Author: Glorius Curmudgeon

Categories
house construction

I’m Baaaaaack

When I was last here it was early April in the middle of the snowstorms. It is now mid-May and the weather couldn’t be different. It is now upper seventies – low eighties and spring has definitely sprung. Last month, after the Snowpacolypse, we moved the Starlink antenna up to the roof.

Putting Starlink on roof.

After we moved the antenna, we started working on the Front Deck. I had long planned on an expansive front deck, on the north side of the house to be shaded during hot weather. I had planned to move the ramp from the trailer to run along the font of the house for easy access.

Front Deck Underpinning

Above is the underpinning of the deck. The white PVC pipes are clean outs for the plumbing drains. The next picture shows the cement pad for the NE stairs

Cement pad for the stairs
Note colors are misleading

The above shows the stairs on the NE side of the porch. Note that the steps and the deck are the same colors, just a difference in reflectivity.

Front Deck showing ramp

The white ramp is painted to protect the strand board. It will be covered with planking running crosswise.

Last week I saw a turtle climbing up the slope from the pond between my house and Jills. According to AT it wasn’t a snapping turtle (shape of jaw is different).

Turtle

The turtle was very skittish and so rather than perching it on a fencepost, I herded it back towards the pond.

Categories
weather

Snowpocalypse; 03-04 April 2023

We have had the biggest snowfall in my admittedly limited experience; but it seems to be a big deal among the locals as well. It started late Sunday/early Monday and by Monday Morning dawned with light to moderate snowfall. It snowed all day on Monday and through to Tuesday afternoon.

Most of the pictures were taken Tuesday morning.

Tuesday Morning lowpoint

Ignore date/time. This is a screenshot of the low point of State of Charge (22%) on Tuesday Morning. This was about 60hours into the snow event.

48V charger.

On Monday Morning I supplemented the solar panels with a 48V/10A charger to extend battery life.

Front Door

This is the front door on the North side of the house. The wind initially started from the North, but switched over to the South then SW directions. We have never seen a buildup on this side of the house. Note the drifting against the house, with a peaking 6-8 inches away. This is the pattern all around the house.

Jills house to the East

Due to Jill’s house being on the high point locally, the winds tended to blow off any snow to prevent any build up around her house.

Screen door to South

View out the screen door; the peak the drift is about 4′ tall, the drift up against the door is about 3′ high. If you look carefully there are two trees, on either side of the pond, but the pond itself is not visible.

Solar panels blown off by the wind.

This is a view of the solar panels blown off by the winds. Throughout the snowfall the winds have blown between 30-40 knots so I haven’t had to sweep off the solar panels.

Looking out the garage man-door.

Looking out the man-door of the garage, the drifts are about 3 feet high. You can see the pond in the background.

Looking out the open garage door

Looking out the garage door you can see the 6-8 inches drifting against the door and about a foot drifting up separated from the door. The above photo was taken on Monday afternoon, below is Tuesday. You can see the increase in snow against the door.

View out garage door

This is how I would expect to leave the house this week. Note the gravel off to the left side that was blown off by the Southern winds.

It is still snowing lightly, with high clouds but with tiny snoflakes. As of 3:45pm on Tuesday the State of Charge of the battery bank is back up to 50%. I expect that I will shut down the battery charger tomorrow morning. It’s expected to be overcast in the morning changing to partly cloudy by noon.

Categories
house construction

Jill’s House 18Mar

It’s been windy over the past week, so finishing the outside paneling is on hold. So AT & Johnny have been working inside.

Flooring in Sunlight
In kitchen.

I think it looks good, it’s primarily a tan color with light brown overtones.

In the bathroom, they have started installing the shower. So far they’ve gotten the sides and back installed.

Shower Installation
Shower Installation

Once the glue/caulking dry they will put the railings up and install the semi-circular doors.

Amplifying info to follow.

Categories
house construction

Jill’s House 13Mar

I’ve got another update on Jill’s house. It’s a couple of weeks later. Progress has been slower than Jill & AT would have liked, but most of the difficulties have been worked out progress is back on track.

The cabinets have been all set, in place and fixed to the walls, and the window trim molding is in place.

Country Kitchen Window Moldings
Upper Window Moldings

The gas powered, flow through Water Heater has been installed. It is the same one that I have installed and seems to work just fine.

Water Heater

The yellow piping is the propane input the clear plastic piping is the hot & cold water lines.

Water Heater

We’re on the second day of calm, almost not wind and the major focus of today is continuing work on the siding.

