Home again, home again, jiggity jig

My husband came and picked me and Brio up and hauled us home. Sort of scary how much noise bothers me now -- I got used to quiet and solitude! But no doubt I will adjust again. It feels good to be back in a fully-functioning kitchen, with sunlight streaming in. Feels good also to send back my bag of library books and know there are stacks more waiting for me upstairs. I was running low at the church.

All done!

Hayters came out this morning, cheerfully tightened the joint that wasn't tight enough (condensation not being channelled properly), inspected everything, and left again. No drip. Heat working. Can I breathe a sigh of relief yet?!

Water seems to be a theme

Last night I noticed water inexplicably seeping out from under the new furnace. Doesn't seem to be coming from the dehumidifier. Perhaps it has been doing this since the furnace was turned on on Monday, and I just didn't notice because of all the water from the leaking water valve across the room. Now that that has dried up, I see a fresh puddle under this super-duper, super-expensive furnace. I tried mopping it up and then watched to see if it came back, and it did. Yet another call to Hayters. This is, what, the sixth or seventh? Sigh. I'm supposed to go home tomorrow, so I hope they can come today.

Three cheers for Bob Magee!

Turned off the water and called the plumber, Bob Magee in Forest, first thing this morning, and he sent someone out right away. In fact, the man came twice, because unfortunately I didn't hear him knock the first time and neither did Brio, who usually alerts me. But he came back again a short time later and knocked persistently until I heard him. Replaced a valve and some fittings, and presto! we have running water again. I am very grateful and impressed and will definitely use them again (though hopefully not soon!).

So theoretically everything we needed to do before winter has been done. Propane and heat? Check. Water? Check. Dehumidifier? Check. Waterproofed the basement? Check. Windows ordered? Check, though won't be installed until spring. Gravel driveway in so we don't sink to the axels in mud? Check. Batteries in the smoke alarms, internet installed, new sump pump, heating wire on the water pipes in the crawlspace, eavestroughs fixed, roof inspected, old oil tank removed, environmental study done...Can't think of anything else we have to do. Maybe (and I want to whisper it so that Fate doesn't hear me say it aloud and come swooping down to spoil things) we can now concentrate on paying off debts and not have to put anything further into this place until spring. Maybe I'll have time now to work on those stained glass windows I started.

My husband is supposed to pick me up on Saturday. But since the internet is out at home and I want to make sure it's working again before I leave the reliable internet here at the church, I have asked him to ensure it's all functioning before he picks me up. That way I won't jeopardize my work. Hoping for the sake of my son in online college that it's up and running soon!

Brio has not tired of playing ball over the past two weeks, but he does seem a bit mopey. I think he may be homesick. Me too.

De-Stressing

Heat working beautifully. Now we've apparently sprung a leak in the main water pipe coming into the building, so I've shut the water off while trying to locate a plumber. If it's not one thing, it's another. And I'll really be miffed if I haul someone out here and pay a huge fee and then find out it's something I could have fixed with a wrench if I'd had one.

It occurs to me that this blog seems to have become a place to dump my stress, which is not at all what I originally intended. So I think I should write about the non-stressful things about this place. Like the early morning light setting the stained glass windows aglow. The soft ticking of the baseboard heater at night in an otherwise silent space. The reliable, fast internet. The wide stretches of empty fields all around me, bordered by bare trees, alive with the song of birds I don't recognize. The melodic honking of Canada geese rising from the lake en masse. The joy in Brio's eyes as he chases the ball around the rec room. The unbelievably huge stars in the black sky. The tangy smell of apples being crushed in the warehouse down the road. The time and isolation to take long walks down quiet roads, or just sit still and breathe. The soft weathered gray of the barn I pass on my walks.

Much to be grateful for.

Whew

 Seventeen degrees celsius and I feel like I'm roasting. I've gotten used to the usual 9 degrees, I guess! I do enjoy being able to venture down to the kitchen without a coat on, though!

We have heat!

 For real this time. Yay! We're up to 11 degrees again already.

