Got 'er!

For the last three or four weeks we have been visited at night by a raccoon (Procyon lotor). In itself, that would not be a concern. But this particular raccoon has not been very neighborly.

She is not particularly afraid of people. One night my sister set up a flood light to see what was eating the bird seed just feet from her "guest room" window. When she heard the small chimes that hang on the same device as the feeder, she turned on the light to see mama raccoon staring back at her. A few nights ago I chased her and two of her youngsters away so I could bring the feeder in for the night.

She climbs the metal poles that hold our bird feeders. She is large enough that she literally bent one of them about 30 degrees from vertical. That's bent over, not pushed over.

She has knocked over our bird bath and pushed it down the hill. She has dragged clay-potted plants down the hillside. She has torn up plant starts.

Well not tonight.

Last night I set a humane trap for her and this morning there she was, trying to hide in a large pile of grass and wood chips she had scraped into the trap with her, waiting to see what would happen next. All I had was some banana peels and a few pieces of gristle from last night's chicken dinner, but that was enough for her to come into the trap.



Based on good advice to keep my distance from the top of the trap, I picked it up with a set of ice tongs. This worked great. I spread a tarp in the trunk of the car and put the trap in while mama hissed at me bravely.



I drove south on our east-side county road to its end and turned east a hundred yards or so to the small bridge over the creek, a little under 2 miles. I put the trap down on the road and slowly rolled it over. The door fell open and, before I could snap a picture, she disappeared into the tall grass at the creek.



I hope the distance will be enough to keep her away from the house. We'll see. Tonight I hope I can trap one or two of the kids and send them along with mom.

Persimmons - Diospyros virginiana

We have been discussing whether or not to keep a few trees that are close to the house. They are not too large and not too straight and, generally, not the best looking trees in the forest.

Last week as we were considering this question, I looked up at the largest of them and saw a few dozen persimmons in it. "Wow," says I, "this must be a persimmon tree!" And I didn't even need one to drop on my head to figure it out.

Here's what it looks like from about 30 feet away. It's maybe 15 feet tall.



On both sides of it you can see the beginnings of narrow terraces created from stump grindings spread on the slope. They should decay into a solid walkway in a few months, especially if it ever rains here again. (By the end of June we had already gotten an average year's rainfall. In August, less than a quarter inch here.)

And here's what we saw when we first discovered the fruits. One can see at least 10 in this picture.



Here's more than the average person wants to know about persimmons, including a few recipes, and here's the Wikipedia entry.

Now that I know what they look like I'm finding dozens of them growing within 50 yards of the house. Many are small because they have been mowed down in the past and sprouted from the stumps.

I'll try to remember to post a picture of them after they ripen, if something doesn't get to them first.

And don't forget the annual Mitchell, Indiana, Persimmon Festival in nearby Lawrence County on September 20-27, 2008.

Papa Oak

We lost one very large tree this spring when a tornado missed us by less than a half mile. Here are two pictures of the large oak tree not far from the spring that was bypassed by the storm. Both show the large horizontal branch that grows to the west. It's about seven feet off the ground at the trunk and reaches out at least 35 feet. I really should measure it someday.

 
Our house will be somewhere not too far below this tree. We are counting on it to live a lot longer.

Curious holes

Yesterday on the trail, about 50 feet north of and about 20 feet higher than the surface of the existing pond, I came across a simple, smooth hole in the ground. Within 100 feet I found two more. Each is less than 2 inches across. They are all alike, and I found even more after taking these pictures:

   

I have seen these before but never took the time to investigate what they are. Today I did. They are burrowing crayfish! They do not live in water, which explains why they were so far away from and above the pond.

Even more to my surprise, there is a Burrowing Crayfish Project underway at the Indiana Biological Survey Aquatic Research Center in nearby Bloomington. Their home page even promises: "Coming Soon: Crayfishes of the Ohio River Floodplain."

I'll be checking back every day. Yeh, right!

Joe-Pye Junction

As spring progressed and the "weeds" grew, we soon became aware that many of them were a large plant commonly called Joe-Pye weed. Our variety is Eutrochium fistulosum, Hollow Joe-Pye Weed.

I have been cutting trails down the hill and across the property to the south boundary, and many of them that start near the house have seemed to naturally lead to a common point near where we hope someday to add a larger pond. As time went on it was clear that Joe-Pye weed was the predominant plant at the junction, and I have taken to using this posting's title to describe the area. No one walking down any of the trails needs to be told more than "go to Joe-Pye Junction" to describe the cross-trails point from which they would continue on one trail or another. Here are a few shots of it.

