Putting up the firewood

For the past few weeks, we've been enjoying the last lingering days of late summer. Temps have been in the 70s, sunny, and dry. Alas, nothing lasts forever. We're having a dramatic shift in weather, starting today.

This means we've been pushing to get pre-winter chores done before things get seriously wintery. One of those chores was firewood.

Last fall, we put up about six cords, which is what we liked having on hand each winter at our old home.

As it turns out we didn't go through nearly as much firewood as we thought we would. Our current home is much smaller, plus we have a forced-air system that allows us to heat the place when temps are cool but not freezing. In short, we had plenty of firewood left over to put toward this upcoming winter.

However, we had extra firewood on hand anyway. Let me explain.

When we first moved into the house (Dec. 20, 2020 – I'll never forget the date!), we walked through the vast empty barn and noted a few things left behind by the sellers.

If you look to the left, you'll see a pile of firewood, evidently from a tree they'd cut down at some point. There was actually a fair bit of wood in that pile, perhaps two cords. We weren't pressed for firewood, so we just left the pile there.

However during the summer, we attempted to create some order out of chaos in the barn.

Now that we've been here almost two years, it's quite clear we can get rid of a lot of this stuff, and we have plans (now put on hold until spring) to hold a huge yard sale. But we were frustrated because we had no "staging area" where we could separate sale items as we organized. That pile of firewood was located in what would otherwise be the perfect staging area, so it was time to move the pile. In mid-August, that's what we did.

The most efficient way to move the wood was to haul it through the back door of the barn and load it bit by bit into our pickup truck. This back barn door opens onto a small grassy clearing that will one day be the feedlot for cows; but for now it's a lot of dry grass. We set up a sprinkler and gave it a thorough watering. We didn't want to take a chance of sparking a fire in the dry grass from the underside of the pickup.

Then Don backed the pickup as close as he could to the barn door (it's on a slope)...

...and I got to work pitching wood.

When the truck was full, Don drove it around to the front of the house.

We offloaded the wood in a random pile in front of the firewood area, then drove the truck back again and repeated the cycle. It took a few days (mostly working in the cooler mornings) to empty all the firewood, but it was very satisfying to have that corner of the barn emptied and ready to sort sale items.

The pile of unsplit firewood stayed in the driveway until a couple weeks ago, when I got busy splitting it.

Now let's go back again, to last October when we finished putting up last year's the firewood. To protect it from weather, we built a sort of cage around it using the horse panels we'd purchased shortly after moving in (those panels were a lucky "screamin' good deal" we found).

We erected the horse panels in a perimeter around the wood, with an idea of tarping over this makeshift frame.

We even "roofed" it with the panels.

Then, however, we made the mistake of tarping the wood, not the structure. (Don't ask why. It seemed logical at the time.)

For obvious reasons, this turned out not to be the best course of action. As we removed firewood over the course of the winter, the tarp sagged under rain and snow, and we spent months fighting that tarp whenever we needed firewood.

This year, since the structure around the woodpile was still in place, we worked smarter, not harder. We piled firewood up to the peak of the frame. (By the way, it's not too clear in the photo, but one of the front panels is an open "gate" through which we can access the wood.)

The last load was piled on the back porch for immediate use.

Don laid some of the old boards (from repairing the deck last year) across the top of the frame, for extra support.

Then we spread out the tarp...

...and pulled it over the frame.

We stretched the tarp tight, then zip-tied the front of the tarp to the frame.

Don did an excellent job of tying down the sides as well. The horse-panel frame gives us lots of places to anchor the tarp.

We also had one last cattle panel just hanging around, so we placed it on top and tied it from the corners diagonally to the corners of the frame, just to keep the wind from billowing the tarp up.

The result is a snug, if temporary, shelter for the woodpile. It will keep the wood dry for the winter, and we won't be fighting our way under a wet and sagging tarp during inclement weather whenever we need firewood.

Obviously we'll need a proper woodshed at some point, but that will be a project for next year. In the meantime, it's a nice feeling to have more than enough firewood to get us through the cold months.

Everything's fixed!

Well, after having what seemed like everything fall apart in the last couple of months, I'm pleased to report everything's fixed.

It all started in early September when our water heater went kaput.

Fortunately we had purchased a portable on-demand shower heater, so Don built an outdoor shower and we used this for most of September and October.

We ordered a replacement water heater, but its delivery was delayed for weeks.

During this waiting period, we had another project: Installing a larger propane tank. Last year we had a small tank installed, but larger tanks weren't available. This year, they were.

But getting this larger  tank was a whole ball of wax by itself. A large tank can't be installed against a structure; it needs to be placed away from the house, which meant digging a trench to bury the line.

This is the peaceful little side yard where the trench had to go, before all the chaos interrupted it.

In attempting to trench the ditch using a sub-soiler, Don inadvertently snapped the power line to the well pump, leaving us without any water whatsoever.

This led to yet another issue: the power line to the well, we learned, was not burial cable; it was standard household romex (the kind of wire that's supposed to be inside walls and safe from moisture). Who DID this? We have no idea how long this sub-par wire has been buried, much less how it managed to hold up to (presumably) decades of use. In the end we agreed it was a blessing in disguise that Don snapped the wire. Had that not happened, we would never have known where it was buried in the event of a future failure.

To fix the power line, a neighbor came in with his small backhoe and dug a trench from the power source to the well house, about 100 feet.

