Friday is usually Chaos Friday. I’m used to that after 3 years of it. But this Friday topped the charts, I think. It all started with a bad night before, then barely making it up to the barn because the driveway was so bad, and then it ramped up.
Both of the heat mat thermometers have failed along with one of the timers. They read in the high 80’s instead of 72F. They are 3 years old, but only used for 3 months of each year. Sigh…
In the middle of doing the milk order, my headset to my hearing disability phone dies for good. It had been fine until that moment. So I was on the portable handset that I can’t hear well on.
My general helper arrives at 8AM and just has to go check the seedlings, even though it’s only less than 24 hours since she planted them. She was rewarded with the above, a mesclun seedling from the very old seed we had used was up.
My helper friend had arrived and he started ferrying things upstairs and down. First we had to get the counters cleaned off of all the clean stuff going to the new root cellar. Gallon jars were first.
He would go down the stairs in the kitchen, empty his box, go over to the old root cellar and load it up and come up those stairs. Then empty the contents onto the counter where they were sorted by keep/don’t keep.
He did most of the organizing in the new cellar. When the don’t keep piled up, and we were behind getting our parts done (washing and disinfecting), he would take the don’t keeps outside and empty them. Again, I wished I had pigs and chickens…
We kept this up until about 10:30 when there were a lot of don’t keep to empty. He and my general helper went out to empty them.
The paper bags of clean rings had collected their share of dirt and were torn from years of use. He brought them up and we changed out the plastic and paper bags. I sat doing this while they were outside.
It doesn’t look like we made a lot of progress, but there was an awful lot of stuff crammed in those shelves, all needing a good cleaning. This is what we will tackle on Thursday.
Once the shelves are empty, we will wash them, disinfect them, and put down shelf liners I’ve ordered. Then the shelves can be washed more easily. They had both gone by 11:30.
My kitchen counter is full of stuff going back to the old cellar. There’s a few things for the new cellar too, all clean and ready to go back.
When I went outside in the afternoon, the snow had melted back and I found these in the New West garden. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen tulips up in March. That’s been a late April-May thing.
Last time we looked there had been nothing but snowdrops up in this New South garden. Now there’s daffodils and tulips.
Tom arrived mid afternoon to plow the horrible mess of a driveway before the big snow storm hit in the night. It was some better getting up there, but I was glad I didn’t have to go often.
In the South garden on the west side of the porch I found all these up. Daffodils, tulips, wood hyacinths, and snowdrops. I think there’s probably grape hyacinths under the dead stuff too.
Next to the porch in the South garden the sedum has come to life.
Once I’d finished with all this photography, I laid on the couch and dozed and watched videos. I sat down to supper and the smoke detector goes off right over my head. That’s always fun. I pushed the button and shut it off. It goes off every now and then from the wood stoves.
I finished supper and ran the hot water (gas heated) to soak the dishes. Five minutes later the carbon monoxide alarm goes off. I’m running around trying to see what’s wrong, but all the wood stoves are fine, all the pilots on the gas stove are lit, and the gas water heater seems fine. I open windows and doors and by then it’s blaring that the level is 103 ppm and to evacuate.
I call the Fire Dept to find out what I’m supposed to do. They said call 911, close the windows and doors and get outside. So I did. And sat in the car waiting for it to warm up.
In the middle of all this, my friend calls and says she has a bad headache and our trip to the Bulb Show will have to be postponed. Sigh…
The police arrived first, and fortunately didn’t really head to the barn. He stopped by the Big garden. We’d have needed a tow truck to get him out…
Then 2 fire trucks arrived with lights going and later a 3rd one. They went in with meters and after a half an hour couldn’t really find anything. I told them about the hot water heater, thinking the powered exhaust had failed. They tested it, nothing. The only reading they got was 20ppm by the old wood stove. And a good scare when they saw my tenant’s snakes in his room! LOL
So they finally let me back in because I was freezing and I wandered into the office where they were discussing the wood stove. As I stood there watching them one shifted position and I noticed the bucket of ashes I’d forgotten to dump had a couple tiny coals glowing. I pointed it out to them and they took them out to dump. When they did, the middle of the bucket was glowing! They had looked like they were mostly out when I cleaned them out…
Well, that took care of the readings, and so now, for the first time, I know the ashes must be dumped promptly. I’ve never had a carbon monoxide alarm before, after 40 years of wood heat. But now I know…
What’s odd is that even though the ashes were in the office at the far west end of the house, and carbon monoxide sinks, it was the alarm on the ceiling at the far east end of the house, easily 50’ - 60’ away that went off. Oh, well…
They finally left about 7:30PM and I sat down to try to find and order all the things that had died on Friday. It had not been a calm night and it was a long time before I got to bed.
I expect I will sit and watch it snow all day on Saturday. I have the rest of the starting charts to write, prep work I’d forgotten to do for the Notes sheets, and a book to read. Maybe even movies to watch.
For some reason, I’ve always thought the Ides of March were the 3rd of March. I know they are the 15th, but the 3rd always stuck… Beware the Ides of March…and it was the 3rd….