View of the junction from the north... Things are sort of overgrown. There is a trail through this but the plants are very wide now.	View from the west... It's hard to tell without a reference, but some of these plants are 8 feet tall!
A close up of the flower head with a few bees on it	Looking over the junction from the south across the area we hope will be a large pond

Let's get caught up

It's been over 4 months since my last entry. If you've been checking back from time to time and you're still here, thanks for you persistence.

We have been busy...

We got the downstairs room finished. Since then, though, sadly, after a series of episodes - numerous diagnoses, treatments, doctor and hospital visits - Sandy's dad passed away. We were with him and all of his closest family had been to visit him within his last two weeks.

We have been working outside, cutting paths through the fields, clearing potential house sites, cutting grapevines, multiflora roses, autumn olive trees, Japanese honeysuckle, and a nasty sticker-covered vine that can grow to be a terrible nuisance. All of these are "exotic" and "invasive," meaning they are not native to Indiana and they take over large areas with a smothering effect on our native plants. I'll post something about each (or most) of these soon.

We finally installed the last sheets of siding, the angular sheets above the second floor, under the roof overhang, on the ends of the building. And, with help from my sister Judy, we painted the entire outside except for corner and window trim that will be installed before cold weather sets in. Then I installed the hex sign Judy had bought us last Christmas near the top of the west wall.

We purchased a trailer and a heavy duty weed whacker with large wheels. We may have already paid for the trailer in rental savings, using it for material, straw, wood chips, stump grindings (very fine wood chips mixed with soil) and a few things purchased at Dinky's Auction like 20 11-foot trusses from a house trailer that will make a great carport.

We are beginning to improve the paths by covering them with cardboard and then with wood chips. I doubt all the paths will get the full treatment. There are just too many feet of path to cover. I won't be surprised if we eventually have 2 to 3 miles of trail/path on the property. The wood chips are free from the town of Bloomfield, and the guys at their site load them into the trailer for me. There is no practical limit to how much I can get. The limit is how much I can unload, distribute and spread. Trail pictures will be posted soon.

Just outside the large sliding barn door, almost under the kitchen area and bathroom windows, we have been encouraging native plants, moving some from other places on the property, and adding a few that we like that we haven't found here yet. When the driveway was improved earlier in the year, I had a small swale cut above the (then yet to be improved) area to impede the flow of water off the upper hill and across the driveway. The swale holds the water allowing it to seep into the hillside and keep the plot moist as along as possible. Through a FreeCycle offer we got a small formed plastic pond which I have sunk into the middle of the swale. I hope this will encourage some of the toads and tree frogs to stick around.

Tree frogs are the source of another little adventure we've had this spring and summer. I'll add an entry about them, too. The upshot of it is that we have had over 500 tree frog tadpoles living outside the building since mating season.

The second most recent post before this one showed the south side of the building just after the large rocks were moved and covered over with stone. I'll show a current view of this area, complete with flowering plants, sunflowers from the bird feeder seed, bindweed that is taking over everything it can climb, and the home of the last 50 or so tadpoles that I didn't move to the pond, a step I took reluctantly since we have a very healthy snapping turtle in the pond.

Finally, I have been trying to identify all the wildflowers that grow here. I'll take my own pictures over time, but I have links to dozens of them so far from public sites. I hope to put them together on a fixed web page.

Keep tuned in.

Birds

It's pretty foggy today but that doesn't seem to bother the birds. For the last few days mostly smaller birds have been feeding. This picture from Matthew's window shows lots of birds on the three feeders. There are often more than this.


As always, you can click on the picture for a larger view. Notice birds in the small trees awaiting their turn. I've also placed four wrought iron plant holders nearby for landing spots for the queue.

You can also see where the earth has been pushed toward the building. We have been cutting and digging grape vines, wild roses and other brambles in the disturbed area also.

What a wake up call!

Just after 5:30 this morning we awoke to the sound of the building rumbling and furniture shaking. It was a strong earthquake centered in southern Illinois, just under 100 miles from us. Here's a link to the details.

This isn't my first earthquake. I've felt a few in the San Francisco area. The only other one I've felt in Indiana was at a little league baseball game about 30 years ago while coaching third base. This one was quite a bit stronger at 5.2 on the Richter scale. That is in the "moderate" category.

There are lots of earthquakes in the Midwest, more than 1 a week, but most are sensed only by seismographs. You can have a notice of each one sent to you by the USGS. To sign up, go to https://sslearthquake.usgs.gov/ens/.