Power Outage

There was a planned power outage this morning, though it lasted four hours instead of the anticipated three. I had revved up the baseboard heaters in the bedroom ahead of time, to carry us through, and all was well. But I was struck how silent the building is when the power is off. No humming fridge, no electric clock, no dehumidifier roaring, no ticking of the heaters, no buzz of the overhead lights. Pure silence like cotton in my ears.

No watching Hallmark movies or cooking up a pot of pasta. There was nothing to do but lie in bed and keep warm and try to read by the dim light coming in the window. And it was dim because it is snowing today. So I guess I did get to watch a movie of sorts: Snow Falling on Cedars. Literally, out my window. It was peaceful and meditative and lovely. I wish I had a camera so I could show you a shot of the eight tall cedars in our yard, flocked white and beautiful with snow.

It turns out it's a good thing I had to stay an extra week here at the church, because the crew doing construction on our block back in the city accidentally cut our Rogers cable. My husband and son and renters are without phone, internet, or TV until Tuesday. If I weren't here, I would have missed a couple of days of being able to work and my virtual doctor appointment on Monday. So there is a silver lining to my extra unanticipated week here. I hope it gets restored soon, though, because our new renter moving in next week is coming to live with us specifically because he didn't get good internet at his old place. We guaranteed him ours worked fine. Sigh.

Mystery solved

 I talked to Pat today, the owner of Warwick Orchards. She seems very nice and breeds Belgian Shepherds. I asked her about the downed trees, and she said they're taking them out because they don't have enough workers to manage them and harvest the apples. And there will be more taken out too. It seems such a shame, when so many people are out of work, that she can't get workers. Heartbreaking to think they have to remove the trees as a result. Makes me want to go help pick.

Staying On

I have decided to stay another week instead of going home tomorrow, so that I'm here for Hayters' visit on Monday. I just don't feel it's a good idea to give them the key and have them do the work while we're not here to keep an eye on things. I have extra supplies this time, including dog food, so I'm better prepared. Another week of the air mattress might maim me, but it is what it is.

Meanwhile, I'm thankful to know that once the furnace is running, it will do a good job of heating the place up quickly. Even with the upstairs not blocked off, it raised the temperature in super speed.

Spoke too soon

 Well, we got up to 15 degrees, and then Dudmans discovered Hayters had never installed the conversion kit on the furnace so that it can handle propane. It's still set for natural gas. The kit is sitting there in a box, uninstalled. So they have to come on Monday -- no one available today -- to fix it. Geez. Back to hating Hayters. And no heat again. At least the end is in sight! But really, it shouldn't take so many visits from Hayters to get this machine running.

HEAT, BLESSED HEAT

Dudmans arrived at 9:00 this morning with a nifty trenching machine that looks like a snowblower with a chain saw attached to its nose. It cut the trench slick as a whistle in no time flat. The tank was delivered, the pipe laid, all hooked up, and the HEAT IS ON! I will never take warmth for granted again. In just five minutes it has raised the temperature indoors by a degree. We're at 11 now! I'm dancing with joy.

A Mystery in the Orchard

I went out to walk Brio at lunchtime and passed by Warwick Orchards, a big spread of maybe 400 acres of fruit trees and berry bushes. It's a lovely, well-kept place, and there's always the smell of apples being pressed coming from their warehouse. I noticed today, though, that about a hundred of their young trees have been knocked over and uprooted and left lying in their rows, among their scattered red apples. These were old enough trees that they were producing well. I'm wracking my brains to figure out why they would rip these trees out. They didn't look diseased. Surely they knew what variety they were planting. Are they clearing the way for something else? Was it vandalism? It was a bit distressing to see this unexplained destruction. I would have happily transplanted some of those trees to my yard. I have to trust that they know what they're doing, because the orchard looks very well run on the whole.

I wandered by the warehouse to see if I could find someone to ask, but no one was about. I'll watch over the next day or two and see if they get cleaned up, and what they are eventually replaced with.