Then the proper burial wire was laid down, hooked up to the well, and the trench filled in. Took a few days, but at least we had (cold) water back.

But we were also on a deadline to get the trench dug for the propane tank. It sounds so simple, right? All we had to do was dig a trench four inches wide and twelve inches deep. One of the challenges was getting a hole underneath this concrete walkway. 

The trouble is, we're living on a bed of pure clay. Digging that trench was some of the hardest physical work we've ever done.

Don did what he could with the subsoiler, which at least broke up portions of the clay.

But after that, it was all hand work involving an enormous variety of tools: pick-axe, breaker bar, rock hammer, clamshells, Sawz-all, etc. The four-foot section between the walkway and the house alone took me hours, and mostly involved smashing the clay lose with the heavy breaker bar. (That's the old smaller tank on the right, that was being replaced.)

Once the trench was deep enough, we started hammering a pipe under the walkway using a sledgehammer, so the propane pipe could be installed. We'd hammer it in a couple inches at a time, then pull it out (using pipe wrenches), clear the dirt, and hammer it in some more. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

At long last, the tip of the pipe emerged from the other end.

Can you see it?

I spray-painted the opening to make it more visible for the propane installers.

Here are all the tools we used to dig that bloody trench.

When the trench was finished, we had a couple days before the propane tank installers came. The weather promised to be dry until literally the day they arrived. We were worried the trench would fill with water, so we covered it as best we could.

Those poor tank installers arrived during a torrential downpour.

They did NOT waste any time, let me tell you. They swung the new tank onto the pad we'd made.

They leveled and braced it.

Then they removed the old, smaller tank...

...and placed it next to the larger tank just long enough to transfer the propane from one to the other.

Then they buttoned everything up and fled. The poor guys were soaked. I wished I had some warm cookies or something I could have offered.

About a week later (in much better weather), the propane company came out and topped off the tank.

The view from the kitchen window is less picturesque now, but (I think) more beautiful. Having a large propane tank is such a nice secure feeling.

Meanwhile the new water tank finally arrived.

It promised to be a model of ease and efficiency. Famous last words, right?

I should point out the water heater itself is fine. It was everything else that went wrong. Don discovered a cascading series of plumbing catastrophes, mostly involving PEX hosing. He made more runs to the hardware store over the last four weeks than in the last two years.

The floor under the old heater had water damage. How long has that been there? Who knows?

The floor wasn't wet (at this point), so Don installed an OSB cover for extra strength.

Then the investigations began. He found a wet patch under the house, indicating something was leaking or dripping. He traced it to the dishwasher, an appliance we have literally never used since moving into the house nearly two years ago. Out it came.

Then he took a closer look under the kitchen sink and saw how badly it was plumbed. Honestly, who's responsible for all this? Not the people who sold us the house; they had only lived here three years.

I mean, look how the valves are embedded into the cabinets bottom. It's impossible to turn them.

The water leak under the dishwasher was pretty bad. And old.

We set a fan in front of it for about 12 hours.

Meanwhile Don crawled around under the house, taking out sopping wet insulation and tracing other leaks.

It turns out it wasn't just the dishwasher hose that was leaking; it was the line to the refrigerator. Remember all the issues we had with the stupid fancy refrigerator? This is why we prefer simple appliances!

So, working backwards, Don corrected all the issues. He replaced all the kitchen hoses, put in new PEX lines, installed dry insulation, and stapled up new "belly fabric."

Then he purchased a brand-new sink faucet and installed it properly. 

That took care of the ancillary plumbing issues. However there was still the hot water tank to install. And oh my, I don't think I've ever seen my saintly husband so frustrated in the 32 years we've been married.

There were a number of issues he faced. The old tank was installed when PEX tubing was apparently in its infancy, so Don was tasked with melding the old with the new. The old fittings and hoses didn't fit newer fittings and hoses. The copper tubing that fitted into the old PEX lines apparently doesn't exist anymore, and he had to order specialized fittings online (and wait for them to arrive). And things leaked! This leaked, and that leaked, and other things leaked. The crimping tool was sub-par and he had to purchase a better (and pricier) crimper. And to top it off, there was a fair bit of "operator error" as Don wrestled with a style of plumbing with which he had no previous experience. ("I learned a lot," he concluded dryly.)

And you want to know the irony? We have a brand-new on-demand water heating sitting in a box! We ordered it last year in hopes of installing it at some point in the future; but since we didn't have a large enough propane tank to support it at the time, we saved it for a future installation. In early September, when our water heater went out and we ordered a replacement, we had not yet contacted the propane company to inquire about getting a larger tank. In other words, the issues of which kind of water heater to install "crossed in the mail," so to speak.

All the plumbing woes, however, makes Don much more inclined to install the on-demand heater come spring. We can then sell the new tank heater when we hold our yard sale (which doesn't look like it will happen this year).

As you can imagine, the cumulative costs we've incurred over the past two months have been substantial. Ah, but now – thanks to Don's hard work and ingenuity – everything's fixed! We have hot water, we have repaired plumbing, we finally got rid of that silly dishwasher, the leaks are fixed, the understory insulation is dry, and things are back to normal.

We're in the process of dismantling the lovely outdoor shower and packing it away for a future need. And just in time, too; we have a major weather change happening by the end of the week.

Nighttime temps will be approaching freezing, and daytime temps will be about 25 degrees cooler than we've been having. No one wants to shower outdoors in these temps. Winter is on its way.

But ... we have hot water again. Blessings!