Big yellow cat in the yard

For the last few days there has been a large yellow cat outside the building. Fortunately it hasn't tried to get in. Our cat Stubby hasn't noticed it yet, but we have. At night it has just sat there being quiet, but during the day it can be rather noisy and, some might say, destructive. But we don't mind.

Here's why. It's been moving soil and crushed limestone to reconstruct the driveway and add some real parking spaces.

   

The job was finished today, including the addition of a patio of sorts outside the downstairs room. Now we can roll a wheelchair out the door onto a level area in the sun. Since the side of the building is almost white, it is usually warmer there than everywhere else, sometimes more than 10 degrees warmer.

We moved some large rocks from around the property to provide support for the stone. After nature adds some wild plants to it it should start looking nice. We can also add some plants that will appreciate the warmth of the rocks.



The area is actually level though the irregular edge gives a different impression. The supporting rocks will eventually give a more natural appearance after plants fill in the voids.

Springtime surprise

All winter long we have kept the temperature in the new apartment above freezing to try to save as many of our house plants and outdoor tropical plants as possible. There have been some casualties but most have survived.

Two plants in particular seem to have gone into suspended animation through the darker months. They were kept in the unfinished bedroom, the only room we could close off and keep warm, but it is on the north side and the window was kept covered most of the winter to retain warmth.

Here is one of them, a bird-of-paradise plant that I grew from seeds Sandy's son brought home from his honeymoon in Hawaii about 8 years ago.

The seeds sprouted soon after they were planted, and the plant seemed healthy all this time, but it wasn't until spring last year that I realized it needed full sun. I put it in the front yard of the house in Indianapolis until it was moved to Greene View Springs in July last year.

In the fall I noticed the flower stalks, but by then it was time to bring them in from the possible frost and freezing, and the hibernation began. A few weeks ago they were moved to the south-facing room in the sunny windows and the rest you can see.

There are a few more buds. I'll try to remember to get a picture when they are all blooming.

The Clampets return to the hills

Saturday was the big day. With help from Brian and Ed III, and a borrowed truck, we got all the big things moved from the rented apartment to the new apartment on the property.

There are still plenty of things to finish, but we are now living at Greene View Springs. The trash in the picture will be going away soon, and with warm weather's return, we will finish the panels at the top of the east and, pictured, west wall.

Tomorrow satellite TV is being installed, and sometime this week if it doesn't get too wet again our driveway and multiple parking places will be built/regraded.

Stay tuned, there has been tons of progress, just not enough time to take and post pictures.

A telephone land line should be installed this week and I'll have effective access to the internet to post more pictures. Right now I'm only able to use the laptop and steal service from a neighbor who has wi-fi, but it is spotty at best. This post so far has taken 40 minutes to enter, again and again until it finally worked.

Another room

As some of you know, Sandy's dad Matthew has been ill on and off over the last two years. His most recent stay in a rehabilitation facility was handled so poorly by the facility staff (it took them four days to realize that he was supposed to be on oxygen at night for example) that we determined he would not go back there when he left the hospital, no matter what.

Three Thursdays ago the hospital called to say they were releasing him that afternoon! Earlier we had decided we would bring him, at least until he was stronger, to our rented apartment in Bloomfield. But we were expecting his release to be at least one day later than it was.

Sandy had just hours to arrange for oxygen systems, both fixed and portable, a bedside commode, the transport of his C-PAP machine for nighttime breathing assistance, a wheelchair, a walker and a hospital bed. Then we had to empty most of the apartment's extra bedroom and stash things wherever they would fit somewhere in the apartment. We then had to get to Indianapolis quickly, pick up some things at his apartment, get him from the hospital and get back to Bloomington to meet the delivery of the bed and other items before his bedtime.

It was a long day and tough on him, but by 9PM, after bumping him a step at a time (15 steps) up the stairs in his new wheelchair to the rented apartment, he was in his own hospital bed and the other equipment was hooked up in the room.

Of course, if you're reading this blog regularly, you know we are getting very close to our move to the apartment on our property. We can't leave him at the rented apartment, so he will move with us.

Problem: No extra room at the property.

Solution: Add another room.

Over the last few days we have hired some local contractors to quickly build a room on the first floor of the pole barn. It will be just under 200 square feet, have one exterior and two interior doors and two windows looking south. Another 64 square feet of ceiling had to be added to the east end of the barn next to the large storage shelving on the east wall. That new deck space above the new room will also allow us to move lots of the items stored on the first floor onto it to replace the space lost to the new room.