Cold!

The propane was supposed to go in tomorrow but has been delayed until Friday. I have to head back home early Saturday morning for a doctor appointment, so it won't give us much chance to see if the furnace is working. Meanwhile, I'm huddled with the space heater and Brio, trying to keep warm. It's been 10 or 11 degrees celsius (indoors) all week. The power has gone off three times, leaving me in darkness and even colder temperatures for an hour here and there. Thank goodness for the battery-operated motion sensor lights in the stairwells!

I took Brio on a brisk walk to the park this morning, but the wind was so strong it blew his ears straight out and gave me an "ice cream" headache, so we didn't stay out long. A dusting of snow. I know the wind is strong because I see tree branches down all over, but inside the church I'm hardly aware of it. An occasional whistle at the window. Otherwise it feels snug and solid and safe. Just wish it had heat!

Isolating at the Church

I'm heading back up to the church for the week, to meet propane people (now bumped to Nov 20) and to just isolate for a while away from this hot-spot of Covid cases. I'm taking extra food in case I stay another week after that, or in case I get snowed in, or whatever. Just good to have extra on hand.

It means another week of living without heat, and another week of incessant ball-throwing for Brio, who is insatiable. It means another week to myself, to read and watch movies and do puzzles and go on walks and work on stained glass windows. Well, and to work remotely too, of course. But it doesn't seem like any sort of hardship when I'm otherwise relaxing in a lovely place, with no other distractions.

I look forward to seeing if the eavestroughs have performed as hoped. I look forward to long, cold walks in the fresh air with the smell of the earth and leaves and apples.

Change of Plans, and Eavestroughs

 My husband got the car back from the shop, so he headed up Saturday afternoon to get me after all. And had car trouble just outside London. Ended up staying the night in a seedy hotel and found a nice Canadian Tire to fix the car Sunday morning. Picked me and Brio up and brought us home. So I'm not shivering over dry oatmeal after all! I'll go back up next weekend so I'm there for the propane delivery on the 18th.

Here are before and after shots of the eavestroughs, to give you an idea of what I'm talking about. The contractor who installed it for us thinks it will work well and was rather enamoured of the whole unique idea. (And a shout-out to Ray Nissan of Grand Design Renovations and his patient cousin Pierre!)

Still Camping

So the plan was that I would be here for a week to meet various service people and then my husband would pick me up again (today). But he has had to put the car in the shop, and there is a lot happening at home that he has to deal with this weekend, and then we're back to Monday and he's back to work and can't pick me up until the following weekend. Except I have to be back up here the 18th to meet the propane people (heat, blessed heat!) so I may as well just stay here until hubby can fetch me the following weekend, on the 20th or 21st. So...the one-week stay looks like it will be a three-week stay.

This poses some interesting logistical problems. It means nearly three weeks lived at 12 degrees celsius, which is doable but not comfortable, especially for Brio. I have a washing machine, so clothes and towels aren't a factor. But I only brought so much dog food with me, or people food, not having anticipated a lengthy stay. I'm looking at my meagre stores and puzzling over how to ration it in the most effective way. Pasta and tomatoes. Oatmeal. Some rice. A serving or two of couscous. One bag of frozen vegetables. Some canned tomato soup, corn, peas, and pork n' beans. One bottle of peaches. A half tub of margarine. And luckily I brought all my medication with me and not just my "weekly pack." 

I think I can do that. It's not too difficult, and if I get desperate, the local gas station sells chips and crackers. What worries me more is the lack of reading material, and the fact I have two library books with me that are due, and a doctor appointment I'll have to reschedule. Thank goodness I have internet! What did pioneer women do without that? And I feel bad that I'm camping here in relative peace and quiet while my husband scrambles to get everything done at home. I have the easier load to haul.

So. Two more weeks. I will regard it as a retreat. Or fat camp. I will do yoga and calisthenics (to keep warm). I will nibble dry oatmeal for breakfast, I will play endless hours of fetch with Brio to keep him warm too. I will watch every Hallmark movie available on Youtube. I will pretend I'm back in lockdown.

