Hello Windstorm, My Old Friend

I mentioned in my last post that I caught myself a CoViD. It's been a heck of a head-cold, and I can't remember ever sleeping this much, but I am steadily improving. Today's post is a random collection of updates, starting with NewOldHouse. Before I begin, for my US readers, have a Happy Thanksgiving. As I have years prior, I hope this year you are able to find yourself somewhere other than a retailer's line on Friday.

Canopy Calamity Catastrophe

#$%@!

This Fall, our typical 4 to 6 weeks of steady rainfall has been replaced with a couple of weeks of rain, followed by cold and dry conditions. With the cold and dry came strong blustering winds which have felled some tree branches around here, but I have heard of friends across town (closer to the Columbia Gorge) where trees went down.

In anticipation of our seasonal wet, I had assembled 4 canopies to protect cars at NewOldHouse. This was a stop-gap until I can afford to get something more substantial like a shop structure thing in the back lot so we can tinker on cars all year round. The canopies are not really designed for winds above, say, 25 mph, and definitely not rated for gusting winds pretty much at any speed. So, my plan was pitch-perfect for the kind of weather we usually get, but flat-wrong for the kind of weather we ended up with. To offset the lift presented by the wind, I used a few tactics. Tying rope from the canopy to fixed objects on the ground seemed most effective, but I also tied rope to bags of tire chains, adding a few pounds of ballast to the canopy. For the most part, this worked at current house, and I didn't lose a canopy terribly often to wind toppling it over.

At NewOldHouse, I took another step: tying a rope between the canopy and a 5-gallon bucket full of water. This worked great, until the regular seasonal breezes were replaced with a full-on multi-day wind storm. The canopy closest to the house, Jerry, got caught in the wind and it lifted up and over the eaves, slamming upside-down onto the new roof (picture on the right). Fortunately, the roof is fine, but the canopy got bent badly in multiple places, rendering irreparable. Worse, this was the canopy over Zed (recently painted 1978 280ZX), and one or more of the legs of the canopy caught the car as it was lifted and destroyed. I have removed the canopy, and if I am unable to buff-out the scratches, I may very well be painting that car a 3rd time. Sweet.

The canopy at the far other end, Bob, also flipped over, and a couple of its steel poles were fractured when it happened. Fortunately, nothing was underneath that canopy, but I had planned to put Oliver, the 1978 MGB convertible there. It's a good thing I didn't or that convertible might need a replacement top right now. Between the 2 flipped canopies, I will lose one of the 4 covered spots (Bob) as I will consolidate the not-broken pieces into a reconstructed Jerry. I don't know how/where I will put Oliver between now and when a more permanent roof is constructed. We may need to part ways to keep him in good health.

Bathroom Refresh

The bathroom in NewOldHouse was one of the areas which needed to be redone before Boo and I could really move in. Now that all the other areas have been sorted (except for the kitchen and the 1/4-round), Boo shifted focus to the bathroom. She remodeled a bathroom by herself when she owned a condo years ago, so she knows exactly how to get after this. In fact, in that effort, she needed to get down to the wall studs and floor supports. After removing the old flooring, it was discovered that some of the sub-floor was water damaged, and there had been some bug damage to the sub-floor wood after it was water damaged. The bug activity appears to have been dormant for quite some time, though. So, after pulling the sink, cabinet and toilet, she has gotten elbows-deep into repairing the sub-floor. If things go according to plan, the bathroom should be back to a usable state in a couple of weeks.

Helping Mom

My mom and my dad had been married since 1965, so his departure from this world early this month has left her in an unusual position: alone. She needs much more consistent oversight than her current lightly-assisted living (and now alone) situation provides, so my brothers, sisters and I are rapidly moving her to a facility that will provide more support and much more social engagement. One upside of her move is that she will be 4 blocks away from Boo and me, so we can visit her much more easily (she was 40 minutes one-way by car without traffic or weather issues). As part this move, however, she will be moving into a much smaller personal space, so most of her and Dad's belongings will be routing through our house before they are distributed to their eventual new owners. The old facility needs to be emptied quickly, and since we kind of have one empty house, it makes sense for the sorting to happen here where there is room and means for making tea. The other alternative was a storage facility, but those don't have heat nor tea-making and cost monthly. Her health and strength has been increasing in the days since my father passed away. We are all very interested to see just how far down this path she can go from once bed-ridden to now taking a few steps with assistance, it is entirely possible that she could return to the mobility she had 2 or 3 years ago, which wasn't tap-dancing, but she was able to move independently with a walker. As they say, we will see.

Moving Starts

move begins

While the section above about not having a bathroom might lead you to think we are not ready to move things, we started anyway. We considered waiting, but also realized that this cold, but more importantly, DRY weather will not last very long. At some point, it will either shift to freezing rain / ice or just plain rain. Either way, it is precipitation, which makes moving with an open-bed pickup truck all the more unpleasant. Also, with the sudden need to empty mom and dad's old place somewhere, we needed some clear space to deposit those things. Our current house seemed like a better option. So, we started with 2 adjacent rooms we really don't use much (front living room and the dining room-turned music room), hauling items over to the NewOldHouse. I truly believe moving is only interesting to the people who are moving, so I'll leave this update at that. As you can see in the picture, here, we started with some music gear, though the 1/4-round install has barely started. When the calendar is not your own, compromise is necessary. 

I am feeling much better, CoViD-wise. For example, Boo and I took yesterday off from our own 2-house 2-step to help Boo's sister Rose load and move a cord of firewood. The exercise in the crisp fresh autumn air was very therapeutic. That's it for today. Thanks, as always, for following along-