Here are two pictures of the space so far, one inside, the other outside.

Can you say "rain"?

Here's a view from the car, facing west, on the main road between Bloomfield and Greene View Springs.

An overdue update

Once again it's been a long time between posts. A lot has been accomplished since mid February. Here are a few highlights.

Walls:

All of the walls in the apartment are now installed. About 80% of the drywall has been completely finished: taped, "mudded", sanded and re-mudded/re-sanded if necessary. The rest will be done this weekend.

The bedroom has been painted (primer and finish) as has more than half of the large living area and virtually all of the kitchen end of the large room. As soon as the last drywall sanding is done, these will be finished quickly. The bathroom is the last room to be finished. Also the entire stairway area is awaiting drywall finishing and paint.
It has a lot of angles and surfaces due to the turn in the stairs and the positioning of the radiant heat control panel above the stairs.

While installing drywall on the stairway we were able to add a nice little shelf above the stairs which can be used to display art or some nice heirloom or, dare I admit, knick-knack. You can see it to the right, looking down from a few steps above the half-way landing.

Plumbing:

The utility room is plumbed for the washer and I'm running a load or two every day or so. Sandy won't be gong to the laundromat again.

The bathroom toilet and shower are plumbed and working, though the shower surround is not quit finished. Of course, for these to be turned on we had to install the hot water heater. Soon two small bases will be made for the cabinets we got at an auction to serve as support for the bathroom vanity. When they are ready and placed the sink can be connected to the PEX lines and the drain can be attached.

The drain is in place for the kitchen sink and awaiting the final placement of the sink cabinet. This is delayed while we decide on what type of counter tops to buy or build.

Along the way, two very serious snags were encountered. One will be described under the "Heat" heading. The other was the water distribution manifold itself.

When the water heater was connected we turned on the water at the meter outside. Then it was turned on inside where it enters the building. Before water could come in, air had to be let out, so the cold water inlet for the water heater was turned on, and the overflow valve was held open while the cold water forced out all of the air in the system up to that point. So far, so good. No leaks, no problems.

Then we opened the output valve on the water heater to allow water to flow back to the distribution manifold on the "hot" side. Oops! A pin-hole-sized leak appeared on the top of the manifold. After carefully checking the connections we determined that it was a flaw in the manifold. A call to the manufacturer linked me with the regional rep who promised that they would reimburse us for the cost of a replacement. I called the supplier and ordered a new manifold and tried to put the problem out of my mind until it arrived. The replacement is working fine.

Heat: (Warning, lots of detail ahead.)

The entire radiant heat system was connected and ready to fill with water.

Here's what it looked like before some of the opening was covered with drywall.

Prior to filling with water we attached an air hose to be sure the system held pressure. It didn't! Bummer. What to do?

Spritzing the system with soapy water showed there to be a leak on the board that was built by the Floorheat company. A call to them quickly authorized me to bring in a plumber to re-"sweat" the connection. The entire system was pressure tested prior to shipment, but a leak had developed since then. A plumber fixed that problem pretty quickly and we turned on the air pressure again. It seemed to hold so the system was left under pressure overnight.

Bad news in the morning... the pressure had dropped. There was a leak somewhere in the nearly 800 feet of aluminum-clad tubing. Of course it was possible there was a flaw in the product, but this was very unlikely and proved not to be so.

Since there are three lines on the system I had to isolate each one to determine which had the leak. One end of the line has a valve, but the other end does not, so just turning off the various lines in turn would not tell where the leak was because the open ends of the lines were all open to each other. I had to disconnect and cap one line at a time to see if the other two held pressure. (This assumed the problem was only on one line.)

At one point in the installation I had caused a slight kink in a line. I thought I had caught it before it damaged the tube, but it at least gave me a point on a specific line to start my search for a leak. So I isolated line 3 and cranked up the pressure. It held.

Line 3 had the leak so I took the screws out of the panel where the small kink had been to see if the leak was there. It wasn't. However, on that same section of the tubing there WAS a hole in the line, right in the middle of it. I had carelessly drawn the line too sharply on the cement board where the line curved. In retrospect there was no good reason to even be close to the line, but I thought it curved away two inches earlier than it did.

But what luck! With about 35 3' X 5' panels, the leak was in the first one I tried.

So the leak was found and I had to patch the line. The leak was on a curve which meant I couldn't just cut it out and replace it with a single connector since a connector would not fit on the curve where only the tube had been. So I cut out about a foot and a half in preparation for using two connectors to replace the cut out section.