Brio having a ball

 

He will hold this position forever until you finally throw the ball.

Camping around the edges

 I can tell that I'm not entirely at home yet here at the church. I can tell because all the belongings we've brought up so far are congregated in little piles around the edges of rooms. They haven't been spread out to actually claim spaces, as if I'm afraid of encroaching on someone else's territory. In the kitchen I have a dozen cupboards but I'm only using three of them. The chairs in the rec room are lined up against one wall in a row like a theatre, waiting for someone to come on stage. A few items are piled at the bottom of the stairs, either newly arrived or heading home. It's like when you go to a hotel, and you don't transfer your belongings from the suitcase to the dresser because you think "I'm only here a short while." Or -- more likely -- "If I put stuff behind cupboard doors, I'll forget where I put them and leave something behind." There's that same sort of timidity going on here at the church. If I put bottled fruit in the cupboard, I'll immediately forget it's there. So I leave it out on the counter... My clothes are in the gym bag they came in even though I have perfectly adequate hangers and I'll be here for a week...The tools we leave here at the church to use are not in the utility room on the shelves meant for tools, but are congregated in a box in the rec room, as if we're afraid to let them out of sight...like new-born puppies we want to keep an eye on for a while.

It makes no sense, really. I'm not sure why the hesitation to expand and move in. Maybe the previous occupants haven't totally moved out? I'll know I'm totally, comfortably at home here when I no longer have to give much thought to the placement of objects. Until then, it still feels a bit like camping.

Well, and I'm sleeping in a sleeping bag. And there's a flashlight by the bed in case I have to get up at night, because I have no idea where the light switches are...So yeah, definitely still camping.

Getting Some Little Things Done

 

Batteries put in the smoke alarms and the motion-sensor light at the top of the steep back stairs. Grey foam wrap slipped around the water pipes in the crawl space (where the miracle of the hot water heater is still holding. I check often throughout the day, breath held, and offer prayers of gratitude each time). Rec room vacuumed. And I’ve fashioned a big pillow of plastic sheeting, pink insulation, and two-sided tape, to block the one gothic window where we’ve removed the stained glass. (There’s still fibreglass on the outside to keep the damp out.)

The eavestroughs are filled with maple leaves and water is still spilling onto the foundations. I really don’t want the expense of adding gutter guards, and I’m not convinced their designs are any good anyway, Leaves still can land on the flat surfaces and clog the tiny holes in them, and our ones on our city house have been pried apart and inhabited by birds. So we’ve been trying to think of an alternative.

My amazing, problem-solving husband decided what we really need instead of eavestroughs is a French drain, something that will collect and funnel water out without clogging no matter how many leaves pile on top. So he bought 160 feet of corrugated, perforated black plastic irrigation pipe and rolls of thin black wire. Our contractor will come in the next couple of days to clean out the troughs and then lay the pipe in the eavestrough. The pipes are 4” wide and the troughs are 5”, tapering at the bottom, so the pipes will lie snugly in them with only a bit poking above the edge but leaving a free channel in the bottom where the round pipe curves away from the squarish eavestrough. Where the troughs are held to the roof by clips, the pipe will either be cut (and butted up against each side of the clip) or---the solution I think is better---we can cut a 1” notch in the bottom side of the pipe to fit snugly over the clip but leave a bridging piece on top to keep leaves out. The theory is that rain water running off the roof will be able to get into the trough via the corrugations in the pipe, collect in the bottom in the triangular channels formed between the round pipe and the square trough, percolate through the perforations in the pipe, and run merrily down to the downspout regardless of how many leaves pile on top of the round pipe. Voila! A French drain suspended twenty-five feet in the air. We’ll anchor it here and there with twists of black wire encircling the pipe and the eavestrough.

I can’t wait to see if this inexpensive and innovative idea works. I really think we’re onto something. And the nice thing is, it can be installed in our old, battered troughs without having to replace them, and if we ever do replace them, the pipes can easily be transferred over.