Siding

The goal for today is to try to get as much of the siding as possible up before the winds start up this afternoon.

More siding

The siding is precut with 2 pieces (one for each side) stepping up in 6 inch increments. Once the sides are on working on the South wall (with all the windows, and doors, and the support beams) will begin.

And More Siding

This is about 3:00 pm, and the winds are picking up. I think we will be shutting down for the day shortly.

Amplifying info to follow.

Categories
house construction

Jill’s House 27Feb

Jill has left, flying off to Texas and SoCal. She is expected back in early April. I have taken it upon myself document the progress AT makes on her house. Here is the progress made as of Monday February 27th.

Exterior view from the North.

View from North

If you zoom in you can see the bedroom window to the right of the door. To the left of the living room window you can see a piece of wire that will run out to the mini-split compressor.

View from the South is next.

View from South

From the South, you get the views of the pond, the horses, and in the distance, Evansville and Mount Casper. We will wait until closer to Summer to decide what kind of shading will be required. Shading will be required because the heat gains from all the windows will be impressive. On the right is a sample of the blue siding that will be on Jill’s house. Visible in the background are my solar panels and the corner of my house.

Going inside, to the left is the bathroom, laundry, utility room, and closet.

Bath and laundry room.

Note the round shower is awaiting assembly. Below the window is the electric auxiliary heater. It will provide additional heat when showering, and additionally, when the temperature goes below what the mini-split can extract. To the right on entry is the bedroom.

Open bedroom.

The bedroom is open to the living room. Right now it is mostly storage during construction. Next up is the living room.

Living Room

The spot in front of the opening to the bedroom is where her sofa (currently in C-Can) will probably go. In the center of the ceiling is the fan (less blades). The white strips are the lights, and they can be remotely adjusted. On the East side of the main room is the kitchen.

Kitchen

This is a view looking Eastward into the kitchen. The hanging light over the sink is one purchased on our trip to Ikea in the Denver area. The cabinets are along the East wall and North wall of the kitchen, with a corner cabinet with rotating shelves. a better view of the cabinets is below.

Cabinets in Kitchen

Jill ordered a farm sink to fit in the open spot in the counter under the window. It arrived today.

Farm Sink

The farm sink will require some understructure to support it. AT’s plumbers have refused to install/warrantee them because of the those complications.

That’s all for Jill’s update for Feb 27th.

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Uncategorized

Happy Birthday, Sis

This last Weekend, Jan, Mike, Jill and I managed to surprise our oldest Sister for her 75th birthday. Dawn has moved into the big old convent in Rochester, MN that once housed all the nuns who staffed the Mayo Clinic. We discussed when she was visiting before she went that it was only a 12 hour drive from Casper.

Sometime this winter we decided that the 4 of us who lived in Casper could surprise her on her birthday this year. And it was a complete surprise. We left on Thursday early morning (about 4:30 am) and hit the road. We spent about 13 hours on the road (and lost an hour halfway across South Dakota) and rolled into town about 8:00pm.

We checked into a hotel and got up the next morning to meet our co-conspirator (Ramona) and set up the surprise. We were ensconced in the Walnut Room, and she went up to get Dawn on some excuse. She came in the room and looked around with a puzzled expression and a blank look for a couple of seconds (since we were all wearing masks) and then started jumping up and down shouting her favorite expletive. She has declared it the best birthday ever.

We spent two days celebrating her birthday, exploring some of the most unique dining ever. The highlight was Twig’s, a unique restaurant attached to a small hotel. Twigs specialty is a thick slice of granite, heated to 650 degrees. It is served with slices of raw beef, pork, scallops, and shrimp. You then slap the meat on the granite and cook to the desired doneness. (See Jill’s Facebook pages for pictures of food).

On Sunday morning we packed up early and headed home. On the way home we drove through Sturgis, SD and stopped for dinner. We ate at Knuckle’s, a noted eatery during the motorcycle rally in the summer.

We pulled into home about 8:30 pm after a fun & exciting trip.

Categories
house construction Solar Power weather

February Update

I apologize for the time between updates, but things are in quite a state of flux. My house is basically complete, other than finishing up the interface between my backup power and Jill’s house.

Jill’s house is progressing nicely. The electrical work is mostly done, most of the wallboard installed and roughly half of the mudding & taping is done. The ceiling fan has arrived, and the mini-split unit is waiting in the C-can to be installed.