When I purchased the connectors I bought two more than needed in case there was another leak. (Sadly, that proved to be a necessary action.) I repressurized the system and waited to see if it held the pressure. It seemed to be fine, but after a few hours the pressure had dropped enough to show there was another leak somewhere. At least I knew it was the same line, but where?

At this point, having nothing else to go on, I decided to unscrew any screw that was within a half inch of the lines drawn on the cement board. After undoing maybe a few dozen screws, I backed out another one and heard the rest of the air pressure in the system gush out. I had found the second leak. I repeated the process of cutting it out (also on a curve) and installing a new section with the other two connectors I had bought.

When I went to re-screw the two panels down it was obvious that the connectors, resting on the subfloor, were thicker than the plastic grid, and the panels could not be replaced without cutting out some of the thickness of the cement board where they touched. Once that was done the panels were screwed down and the pressure added.

Everything seemed to be fine, the pressure was holding, so I left for the night.

The next morning I found the pressure had dropped about 5 pounds. By the end of that day it had dropped about the same again. Multiple attempts to test the two fixes (four connectors) did not show any air bubbles when they were sprayed. By this time I was thoroughly discouraged and decided to take a day off from trying to solve this problem. Imagine trying to find a leak so slow it will not even make bubbles on the tubing. It could be anywhere on the 250-foot-long line three. What other strategy might work?

The next day I decided to try the soapy spray one more time. This time, though, I bent the two replacement sections up from the floor ever so slightly so I could be sure I'd see any bubbles that might appear on the bottom sides of the connectors. I pumped the lines up to 70 pounds per square inch (PSI) again and sprayed them. Again, no bubbles. There were still lots of other tasks to be done, so I decided to walk away from this problem for a little longer.

The next morning, when I walked past the system panel, I noticed the pressure was still at 70 PSI! I hadn't really done anything to fix the problem since the second set of connectors was installed. What had changed to make the system hold the pressure? There was obviously no other leak, so what had happened?

Here's the answer: One of the four connectors used to patch the leaking tubes was installed where the tube had literally been running right against the base plate for a wall section. (Anywhere a room dimension is not a multiple of 16 inches, the plastic grid must be trimmed to fit. In this case that trimming resulted in barely enough room for a run of the tubing.) When the connector was installed, the connector itself, being a tiny bit wider than the tube it was repairing, also was pressed against the base plate. This caused the tube to be so slightly askew with the connector, that it was barely noticeable.

When I pulled up the tubing at the fixed corners the night before, it took the pressure off the connection and allowed the tube to "set" parallel with the centerline of the connector. I chiseled about a quarter inch off the side of the base plate so the connector could be in line with the tubing which was still tight against the base plate. After two days like this, the line still held 70 PSI. We were ready for water in the line.

I'll finish this thread in a day or so. Next, "Another room."

A tight fit

I found this quote today: "The way to succeed is to double your error rate." - Thomas J. Watson

With respect to the apartment project, I think I had already figured this out.

-------

Yesterday Sandy and I moved all but one of the kitchen cabinets upstairs so we could verify that they will all fit along the west wall. Fortunately there is a 3 3/4" spacer on the end of one of them. If I cut off 3 1/4" of that they will fit perfectly! We lucked out there.

Here they are, sort of where they will go. They aren't all placed flush against the wall yet.

The upper cabinets sitting on the floor to the left are two different heights, the one on top is 30" tall; the other 42". There's also a 42" corner cabinet still downstairs. It turns out that the taller cabinets will not be able to be used as intended because the ceiling is too low. (If you've been following the blog, you'll remember that the entire building, from the concrete slab to the bottom of the trusses, is only 16' high, and, with the joists and floor between the two floors, each is less than the normal height for most living spaces.)

The smaller one will probably go on the west wall at the left above the other cabinets. That decision awaits approval of my supervisor. I think I'll use the large one as a part of the pantry I plan to build. It will be to the right of the refrigerator and broom closet. (See below.)



Another revelation: our refrigerator is about an inch too tall for the surround. That can be "fixed" by adding a few inches to the bottom of the surround, or by buying a new refrigerator.

It's particularly surprising since we had to take down part of the ceiling light just to get the surround upstairs yesterday. And we had to carry it up top first because it is too high to be turned end over end upstairs.

The north wall of the kitchen, between it and the bathroom, is still without drywall awaiting the purchase of light fixtures for the bathroom wall. Wiring and a switch are in place and the drywall is already cut so it will go together quickly when the fixture(s) arrive.