I have an increased respect for water, a newly deep awareness of the role it plays in both sustaining life and breaking objects down. A house can do without many things, but it has to be water-tight.

Pie Shelves Turned to Pantry

 

I have started stockpiling a bit of food and other supplies at the church so that our visits can be longer. The pie shelves in the kitchen are too narrow to allow for cans to be stood upright on them, so I’ve written each can’s contents on the lid with a Sharpie and put them on their sides. Ditto little mason jars of spices and herbs. 

I’ve also brought up some DVDs I can watch in the evenings on the computer. Last night was The Help. Today was Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. And the great thing about it is I’m here alone, so I can dance to the musical all around the rec room and no one will see but Brio.

The Crowing of the Coyotes

 

Halloween night. I took the dog out one last time before bed. Dark as only a country road without streetlights can get. A nearly-full moon caught in the tree branches. A cold wind blowing. Stars starting to come out in the inky sky. And then…a howl. Far off, one high-pitched note suspended in the air. A cold, lonely sound. Solitary, not a pack. Not a wolf. A lone coyote? Not quite. What then? Again and again, that one sustained note. And then I heard the little tell-tale yip at the beginning and I could identify it. It was…a rooster.

Came inside again, giggling at myself. Silly city woman. Chilled by the howling of a rooster.

On My Own

 

I am spending a week at the church, dealing with various service people, while my husband remains in the city to work and deal with the finishing of the basement. That was supposed to happen last week, but because of various delays, it won’t be finished until this week. Except today a new renter arrives and will need the room my son has been borrowing while the basement is being completed. So my son will shift all his stuff into our room and be bunk mates with my husband for a week while the final basement renovations are finished, my husband will deep clean the renter’s room, and the new renter will arrive. And hopefully this week my son will move back to the basement. Lucky me, I get to hide at the church and avoid all that chaos. If the internet is successfully installed tomorrow, I may even finagle an extra week up here, and by the time I eventually come home, the renter’s quarantine will be almost over.

My son scolded me a bit before I came up here because I don’t have a car or cell phone, and no internet until it’s installed on Monday. What if I need anything? What if I fall down the stairs and break an ankle and can’t get help? What if I get snowed in and can’t get groceries? Those fears don’t worry me. There are neighbours on each side, and so many workmen coming in and out that eventually someone will find me.

Our husky young contractor, Ray, confessed to my husband that he would never stay in the church at night alone. The idea freaks him out. I feel no fear or nervousness about it. This is a solid, welcoming, friendly building with a long history of generosity and kindness to others. I feel perfectly comfortable here. Except for the fact that there’s no heat. That’s a tad annoying. I could manage it just fine by staying barricaded in the bedroom with a space heater, but Brio isn’t thrilled at staying in one small room all day. He wants to be down in the rec room, playing fetch with his red rubber ball, even though he’s freezing cold once he stops and holds still.

I love my family and have friends and enjoy my work, but I also really, really like being alone. I look at my hobbies---writing, reading, gardening, handicrafts, weaving, walking---and all of them are activities done alone. I relish curling up with a book and blanket or sitting on my yoga mat, knowing that there’s no one expecting anything of me at that moment. No conversation, no questions, no guilt for eating cold cereal for supper if I feel like it. No one rolling their eyes when I watch Seven Brides for Seven Brothers for the hundredth time.

Tomorrow I have the internet people and environmental study people coming. Tuesday I have the propane guy coming to decide if they can install propane (hopefully soon!). And at some point Ray will appear to do the eavestroughs. But otherwise I am free and on my own until next Saturday, and there is a bone-deep pleasure in knowing that.

Right now I’m in the bedroom, my laptop perched on a plastic stool while I sit on a cushion in front of it on the floor, and Brio is flaked out on the bed. It is completely silent except for the clicking of the keyboard and the steady ticking of the heater and the buzz of the fluorescent light (soon to be replaced). An entire Sunday to spend quietly by myself. Pure peace.