New Fungus

Found these weird "mushrooms" out in the yard/woods.The world seems to be filled with weird fungi things.

Fall & Other Stuff

Well the leaves are turning here in the woods. This is right outside the living room door. It was made a few days ago, and more have turned since then. But it's raining again, and not so good for pix.
It still hasn't gotten real cold yet, but so far that little wood stove has kept us warm. The roof seems to be holding up well too.
Apples are in season and we're on our 2nd bushel now. In fact, The Fuzz's Sweetie is cooking up some for supper with some taters and meatloaf. Yummy!
We finally got that beat up old cookstove out of the living room and out of here. So, things do seem to be coming together.

It's That Time Again

Well the weather is cooling off a bit. And now that we have the wood stove in, it's time for firewood again.
The Fuzz's Sweetie made this nifty thing for carrying it into the trailer. Pretty handy.
Being already here in the woods, there is a ready supply of the stuff. In the past we have had to make wood cutting excursions to bring the stuff home.
But now, the stuff is out there in the "yard".
The Fuzz has been cutting up some of the trees that were pushed down to make way for our septic system. Then, he loads them in the wheelbarrow and rolls them up to the house*.
The wood is pretty much dried out, just a little damp from laying on the ground. The pieces are mostly small enough not to need splitting. Here you can see his little buddy keeping him company on the job.
On the left, you can see the trailer in the background. It's not really too far to roll the wood, and it's a whole lot easier than-
1- Driving out here,
2- Cutting it,
3- Loading the truck,
4- Driving home
5- And stacking it.
We've got a small pile covered with a piece of tarp near the door. We do keep a bit inside, by the heater, ready to use. The Fuzz usually gets up at least once during the night to check the fire and add wood. But at his age, he's usually up anyway.

How 'bout those Green walls!

*Those very professional guys who moved the trailer always referred to it as "the house". The Fuzz thought this a bit curious at the time, but now finds himself doing it.

Mystery Pix- Take 2

It seems that our latest Mystery Pix is still a mystery.
So The Fuzz wanted to give y'all another shot at it.
Different pix, same object.

So, have another go at it if you want.

New Mystery Pix

The Fuzz has been pretty busy lately. First it was that affair with the stoves, and then today we swapped in a new (used) dryer. He also had to put a new battery on his motorcycle. Before that, it was the roof, and a whole lot of rain.
But now, he thought it might be time for some fun. And what could be more fun than a Brand New Mystery Pix! And so for your enjoyment, we present our latest

Mystery Pix!

Stove In

This is the old one.
It may look fine here, but if you get a closer look, a few problems will become apparent.
You will notice that the burner elements don't appear to be exactly level.
This is because they are all pretty much "tore up".
You will also notice that there appears to be a knob missing.
And there's a reason this knob is not there.
It seems that if one were to attempt to use the burner controlled by this particular knob, this stove had a tendency to "bite".
This was not an ideal situation, and was the reason The Fuzz's Sweetie had removed this knob.
This situation, and the fact that the burners had a tendency to fall though the top of this thing, seemed like a good reason for The Fuzz to bring the relatively new stove from the old place.
So, The Fuzz and His Sweetie pulled this thing out of it's place and loaded it onto the trailer and hauled it though town, back to the old place. Then they dragged the thing into the kitchen, and then pulled the good one out. It was then that it was discovered that one stove had a 3 prong plug, whist the other had 4 prongs.
This did complicate things. But The Fuzz is not one to let minor complications stop him, and he figured he could simply swap the "pigtails", assuming the extra wire was some sort of "ground".
So he pulled the back off of the "good" stove to get to the wires. This was when he discovered this (arrow at left) situation. It seems that the terminal block was somewhat melted. This was probably caused by a loose connection, which could get a little hot.
This thing would clearly need to be replaced. Unfortunatly at this time on the weekend there was no way to obtain the necessary replacement part. So there was nothing left for it, (unless we wanted to eat cold food for a while!) but to load the old stove back on the trailer, and take them both home. And so, the old stove was re-installed.
The Fuzz's Sweetie did point out that we had actually achieved our goal for the day of moving the good stove out to the trailer, and it must be admitted that this was, in fact, the truth.
Well, The Fuzz removed the bad part and purchased a replacement after work this evening. And using it, he switched those pigtails and swapped out the stoves.
And so, we present, our spiffy "new" cookstove.

CHimney Series #7

Roofin' In The Woods (Part 2)

So here's how things stood in the morning.

We had a few of the pieces of tin in place, and there was still a lot to do.
But first things first. Now it was time for pancakes. Pancakes and coffee and orange juice and bacon, and of course, that local delicacy, livermush. But of course, there was still a lot of work ahead, so it was time to get back up on the roof. The Fuzz likes to stay on top of things.
Fortunatly, the weather remained good, not too hot, and no pouring rain.
As we were putting down the tin we realized that we would run out of those expensive screws before we ran out of roof. So Fuzz & Son headed into town to the Home Improvement Store to resupply.Here's another look at the work in progress showing the 1x4 strips the tin was fastened to. You can also see some of that tin waiting to be passed up to the hard hard workers on top.
You can't see those hard hard workers though, they must have been on break. But soon they were back on the job. Here a couple are installing the ridge caps. And lastly, a look at the finished job.Just in time for the cold, wet weather moving in. Many thanks to all those Hard Hard Workers without whom this would have been an ordeal.