The well water reverse osmosis plant remains an issue. While I was down in So. Cal at the end of December the mini-split unit was powered down and somehow did not get restarted. As a result, the reverse osmosis plant froze, and significant damage was done due to freezing. I’ve exchanged emails with tech support at RainDance Systems and we’re looking at $500. – $2,500. for new pumps, filters, etc. I was considering just replacing the entire system (~$13,000.) but got a surprising amount of pushback during the weekly call on Saturday evening.

For the past few weeks, I have been driving a couple of miles down to Yellowstone Hwy to the fresh water supply point and getting 4-500 gallons of water for $5.00 and pumping it into the FW supply tank in the C-can. It’s turned into about a weekly process and is fairly routine (when the weather isn’t into negative numbers). I could continue that for the next couple of months while we make progress on Jill’s house and other possible developments on the site. I may just continue as we are for the short term and wait to see where we go from here.

The other issue going on is modifications to the solar power installation up on the hill. I am modifying the solar collectors to attach to the sides of the C-cans. That is the optimum angle from sunrise to ~ 10:00am in the morning, and on the other side for evening. That will free up some square footage in the Orchard and Garden areas, as well as providing room for possible expansion of the barn area assuming we remove the trailer as planned this summer.

New Position for Solar Panels

Amplifying info to follow.

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Uncategorized

Health Update

Note: This is part of an agreement with my children, that as long as I keep them advised of my health they will no longer worry and harass me about health issues; feel free to skip this.

Had my Winter health update today with my PCP Dr. Corrie White. First the good news – my A1C level is at 5.5, down slightly from 6 months ago. My weight was 250 lbs, so I could stand to lose another 20-30 lbs which would probably help out the A1C as well.

They had me take an Alzheimer Screening Test to measure cognition and I aced it, so that was not a current problem; I had discussed a study of Viagra linking improved cognition and reducing Alzheimer biomarkers with her last time. She said that currently she could prescribe it for Erectile Dysfunction but not for Alzheimer’s prevention, especially since that was not a current problem (apparently one of the side effects of COVID-19 is a reduction in off-label prescriptions). Recognizing the correct answer when presented, I obtained a prescription for ED.

A current issue/problem is my blood pressure. At the office my BP was 160/90, they would like to see it at 130/80. But to make sure it wasn’t an issue of the “white-coat effect” she wants me to get a weeks’ worth of daily measurements. I also brought in my BP cuff to compare it to theirs and it was reasonably accurate. After I drop it off, they will consider whether to put me back on medication. I had been prescribed Losartan and Lisinopril but had been off them for a year.

All in all, it was a successful checkup; I have an appointment for another check in 6 months in early July.

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Uncategorized

New Year’s Day

This is Monday January 2, 2023, and winter continues. Yesterday it snowed all day and we woke up this morning to see the following:

30 Inch Drifts

There is a 30 inch drift out back door. The very light snow is blowing from right to left. Yesterday was New Years day and we had the appropriate celebrations.

This morning at 8:00am I got a call from the Dr’s office offering to reschedule my appointment to Wednesday morning.

Deconstructed Reuben

I, of course, had the traditional sauerkraut (a German tradition bringing prosperity). I take my dose in the form of a Reuben Sandwich.

Reuben

It was delicious.

Dressed for Outdoors

The key to weathering the storm is layering. We had some problems getting Mike & Jan’s Nissan Rogue up the slope. Mike and Jan made several attempts, but it took AT’s experience to get them up the slope.

Categories
house construction Uncategorized

Jill’s House

After visiting with my other two sisters last September, my next younger sister Jill decided to build a tiny house up on the ridge behind my house. She is using AT as the contractor and her grandson Johnny has moved up to Wyoming to apprentice to AT.

Last month they broke ground and started construction. It’s a tiny house/studio on a 20×24″ slab. She spends part of the year with family in Texas and part in CA with other family, so this is basically a refuge of her own.

We ran water and power out from my basement up to Jill’s house and ran her main drains down to my septic system. We deliberately sized my septic tank and drain field for 4 bedrooms, allowing for my 3 bedrooms and Jill’s bedroom.

Roof Rafters

The back wall was built in AT’s garage and the front one was built in my garage while I was down going on the cruise with Jan & Mike; so, the walls went up quick. Here they are almost done with the rafters.

Finishing the Roof

Here is what was completed, on the last day of December 2022. The roof is roughed in and covered with chip board. It really does look like a “horse shed, with appliances” as AT phrased it.