upright and some that have already fallen over. The cedar doesn't have a lot of heat value in it but a couple of wheelbarrow loads a day (big wheelbarrow) keeps the boiler running. Burning it in the boiler is better than burning it in a brush pile.

Last Thursday our heating contractor came out and installed our new furnace and heat pump. The old furnace installation is on the left and the new is on the right. I was pleased that they increased the size of a section of the cold air return. We now have a much larger filter, and one that is much easier to change. The old furnace was no more than 80% efficient, this new one is 96% efficient. (The furnace was bad, we spent $250 on it, with another contractor, and it still wasn't working properly.)

We also replaced our old air conditioning unit with a new heat pump unit that will provide both cooling in the summer and heat in the winter, until the temperatures fall below freezing, then the system will switch to the propane furnace. The air conditioning part of the heat pump is MUCH more efficient than our old one, which should make a significant difference in our summertime electric bills. The heating portion of it is much, much more efficient that even a high efficiency gas furnace. If we stop using the wood boiler our heat will be much cheaper than heating with just propane.

Old AC unit.

 

New heat pump.

I started working on a doll house bookcase for Lydia. Kelsey found the plans online. I have a lot of the "rough" work done but still have a ways to go. I'll post a photo of it when I get further along.

I went over to Kelsey & Andy's after church and helped them work on a bench seat under a bay window. We got the rough frame installed before I tired out <grin>. Lydia stayed with Grammy so that she could take a nap. No way she would have taken a nap at her house, while we were working on the bench. She would have wanted to help.

I had a routine doctors appointment last week. The doctor said all is well. Blood test work came back fine. I've no excuse for laying around doing nothing. I consider myself blessed that I can get out and blow leaves and cut and split wood. God is good!

May God bless you and yours.

Nov 17th - Cold in Central Missouri

10 degrees forecast for tonight, in mid-Nov. I'm listening to the local news as I type this, the weatherman just said November mid-Missouri temps have been an average 25 degrees below normal. Where is that global warming when we need it?

Last week I cut down a couple of dead trees up by the shed. I think the dry weather in 2011 & 2012 really hurt our trees. I can't get the splitter started so I split this by hand.

Sunday afternoon I cut up a 12' oak log I had stored out back, and split it by hand. It made 5 wheelbarrow loads of wood, 4 of which I wheeled down to the wood boiler.

I took this photo this afternoon, on my way to get more wood. This is part of the path from our main wood storage building to the wood boiler.

Our first snow is pretty. For those who haven't been to our house, our house is located directly to the left of this photo. You can see part of the driveway at the top left.

Lydia went to the Habitat ReStore with us.  The organ she is "playing" is tucked back under storage racks. She managed to wiggle her way onto the bench.

I have recently been thinking about how blessed I am. To often I tend to look at the negative side of things and forget all the positives. I have friends, family, shelter, food, and health (I'm able to go outside and spend the afternoon cutting up a log and splitting it, not bad for an old, fat guy <grin>). I have a great granddaughter and a great great-granddaughter. The great-granddaughter was sitting on my lap Sunday afternoon. She started running her hand across my bald head. She said "You don't have hair." I agreed with her. She moved her hand to the "fringe hair" I have above my ears and then said, "You have 2 hairs, and a beard." Nothing earth shattering but a special moment for Poppa.

May God bless you and yours.

Nov 10th - Campfire

Yesterday afternoon and evening I spent over 5 hours burning brush. It is dry here and there are a lot of leaves. It was a big brush pile but the reason it took so long is because I built the fire near the main brush pile and kept it small by moving brush from the main pile to the fire.

A benefit of the brush burning was a nice campfire.

Andy is roasting a hot dog, Kathy is feeding Lydia a toasted marshmallow. Kelsey is off to one side, not in the photo, in a chair. Lydia likes marshmallows. After she finished this one Kathy asked if she wanted another, and she did. Kathy got one out of the bag and Lydia ask her "don't fire it."

May God bless you and yours.

Nov 8th - Back in Missouri

Today is our son Doug's 47th birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY DOUG!!

The trip back from Tennessee was uneventful. The low the night before I left was in the mid 20's. Half way to Nashville I still had snow lying on the trucks bed cover.

Lydia was here Tuesday. She helped me with several chores <grin>.

Yesterday I cut down a dead tree by the pond.

I didn't understand why I dulled a freshly sharpened chain so fast, until I loaded the chunks of wood and saw these screws.

I didn't actually cut the screws but I did hit the edge of the heads.

Today Kathy & I cut down several small dead trees near the house. Then I decided to split the largest piece of a tree I had cut down several months ago.

At the top the piece of wood measured 20" in diameter. At the bottom it was at least 24" in diameter. It was so hard that my splitting axe just bounced off it, the same with wedges. It was so hard that....

I broke my good splitting axe, not the handle, the axe head broke in two. I managed to get the chunk of wood split into pieces that will fit into the Hardy furnace, all except the last piece. Tomorrow I may fire up my log splitter and split it as well as some other "knotty" chunks that I don't want to bother splitting by hand.

Yesterday we ordered a new heat pump and new propane furnace. Installation is to be complete by Thanksgiving. One of the guys who works for the company has a similar system. He has the controls set to heat with the heat pump until the temperature in the house starts falling. Then the system switches over to the furnace for heat. He believes that if the heat pump will put out enough heat to keep the house warm, even if it has to run continuously, it is cheaper to run the heat pump than the propane furnace. We still plan on heating with the Hardy wood boiler whenever we are home, so the heat side of the system won't save us a lot of money, but some day I will get tired of cutting wood. The heat pump is probably 40% more efficient that our old air conditioning unit. It should save us a significant amount of money during the summer months.

God bless you and yours.

Nov 2nd - Heading for Missouri Tomorrow

About finished up with what I wanted to accomplish while in Tennessee this trip.

Tom & Mary Lou took me out for prime rib Friday night. The weather was nasty with wet snow falling part of the time. The ground was wet and I didn't think it would stick. Awoke to find this Saturday morning. We are only 75 miles from Georgia. It isn't supposed to snow in October. Must have something to do with global warming.

Still looked like this Sunday morning. High never reached 40 on Saturday and Saturday night low was forecast to be in the mid 20's.

 I had to get a ladder out and clear the snow off the top of the slides so that I could retract them during the cold night.

Washer and dryer are installed and operational. I'm so happy.

I still have to clean up the construction mess in the cabin, do a little more cleaning in the motor home and then pack up my tools before being ready to leave in the morning.

May God bless you and yours.