Roofin' In The Woods (Part 1)

In the excitement of all this moving to the woods, you may have forgotten about the questionable roof on this trailer. We didn't have that option with winter on the way.

It was time to replace those blue tarps with something a little more permanent.
It may be remembered from past blogs, that we have ways of handling these sort of situations. So we invited the family out for another Roofing Holiday. Rather than simply replacing the shingles, The Fuzz opted for installing a brand new Tin Roof.
So we set up a roofin' rendezvous for a convenient weekend. The day before, (Fri.) he made some preparations, and even got some of shingles stripped off. The supplies had already been delivered for the most part. He did make a trip out for some nails. It turned out that, for this type of work, nails were passe. Instead, they sold him these expensive screws. He also bought some of these fancy driving "bits" with magnets inside to hold the screws and hopefully reduce frustrations.As the old shingles were removed, we found that the roof was in pretty good shape for the most part. But here, at the arrow, we did find it necessary to replace a piece.
Next, we laid out a layer of tar paper, and then 1x4 strips were nailed into the rafters.
By now it was starting to get dark, and we were getting hungry, so it was time to hang it up for the night.
The Fuzz's Sweetie, with a few helpers, fixed us up with tacos, beans and some tater wedges, while the rest just hung by the fire. So ended the first day. And so ends this post. The Fuzz says he's beat and going to bed. If he will co-operate we'll try to finish this busyness soon.

Chimney Series #6

Here's a special one.

Stayin' Warm 3

When we left off last time, we had a flue and a floor, but still no heat. So we went to the Old Place and got this small wood stove from the back room.We are hoping it will be big enough to handle this trailer which is much tighter than the Old Place.
It was pretty easy to handle on this ragged little hand truck. We strapped it on to the trailer and headed for home. We made a stop to pick up some brand new stove pipe and headed out for the woods.

When we were almost there we discovered that one of the straps had chafed through, and the other was in pretty bad shape as well. From there we took it really easy and made it without loosing anything important. Here is a rare pix of The Fuzz, himself, screwing the stove pipe together.And here is the finished project in action early the next morning.

Stayin' Warm 2

This is how we left things last time.

Here we can see this wonderful High Tech Flue from the inside. Of course this is not much use by itself.
We have had issues in the past with hot coals and such falling out of wood stoves when the door was opened. This can get a bit exciting, sometimes a bit too exciting. In order to avoid all this The Fuzz planned to lay some fancy terracotta tile in this part of the room.
The guy at the Home Improvement Store said he would have to put this weird cement board stuff down first. So he got a couple pieces and screwed them down with lots of screws. (Every 8") Next he had to mix up this cement stuff. The bag had a picture of it being done with a powerful 1/2" drill. All The Fuzz had was a stick and garden trowel. He figured "Shoot, it works for mortar". But this stuff has some kind of "polymer" stuff in it and was like rubber.
The Fuzz struggled with it for a while, and finally gave up, hoping it was mixed good enough.
The next thing was to spread it out and lay the tiles in it. Since this was being used for fireproofing under a wood stove we decided to dispense with the fancy grout that would have to be kept clean, and simply butted the tiles together.
This left an edge of the cement-stuff-base exposed. But The Fuzz already had a plan. He cut these edge pieces from 1x4's. To make them fit over the edges, he stuck his dado blade in the table saw and ripped a edge to fit. He didn't even loose any fingers.
Next time we'll see how all this came together.

Chimney Series #5

This one seems to be in better shape than the building.

Stayin' Warm 1

The Fuzz cut this hole in the wall. But it was for a good cause. It was for our Brand New, Super Duper, Insulated, Chimney. We needed this so we can once more burn wood to stay warm. If we are living out here in the woods, why pay the Power Co. for heat?
But to burn wood in the trailer, we need a method for getting the smoke outside.
The usual method is a chimney, with which this trailer was not equipped. But The Fuzz is not one to let this sort of thing stop him. So once again it was time for a trip to that, now familiar, Home Improvement Store. There he purchased the necessary components for the installation of a chimney, suitable for our new home in the woods.
To the left you can see the framing necessary for mounting this High Tech Chimney though the wall.
On the right is a pix of one of these High Tech components, sitting on the table. This is the "Tee" that passes though the wall. This High Tech Pipe is heavily insulated and they claim it can be placed within 2" of a "combustible surface". The Fuzz says he hopes they are telling the truth, or "we're in a world of trouble".
But this does have to be supported somehow.
Here's a look at the stuff mounted to the wall.
You may wonder why he bothered with the framing here on the wall. Why not just fasten it all to the studs? It is designed to fit standard 16" framing. (which we actually have for once!) Well, The Fuzz found that the "thimble" which passes though the wall would only adjust down to 4 1/2" whereas this wall is only 4". Thus he added a bit more.
Here's a look at the finished chimney*.
The neighbor boy complimented The Fuzz saying "Nice smokestack!"
I guess it does look more like a "smokestack" than a "chimney". But that's OK.
The Fuzz set some paper on fire in the stove and it did seem to draw OK. But perhaps we're getting ahead of things here. So keep watching for part 2 of "Stayin' Warm"- which we might have time to get up here soon.


*As always you can click on the pix for a closer look!

Chimney Series #4

Industrial(or what's left of it)

Mystery Pix Color Corection

As promised, Here is the somewhat less tweaked Mystery Pix.But, this seems like a give-a-way!

Chimney Series #3

This one might seem familiar to some.